A Millimeter-Wave Beam-Steering Lens Antenna With Reconfigurable Aperture Using Liquid Crystal

For the first time, a liquid crystal (LC) filled lens antenna is investigated for beam steering in this paper. The LC's anisotropy is applied inside a semicircular shaped parallel-plate waveguide to achieve a deflection of the propagating electromagnetic wave at the interface of lower and highe...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE transactions on antennas and propagation 2019-08, Vol.67 (8), p.5313-5324
Main Authors: Reese, Roland, Jost, Matthias, Polat, Ersin, Tesmer, Henning, Strobl, Jonathan, Schuster, Christian, Nickel, Matthias, Jakoby, Rolf, Maune, Holger
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Anisotropy
Antenna feeds
Antennas
Aperture antennas
Apertures
Beam steering
Beams (radiation)
Electrodes
Electromagnetic radiation
Frequency ranges
lens antenna
Lens antennas
Lenses
liquid crystal (LC)
Liquid crystals
Millimeter waves
millimeter-wave devices
Permittivity
Phase shifters
Sidelobes
Switching theory
Wave propagation
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Summary:For the first time, a liquid crystal (LC) filled lens antenna is investigated for beam steering in this paper. The LC's anisotropy is applied inside a semicircular shaped parallel-plate waveguide to achieve a deflection of the propagating electromagnetic wave at the interface of lower and higher permittivities. Using an electrode network, the direction of the sector of higher permittivity can be adjusted and, therefore, so can the beam direction. The main advantage of this antenna concept is that neither phase shifters nor switching networks are needed, resulting in a very simple approach for beam steering. Operating at V -band, from 50 to 75 GHz, the first demonstrator proves the antenna concept by reconfiguring the beam in predefined directions of −30°, 0°, and +30° to simplify the electrode biasing network. Furthermore, it is feasible and being demonstrated to adjust the beamwidth and to generate multiple beams. In the measurements, the antenna exhibits a measured input reflection below −10 dB over the complete frequency range. For the unsteered radiation pattern, the sidelobe level is between −8 and −12 dB, whereas these values degrade to −4.5 to −6 dB for the steered radiation pattern at ±30°. The measured gain is between 13 and 15 dBi.
ISSN:0018-926X
1558-2221
DOI:10.1109/TAP.2019.2918474