A Low-cost Low-loss Luneburg Len Based on Hybrid Printing Technology of 3D Substrate and Planar Metal For Base-station Applications

In this manuscript, a low-cost low-loss Luneburg len is proposed, which is based on the hybrid printing technology of 3D substrate etched with planar metal. Firstly, a Luneburg len formed by 5-layer different effective permittivity dielectric is designed. Novel hybrid cell by combing 3D substrate with planar metal crossed strip is proposed to realize desired effective permittivity. By changing the length of the metal strip of the cell, the effective permittivity can be readily adjusted from 1 to 2. Secondly, a low-cost low-loss Luneburg len is constructed by the newly proposed hybrid cells. As results, the Luneburg len can achieve the gain increasing about 10.15dB of a dipole operated at 2.2GHz, which is close to that of the ideal Luneburg len. Moreover, when the dipole is loaded around the proposed Luneburg len at different positions, the Luneburg len antenna can realize large scanning angle of over ± 60°. Compared with other works, the proposed Luneburg len can be easily processed using hybrid printing technology of 3D substrate and planar metal, thus it has the merits of low cost, low loss and light weight, which would be potentially applied in future base-station systems.