Metamaterial surface antenna technology: Commercialization through diffractive metamaterials and liquid crystal display manufacturing

Stevenson, Ryan A.; Sazegar, Mohsen; Bily, A; Johnson, Mikala; Kundtz, Nathan

doi:10.1109/metamaterials.2016.7746395

Cited by 29 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…However, they still suffer from the complex feeding networks, which lead to low antenna gain and high cost in scaling to larger arrays. Another patch array which integrates liquid crystal beam steering avoids the lossy network but has limited steering range [14] or requires extra FPGA for algorithm programming [15]. Meanwhile, the hybrid [13] and VICTS arrays [20] have the highest radiation efficiency, but they both suffer from bulky mechanical control systems which have been built with metalized waveguides.…”

Section: Array Antenna Prototype and Its Characterization Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In recent years, research has been devoted to assimilating electrical and mechanical scanning capabilities together [13] and replacing the costly phase shifters with electrically controllable materials, such as Liquid Crystal [14]. In [15], Kymeta developed a Metamaterial Surface Antenna Technology (MSAT) based on a holographic concept and integrated with liquid crystals as on-or-off switches, which enabled the antenna to achieve ±60 • beam scanning at a total thickness of 50 mm. Nevertheless, this technique requires a sophisticated algorithm for optimizing the desired metasurface in addition to extra microchip components such as field-programmable gate arrays (FPGA), and thus it becomes expensive for SatCom operators [12].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Low-Profile Beam Steerable Patch Array With SIW Feeding Network

et al. 2020

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This paper presents a novel beam steerable array antenna that encompasses fully planar, low profile and lightweight characteristics for satellite communication (SatCom) applications. The proposed array contains a wideband linear source generator (LSG), an array of circular patches, and an inductive surface. The LSG is designed based on the substrate-integrated-waveguide (SIW) technology, whereas the patches are regarded as coupling circular scatterers, placed on the inductive surface for converting surface wave into the radiating wave. Each scatterer acts as a location-dependent phaser that can tailor the farfield behaviour to leverage beam steering, and is achieved by changing its distribution mechanically. A prototype of the proposed design has been fabricated and measured to evaluate the antenna performance. The measured results are in good agreement with the simulated results. The array antenna operates well with S 11 <-10 dB in the frequency band of 10.75-12.5 GHz and has stable radiation performance with beam steering capability of nearly ±60 • in the elevation plane. The total height of the proposed array is about 5.1 mm (0.19λ •). It is envisaged that the proposed antenna array will empower small moving platforms due to low cost, low profile and suitability for mass production. INDEX TERMS Array antenna, beam steering, low-profile, satellite communication, substrate-integrated waveguide (SIW).

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Section: Array Antenna Prototype and Its Characterization Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Low-Profile Beam Steerable Patch Array With SIW Feeding Network

et al. 2020

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“…In metasurfaces, the number of elements is very large; therefore, tuning the elements can be very complex. Liquid crystals (LCs) are receiving a lot of attention recently for metasurface reconfiguration due to their feature of tuning the LC electrical permittivity through a biasing voltage [13]. In [14], [15] the authors introduce the possibility of tuning LC-based metasurfaces to achieve beam scanning reconfigurability in antennas and show a simulated example of an LC filling a waveguide forming the LWA.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Theoretical scanning rate, given by(13), with respect to the variation of d /d (independent of the period p).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Reconfigurability Mechanisms With Scanning Rate Control for Omega-Bianisotropic Huygens’ Metasurface Leaky-Wave Antennas

2019

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In this paper, different reconfigurability mechanisms are proposed to scan the pointing direction at a fixed frequency of recently-proposed leaky-wave antennas based on omega-bianisotropic Huygens' metasurfaces. The tunability of both the waveguide height and the dielectric permittivity of the substrate filling the waveguide are studied, extracting theoretical expressions to predict the dependence of the beam pointing direction with the design parameters. It is shown that it is possible to control the scanning rate, a challenging task for conventional leaky-wave antennas, leading to different performances: high scanning, radiation pattern stability and backward-to-forward scanning. Additionally, the control of the scanning rate is exploited to reduce the beam squinting when varying the frequency. Simulation results of several designs with both impedance sheets and physical realization to implement the metasurfaces demonstrate the validity of the theoretical predictions and the reconfigurability potential of such a structure.

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“…Used as coatings, metasurfaces can control the absorbance and emissivity of a surface, and thus have relevance to thermophotovoltaics [34], detectors and sources [35][36][37][38][39][40][41]. Given the capabilities of metasurfaces to control waves, but without many of the limitations of volumetric metamaterials, metasurfaces have proven a good match for commercialization efforts, with many serious applications now being pursued, including satellite communications [42][43][44], radar [45], and microwave imaging [46][47][48].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Polarizability extraction of complementary metamaterial elements in waveguides for aperture modeling

et al. 2017

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We consider the design and modeling of metasurfaces that couple energy from guided waves to propagating wavefronts. This is a first step towards a comprehensive, multiscale modeling platform for metasurface antennas-large arrays of metamaterial elements embedded in a waveguide structure that radiates intro free-space-in which the detailed electromagnetic responses of metamaterial elements are replaced by polarizable dipoles. We present two methods to extract the effective polarizability of a metamaterial element embedded in a one-or two-dimensional waveguide. The first method invokes surface equivalence principles, averaging over the effective surface currents and charges within an element to obtain the effective dipole moments; the second method is based on computing the coefficients of the scattered waves within the waveguide, from which the effective polarizability can be inferred. We demonstrate these methods on several variants of waveguidefed metasurface elements, finding excellent agreement between the two, as well as with analytical expressions derived for irises with simpler geometries. Extending the polarizability extraction technique to higher order multipoles, we confirm the validity of the dipole approximation for common metamaterial elements. With the effective polarizabilities of the metamaterial elements accurately determined, the radiated fields generated by a metasurface antenna (inside and outside the antenna) can be found self-consistently by including the interactions between polarizable dipoles. The dipole description provides an alternative language and computational framework for engineering metasurface antennas, holograms, lenses, beam-forming arrays, and other electrically large, waveguide-fed metasurface structures.

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Metamaterial surface antenna technology: Commercialization through diffractive metamaterials and liquid crystal display manufacturing

Cited by 29 publications

References 2 publications

Low-Profile Beam Steerable Patch Array With SIW Feeding Network

Low-Profile Beam Steerable Patch Array With SIW Feeding Network

Reconfigurability Mechanisms With Scanning Rate Control for Omega-Bianisotropic Huygens’ Metasurface Leaky-Wave Antennas

Polarizability extraction of complementary metamaterial elements in waveguides for aperture modeling

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