Beam-steering Lens Antenna Using Two Transmit Arrays at X-band

A design of beam steering transmitting lens antennas based on the concept of an optical beam scanning technique is presented in this paper. The proposed antenna is composed of a standard gain horn and two transmit arrays with different cell arrangements and functions. The transmit arrays are composed of four metallic layers and three intermediate dielectric layers. The metallic layers are implemented by cascading a two-dimensional array of microstrip square rings with circle patches inside. Beam steering is performed by mechanically rotating two transmission arrays independently or synchronously around the antenna axis, and the feed antenna does not change during beam steering. The simulation results demonstrate that the beam of the antenna could be steered in both azimuth and elevation planes at 9.7GHz, with a peak realized gain of 15.7dBi. And within less than 3-dB gain variation, the proposed beam-steering method could cover a conical region with an apex angle of 86°.