A planar broadband beam steering array with low cost

Abstract

A broadband beam steering smart planar array fed by the parabolic reflector of the substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) is proposed in this paper. The radiation element is continuous transverse stub (CTS) which are periodically arrayed on the plane waveguide. Both the CTS and the parabolic feed structure have broadband features. The beam steering directions are changeable with the different frequencies within the operation bandwidth. A 16-element array is simulated to validate the design. The simulation results show that the relative bandwidth of the reflection coefficient less than -10 dB is 69.9% (8.1 GHz-16.8 GHz) with the center frequency of 12.0 GHz. The gain at the broadside is 19.57 dBi with the first sidelobe level of -12.4 dB and the 3 dB beam width of 5.0°. The scanning angle range varies from -51° to 18° depending on frequency. This beam steering array could be applied in X band, Ku band and millimeter wave bands.