Millimeter-Wave 1-D Wide-Angle Scanning Pseudo-Curved Surface Conformal Phased Array Antennas Based on Elongated Planar Aperture Element

Abstract

To perform wide-angle scanning while maintaining a planar low profile, we propose a new kind of millimeter-wave (mmWave) planar phased array antenna using inclined beam elements to imitate a curved surface conformal (CSC) array, called a pseudo-curved surface conformal (PCSC) phased array antenna. We present the concept of our PCSC phased array and then design an elongated planar aperture antenna (EPAA) element, achieving stable high broadside gain and wide beam on the scanning plane within a wide bandwidth. Then, by introducing asymmetries to the EPAA element, the beam inclination of the EPAA element can be adjusted. Accordingly, we use EPAA elements with different beam inclinations to form a 1 × 4-element 1-D wide-angle scanning PCSC phased array antenna. We design, fabricate, and measure a prototype of our proposal, with measured results showing that the proposed design has a 3 dB gain variation across a scanning range of more than ±62° (and as high as ±68°) within the 5G mmWave band (24.25 to 29.5 GHz), which is about ±10° better than its traditional counterpart.