A Broadband High-Gain Circularly Polarized Wide Beam Scanning Leaky-Wave Antenna

Abstract

A new type of broadband circularly polarized leaky-wave antenna (LWA) with high-gain based on a corrugated substrate integrated waveguide (CSIW) structure is proposed and investigated. The CSIW structure that employs open-circuit stubs to replace metallic vias has the advantages of low-cost and easy fabrication as compared to conventional substrate integrated waveguides. Each unit-cell of the proposed LWA consists of two quarter-wavelength microstrip lines and a half-mode CSIW cell with three opencircuit stubs. Two M-shaped slots etched on the half-mode CSIW cell enables the generation of circularly polarized (CP) radiation. The full LWA, which consists of thirteen matched unit-cells cascaded along the direction of propagation enables continuous backward to forward beam scanning. The properties of the CSIW structure, including impedance matching and phase constant, are analyzed by Bloch impedance and dispersion simulations and the influence of the dimensions of the open-circuit stubs on the CP LWA performance is also investigated. A protype of the proposed LWA is fabricated and characterized. The measured results indicate that the proposed CSIW LWA has a high peak gain (9.3-12.5 dBi) throughout a large beam-scanning angle range from −28 • to +25 • , and the impedance bandwidth and 3-dB axial ratio (AR) bandwidth are over 40% covering the full Ka-band. INDEX TERMS Leaky-wave antenna (LWA), corrugated substrate integrated waveguide (CSIW), circular polarization (CP), beam scanning, Ka-band, broadband.

A Review of Reconfigurable Leaky-Wave Antennas

“…Realizing LWA on a corrugated SIW and etching M-shape slots on the conducting sections averted the OSB phenomenon without using metamaterial cells, as presented in Fig. 14 [28]. Implementing sinusoidal tapered slots on the HMISW also resulted in full-space beam-scanning, as shown in Fig . 15 [19].…”

“…LWA can also be integrated into silicon-based structures [20] to achieve a miniaturized transceiver. LWA can be realized on the dielectric waveguide [21] dielectric image line [22], wedge-like waveguide [23], gap waveguides [24]− [27], and corrugated SIW [28] for mm-wave and Xband applications. A dielectric waveguide is a dielectricbased guiding structure without conducting walls.…”

“…Compactness and simple reconfigurability mechanism, by controlling the height and spacing between pins in a gap waveguide, put it at an advantage as compared to conventional waveguide for realization of LWA [27]. Corrugated SIW is a SIW in which open circuit stubs replace the via fences, reducing the cost and difficulty of the fabrication [28].…”

Reconfigurable dual‐beam leaky‐wave antenna based on spoof surface plasmon polariton

“…Leaky ‐ wave antennas (LWAs) are a class of traveling‐wave antennas. However, their squint effect limits the applications in point‐to‐point communication 1–7 . Works by Wang and colleagues 8–10 tried to reduce the beam squinting by using a meta‐material lens and air‐filled back cavity, but the designs are complicated and hard to fabricate.…”

On Decomposition-Based Surrogate-Assisted Optimization of Leaky Wave Antenna Input Characteristics for Beam Scanning Applications

“…The wave phase constant, which can be altered by the operating frequency, allows for controlling the beam angle. This unique feature of LWA has been used for implementing high-performance pattern-reconfigurable antennas for beam scanning applications [22][23][24][25][26][27][28].…”