Design, Simulation, and Construction of a SWB Antenna Using a Metasurface Luneburg LENS

Abstract

In this work, a novel compact antenna with a super-wideband (SWB) feeding (3–43 GHz) is designed. The SWB lens antenna consists of a super-wideband feeding, a parallel plate waveguide (PPW), and a dielectric lens. The flat Luneburg lens has been designed and implemented based on metasurface technology. This antenna can be employed as a sense antenna in ultrawideband (UWB) applications. Attaining a SWB antenna that also grants a high gain in the whole bandwidth is a major issue considered in this work. The introduced structure reveals a very good matching properties (VSWR < 2.15) and also acceptable gain (5–13.5dBi) and very good efficiency (typ. > 83%) in the whole ultrawide bandwidth (3–43GHz). Another important feature of the proposed structure is its capability for being used in multi-beam applications by merely adding some extra feeding ports to it. To show this, the designed lens is fed by three ports placed on its circumference with 30° angular separation. These results show three beam directions in − 30°, + 30°, and 0°, and in addition to its broad bandwidth, excellent impedance matching and close-to-ideal port isolation are achieved.