Wide‐angle scanning phased array using wide‐beamwidth dielectric resonator antenna with miniaturised radiator

Abstract

A wide-beamwidth dielectric resonator antenna with small radiator is used to design a wide-angle scanning phased array. The proposed dielectric resonator antenna element uses concave structure for wide-beamwidth, and the metal patches on the top of the dielectric resonator are used to reduce the size of radiator. The simulated half-power beamwidth of dielectric resonator antenna is 157.8° and 140.9° in the E- and H-planes, respectively, while the size of the radiator of the dielectric resonator antenna is only 9.7 × 9.7 × 10 mm3 (0.162λ0 × 0.162λ0 × 0.167λ0). One 1 × 8 linear phased array is designed based on the dielectric resonator antenna element. Due to the small size of dielectric resonator radiator, the mutual coupling between the array elements is very small and each element in the array has the similar radiation pattern with wide-beamwidth. Because of these critical features, the phased array can scan from −67° to +67° with a gain fluctuation less than 1 dB and a maximum side lobe level less than −10 dB. Measurement results agree well with simulation.