Low-Profile Leaky-Wave Antenna with Mechanical Beam Steering Using Sliding Slot Arrays for K-Band Communications

A low-profile leaky-wave antenna with mechanical beam steering is presented for K-band applications. The antenna comprises two radiating layers: a fixed layer and a movable layer. Four sets of slots with different periodicities are etched at the surface of both layers. Sliding the movable layer in four steps exposes different sets of slots on the fixed layer, shifting the main beam at four angles. The radiating layers are excited using a pillbox feeding network based on two substrate-integrated waveguide horn antennas through a coupling slot. Simulations demonstrate that beam steering is realized by moving the top layer in four 0.6 mm steps. The antenna is designed to operate at 20 GHz with 0.7 GHz bandwidth, a maximum gain of 20 dBi, with 3 dB scan loss and -9 dB side lobe level.