Abstract
A new antenna system concept is presented where a wide-scan focal plane array antenna is used to achieve point-to-multipoint communication. The focal plane of a parabolic toroid reflector is populated with several antenna arrays, the positions of which determine the directions of the beams. This concept is investigated for beams pointed towards 0° (broadside) and 28° in azimuth. Each array allows for scanning an additional ±1° in azimuth and elevation. This allows for compensation of twist and sway of the antenna mast. Several array configurations are compared in terms of directivity and scan loss for such a system at E-band. It is found that an 8-by-8 array with an inter-element spacing of <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$0.7 \lambda _{0}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> results in an optimal directivity with a scan loss lower than 1dB when scanning ±1° in azimuth and elevation. For the 0° beam direction the directivity is 45.5dBi and for the 28° beam direction the directivity is 44.4dBi, showing the wide angle scanning properties of this system. An experimental system is built at K-band and measurements are performed showing this system in action. In the measurements an array of 8-by-8 is used with an inter-element spacing of <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$0.5 \lambda _{0}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> . The scan loss when scanning ±2° in azimuth and elevation is below 1dB. The directivity is 37.0dBi and 35.4dBi for the 0° and 28° beam directions, respectively. The spillover losses and aperture efficiencies are also found, as well as a relative metric for the transmitted power and the effective isotropic radiated power for both the E-band and K-band systems.
Highlights
F UTURE fifth generation (5G) and sixth generation (6G) wireless communication systems promise data-rates in the order of gigabits per second (Gbit/s) per user for multiple users simultaneously [1]
Only the regions in the focal plane that contribute to the main beams need be populated with antenna elements. As such we propose an focal plane array (FPA) antenna system where the focal plane is populated with several smaller arrays, each of which is responsible for communication with one site
We investigate the required number of patch antenna elements and the optimum inter-element spacing in order to perform MRT beamforming with low scan-loss at 80GHz
Summary
F UTURE fifth generation (5G) and sixth generation (6G) wireless communication systems promise data-rates in the order of gigabits per second (Gbit/s) per user for multiple users simultaneously [1] To achieve such high data rates, new frequency bands in the millimeter-wave (mmWave) range are being allocated in order to take advantage of the large amount of available spectrum. Electronic beam steering facilitates the flexible use of wireless fronthaul systems, allowing multi-beam operation and flexible routing of data streams. Such an antenna system should provide wideangle scanning capabilities to provide coverage to various points at different locations
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