W-Band Binary Phase-Controlled Multibeam Antenna Array Based on Gap Waveguide Magic-Tee

Abstract

In this article, a compact 94 GHz multibeam antenna array based on the binary phase-controlled concept is proposed. The feeding network is composed of four unconnected layers, and the ridge or groove gap waveguides are adopted as the guided wave structures. A key planar gap waveguide Magic-Tee is designed to obtain 0° and 180° phase states and then integrates with an <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$8\,\times \,8$ </tex-math></inline-formula> slot antenna array to achieve multibeam operation for the first time. Compared with the traditional phased array and passive beamforming networks (BFNs), the feeding design is simple in construction, consisting of only Magic-Tees and cascaded power dividers without any phase shifters. Benefiting from the gap waveguide technology, the antenna array does not require electrical contact among the metal layers, so it is simple and low cost to manufacture. The <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$8\times8$ </tex-math></inline-formula> slot antenna array can easily switch among one-beam and three different dual-beam states that point to ±7°, ±17°, and ±38°. The measurement results of 6.6% bandwidth from 91.7 to 98 GHz for both reflection coefficients <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$&lt; -10$ </tex-math></inline-formula> dB and isolations >25 dB are achieved. The proposed multibeam antenna array would be an attractive candidate for millimeter-wave multiuser communication where it requires multiple beams simultaneously.