Ku-Band Dual Linear Polarized Parabolic-Cylindrical Reflector Antenna with Beam Steering Performance

Abstract

A hybrid reflector-phased array antenna system for high data rate wireless network is proposed at Ku-band (12 - 15 GHz). The proposed hybrid antenna system uses an $8 \times 4$ dual linear-polarized stacked patch phased array antenna as the feed source to illuminate the 50 cm parabolic-cylindrical reflector of $f/D=0.4$ . The parabolic-cylindrical reflector has the property of a wide-angle beam steering along the cylindrical axis as compared to a conventional parabolic reflector. The multilevel fast multipole method (MLFMM) is used along with the method of moments (MoM) in TICRA GRASP to analyze the finite thickness effect of the reflector. The peak directivity of the reflector pattern is around 26 dBi, and a beam scanning of ±30° is achieved along the cylindrical axis of the reflector for 3 dB reduction in the gain. Anokiwave AWMF-0117 integrated silicon core chips are used in the beamforming network for achieving beam steering. The parabolic-cylindrical reflector is 3D printed and metalized with copper using the vapor-deposition technique. The phased array antenna is assembled with the Anokiwave chips and is currently being integrated with the 3D printed parabolic-cylindrical reflector for experimental verification of the scan performance.