Abstract
An elegant combination of electric near-field phase transformation technique and electromagnetic-wave refraction, implemented through a pair of 3D printed dielectric structures, has been used to demonstrate a Ka-band beam-scanning antenna system. The system comprises a resonant-cavity antenna (RCA), which is used as a base antenna, a stepped dielectric (SD), and a dielectric wedge (DW). The SD is suspended above RCA in the near-field region to focus its broadside beam at an offset angle of 20°. The DW is placed above the SD and its two opening angles are selected such that the offset-angle focused beam tilts further and moves back to the broadside when the DW is co- and counter-aligned with the SD, respectively. The total height of the antenna system is 8.1λ <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">0</sub> , where λ <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">0</sub> is the free-space wavelength at the operating frequency of 30 GHz. The total cost of the material used for printing the two dielectric structures in prototyping is only 6 USD. It has been demonstrated through measurements of the prototype that by rotating the DW around its own axis, the antenna beam can be scanned in both azimuth and elevation planes. The measured results indicate that antenna beam can effectively be scanned to any arbitrary angular position within a conical region having an apex angle of 68°, while maintaining peak-gain value within the 3 dB limit of the maximum gain of 16 dBi.
Highlights
B EAM-scanning antenna is among the most widely researched topics in the field of wireless communication due to a range of upcoming applications involving moving platforms such as low-earth-orbit (LEO) satellites and CubeSats [1]–[3]
To enhance the application spectrum of beam-scanning antennas, this paper proposes a novel solution that is developed using a combination of near-field phase transformation theory [12], [13] using stepped dielectric (SD) and refraction of electromagnetic (EM) wave through a dielectric wedge (DW)
The SD and DW were 3D printed with Polylactic acid (PLA)
Summary
B EAM-scanning antenna is among the most widely researched topics in the field of wireless communication due to a range of upcoming applications involving moving platforms such as low-earth-orbit (LEO) satellites and CubeSats [1]–[3]. A noteworthy application is precision farming, which allows farmers to maximize the yield of their crops by having access to consistent and accurate sensors’ data from remote farms via CubeSats [4]. CubeSats operate in nongeosynchronous orbits and pass above same geographical locations several times in a day. These satellites collect data through a dedicated uplink channel from a remote location, which is downloaded at a data center for analysis through a downlink [5]–[9]. There is a small window of time available for the upload and download communication links to transfer the data to and from the CubeSats, respectively, before it moves out of the coverage of ground station antenna [10]. A network of ground stations having multiple low-cost beamscanning antennas can be used to continuously track Cube-
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