AWideband Frequency Beam-Scanning Antenna Array for Millimeter-Wave Industrial Wireless Sensing Applications

Abstract

The 57-71 GHz millimeter-wave (mmWave) Industrial, Scientific, and Medical (ISM) band holds significant potential for enhancing the performance of next-generation industrial wireless applications. This paper first presents the design and analysis of a compact and high-performance 8-element series-fed frequency beam-scanning array designed to cover the entire 21.87% fractional bandwidth of the 57-71 GHz ISM band. Using this as a subarray, a hybrid parallel-series feed topology is designed to construct a 64element (8 × 8) planar array with high-gain directional beams. The planar array provides a peak measured gain of 20.12 dBi at 64 GHz and maintains a flat gain of over 19.23 dBi throughout the band, with a 1 dB gain bandwidth of 13 GHz. Its narrow directional beams provide an average half-power beamwidth of 9.7° and 11.78° in the elevation and azimuth planes, facilitating point-to-point mmWave connectivity and high-resolution beam scanning. The inherent phase variation of the series-fed topology is employed to produce a beamscanning range of 40° within the 57-71 GHz band, with a scan loss of less than 1 dB. The proposed array is a low-cost, and reproducible solution for seamless integration with V-band mmWave equipment, as elucidated through practical demonstration frameworks using mmWave power sensor and EK1HMC6350 evaluation board. The proposed array is well-suited for emerging industrial wireless sensing and imaging applications, and mmWave frequency scanning radars. Its versatility extends to various 60 GHz protocols such as IEEE 802.11ay, IEEE 802.11ad, IEEE 802.15.3c/d, WirelessHD, and other customized industrial protocols such as WirelessHP.

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