Performance Enhancement of Aesa Antenna Using Metasurface Lens for Radar Applications

This paper presents a novel design concept of <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$1 \times 32$</tex> antenna array which completely replaces a <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$2 \times 32$</tex> antenna array by introducing a superstrate metasurafce lens (MSL) for AESA applications. The advantage of MSL technology is to manipulate electromagnetic wave propagation, enabling precise beam control without compromising the antenna performance characteristics. The rectangular patch array <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$1 \times 32$</tex> is designed for <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$18-22 \text{GHz}$</tex>, operating at a center frequency of 20 GHz. With the designed MSL, the beamwidth is reduced to 60°, ultimately leading to the gain enhancement of approximately 1.62 dB. The proposed MSL design aims in achieving the beam narrowing without increasing the array size, which reduces the back-end hardware complexity for beam steering along with improved system efficiency.