A Beam-Steerable Antenna for Wide-Angle Beam-Scanning Phased Array

A beam-steerable antenna is investigated based on the fusion of radiation patterns. The antenna consists of a square loop and a square dielectric resonator (DR), which are fed by two separate ports. The square loop loaded with interdigital structures (IDSs) achieves zero-phase-shift line (ZPSL) effect, thus forming a conical radiation. The fundamental mode of the square DR is excited to provide a broadside radiation. The key to using the fusion of radiation patterns to realize the beam-steerable effect is to control the phase difference between these two radiation patterns. More specifically, two types of titled beams can be obtained by using in-phase feed and anti-phase feed, respectively. For the consideration of the antenna structure and the fusion of radiation patterns, the part of the substrate of the square loop is removed so as to place the DR inside it. Further, an eight-element linear phased array based on this antenna is constructed to investigate the beam-scanning capability. For demonstration, a beam-steerable antenna and its corresponding linear array are designed and simulated. The results show that the beams of the antenna can be deflected to about ±30° and a broad beam-scanning range of ±60° can be obtained.