2-D Steerable Multi-Beam Antenna for Concurrent Wireless Communication Systems

• Published in: IEEE transactions on circuits and systems. II, Express briefs Express briefs, 2024-06, Vol.71 (6), p.3026-3030
• Main Authors: Qi, Xiaokang, Li, Feng, Li, Zhuoqun, Xu, Kuiwen, Xu, Zhiwei, Li, Huan
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 2D steerable multi-beam system; Antenna measurements; Antenna radiation patterns; Beam steering; multi-beam antenna; Multibeam antennas; Prototypes; Reflection; Reflector antennas; Satellite communications; Subsystems; Two dimensional analysis; Varactors; Wireless communication systems; wireless communications
• ISSN: 1549-7747; 1558-3791
• DOI: 10.1109/TCSII.2024.3358837

Multi-beam antenna is an essential subsystem for concurrent wireless communication systems in satellite and massive multi-input multi-output (MIMO) applications. In this brief, we presented the first experimental demonstration of a concurrent two-dimension (2D) steerable multi-beam antenna (SMBA) based on multi-feed reconfigurable reflectarray. The features and practicality of the 2D SMBA are verified with theoretical analysis, full-wave simulation and experimental measurements based on a prototype working at 9.3 GHz with around 300 MHz bandwidth. With element's tunable range of more than 290°, the SMBA can be steered continuously up to \theta =\pm 49.4^{\circ }\,\,(\varphi \,\,{=} 0 ~ 360°) in two-dimension. Meanwhile, with multiple beams steered simultaneously, the 2D SMBA can eliminate the crossover regions between adjacent beams of conventional multi-beam systems. The architecture would be potentially used in many wireless communication applications, such as satellite communications.