Abstract
This paper presents a wide-angle scanning phased array antenna using high gain pattern reconfigurable antenna (PRA) elements. Using PRA elements is an attractive solution for wide-angle scanning phased array antennas because the scanning range can be divided into several subspaces. To achieve the desired scanning performance, some characteristics of the PRA element such as the number of switching modes, tilt angle, and maximum half-power beamwidth (HPBW) are required. We analyzed the required characteristics of the PRA element according to the target scanning range and element spacing, and presented a PRA element design guideline for phased array antennas. In accordance with the guideline, the scanning range was set as ±70° and a high gain PRA element with three reconfigurable patterns was used to compose an 8x1 array antenna with 0.9 λ0 spacing. After analyzing whether the active element patterns meet the guideline, the array antenna was fabricated and measured to demonstrate the scanning performance. The fabricated array can scan its beam from -70° to 70° by dividing the scanning range into three subspaces. It shows that even if the array antenna has large element spacing, the desired scanning performance can be obtained using the elements designed under the guideline.
Highlights
The phased array antenna has been comprehensively studied because of its advantages such as agile and flexible beam scanning, high tracking accuracy, and widely used in many military and civil applications such as wireless communication systems, wireless power transmission systems, and radar systems[1]
For the phased array antennas composed of pattern reconfigurable antenna (PRA) elements, the element spacing is no longer limited because the grating lobes can be utilized as the main beam
When the active www.nature.com/scientificreports element patterns of the PRA element meet the guideline, the desired scanning performance can be achieved by dividing the scanning range into several subspaces
Summary
The phased array antenna has been comprehensively studied because of its advantages such as agile and flexible beam scanning, high tracking accuracy, and widely used in many military and civil applications such as wireless communication systems, wireless power transmission systems, and radar systems[1]. They show the case when the antenna element has three reconfigurable patterns whose main beam directions are −47 , 0 , 47 and HPBWs are all 47. If a phased array antenna is composed of the elements which have high gain and can reconfigure its beam pattern, a superb wide-angle scanning performance with high array gain can be achieved using a small number of antenna elements. To analyze the scanning performance of the phased array antennas composed of PRA elements, there are many factors to consider such as element spacing, number of switching modes, tilt angle in each mode, and HPBW. Analyzing and deriving the characteristics of the PRA elements required to achieve the desired scanning performance of the phased array antenna will be a very useful design guideline for phased array antennas using PRA elements
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