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Broadband Circularly Polarized Beam-Steering Antenna Array

Changrong Liu, Shaoqiu Xiao, Yong-Xin Guo, Yan-Ying Bai, and Bing-Zhong Wang

AbstractA wideband circular polarized (CP) switched-beam patch antenna array is presented in this communication. The switched-beam system consists of four two-section branch-line couplers, two wideband 45 phase shifters and 1 4 proximity-coupled L-probe feeding CP microstrip patch antenna array. With such an arrangement, the proposed array can obtain a wide axial ratio (AR) bandwidth than that of conventional switched-beam CP antenna array. Measured results showed this array has an impedance % for bandwidth over a frequency range of 4.045.78 GHz dB and AR bandwidth from 4.3 to 5.75 GHz % for dB when the main beam of array is scanned to different four directions. Index TermsAntenna array, beam steering, butler matrix, circular polarization, rotation technique, wideband antennas.

Fig. 1. Schematic of proposed switched-beam antenna array.

I. INTRODUCTION Switched-beam antenna array has been a research topic for developing smart antenna systems [1][5]. In addition, in view of wireless access applications, the circularly polarized (CP) radiation property is very desirable for microwave and millimeter-wave applications [6][15]. Many techniques for realizing CP beam-steering have been developed such as beam-steering with pattern recongurable CP element [6], [7], mechanical CP array [8], [9], CP beam-scanning with lens antenna [10], CP antenna array based on butler matrix [11][13]. Pattern recongurable CP antenna proposed by [6] and [7] is a good method to steer the CP beam without phase shifters, and the beam-steering is achieved by parasitic elements. Mechanical CP antenna and lens antenna can steer the array with good CP performance and should keep good mechanical stability. Among these techniques, beam-steering array with butler matrix is a most cost effective approach for developing smart antenna systems. In [11], a novel CP beam-steering antenna with recongurable switch feeding network was proposed. A CP beam-steering array with butler matrix, which uses suitable rotation technique to enhance AR bandwidth to 7.5%, was reported in [12] with good CP performance when main beam is scanned to different directions. In [13], a 2 2 beam-steering antenna with circular polarization at 61 GHz was presented with directivity of 14 dBi and half-power beamwidth of 20 . to 10 . A 4 5 Also, the radiation pattern can be steered to from
Manuscript received May 03, 2012; revised October 18, 2012; accepted November 16, 2012. Date of publication November 29, 2012; date of current version February 27, 2013. This work was supported in part by National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant 60971029, National Defense Research Funding of China under Grant 10DZ0211, Fok Ying Tong Education Foundation under Grant 131107, and in part by the National University of Singapore Young Investigator Award. C. Liu is with the Institution of Applied Physics, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China and also with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117576, Singapore. S. Xiao, Y. Y. Bai, and B.-Z. Wang are with the Institution of Applied Physics, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China (e-mail: xiaoshaoqiu@uestc.edu.cn). Y. X. Guo is with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117576, Singapore (e-mail: eleguoyx@nus.edu.sg). Color versions of one or more of the gures in this communication are available online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org. Digital Object Identier 10.1109/TAP.2012.2230235

element antenna array was presented in [14] for Inmarsat BGAN applications; this array with sequential rotation technology has over 8.5% frequency coverage of 1.525 to 1.66 GHz and also maintain a high . In [15], a 4 4 dual circular poquality CP when scanning to larized steering antenna array with operation frequency band from 7.25 % has been presented for satellite commuGHz up to 8.4 GHz nications with good polarization purity. The general limitation of CP beam-steering patch antenna arrays is the AR bandwidth. Also, as for traditional CP beam-steering microstrip antenna arrays, the AR will be degraded when the scan angle is moved away from broadside [11]. In this communication, we propose a CP switched-beam patch antenna array with wide AR bandwidth. Using wideband two-section couplers, wideband 45 phase shifters and wideband CP antenna elements, the proposed antenna array can obtain a wide AR bandwidth. Meanwhile, the rotation technique [12], [16], [17] is used to enhance the CP performance when the main beam scanned to different directions. Compared to [11][15], the proposed array obtains wider bandwidths including impedance bandwidth, AR bandwidth and also maintains a high quality of CP performance across the scan range.

II. DESIGN OF BUTLER MATRIX AND ANTENNA The proposed switched-beam antenna array is shown in Fig. 1. A modied Butler matrix [18][21], which is composed of four branchline couplers and two 45 phase shifters without any crossovers, is used for this beam switching system. A proximity-coupled L-probe feeding wideband CP antenna is used for this wideband CP beam-steering. Also, T-junction power divider is used to enhance the bandwidth of CP antenna element. In Fig. 1, stands for the characteristic impedance of the quarter stands for the 50 wavelength microstrip line in the T-junction, characteristic impedance of the reference line. In order to provide two orthogonal modes of equal amplitude and 90 phase difference, the difference (d2-d1) in length between two branches of T-junction must be to provide 90 phase difference for the CP antenna. As using the suitable rotation technology proposed in [12], the phase difference 90 between adjacent patches should be produced by adjusting the length of microstrip line from outputs of butler matrix to antenna feeding points, which means that the difference (d4-d3) in length between two to provide 90 phase difference. Distance bebranches must be at 5 GHz. tween the centers of two adjacent patch antennas is The switched-beam array is designed on a Rogers5880 (relative di, loss tangent tan ) substrate with electric constant thickness of 20 mils. The design and analysis in this communication is

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Fig. 2. Two-section coupler.

Fig. 4. Geometry of the L-probe patch antenna.

Fig. 5. Simulated

and AR of the L-probe patch antenna.

shunted open and the shorted circuit microstrip-line used in phase stands for the characshifter of path 1 and path 2, respectively, teristic impedance of the reference line. The difference 2 (d6-d5) in to provide 45 phase diflength between two branches must be ference for the two paths. We referred to [22] to get the optimized coefcients (1)
Fig. 3. Wideband 45 phase shifter; (a) Schematic of the phase shifter; (b) simulated s-parameters and phase difference between two paths.

(2) (3) (4)

based on the commercial software High Frequency Structure Simulator (HFSS). A. Wideband Branch-Line Coupler The schematic of conventional two-section coupler is shown in . It can be found from Fig. 2, where Fig. 2 that the maximum dispersion in the transmission magnitudes is less than 0.5 dB, with an average value of 3 dB in the frequency range of 4.35.7 GHz. Also, maximum dispersion in the simulated phase difference is less than 2 in the bandwidth. B. Wideband 45 Phase Shifter A wideband 45 phase shifter [22] shown in Fig. 3(a) is designed. As a design guideline, formula (1)(4) present design equations for and stand for the the proposed wideband phase shifter, where characteristic impedance of main microstrip-line of path1 and path2, and stand for the characteristic impedance of the respectively,

Fig. 3(b) shows the simulated amplitude and phase responses. It is observed from Fig. 3(b) that the phase shifter exhibits an impedance dB) around 48%, from 4 to 6.5 GHz. Rebandwidth ( ferring to Fig. 3(b), it is seen that the phase shifter achieves a consisoutput ports phase difference over a frequency range of tent 4.45.6 GHz (24%) C. Wideband CP Antenna Compared to traditional single-fed CP antennas, proximity-coupled L-probe feeding CP antennas are widely used for the advantage of providing a wide bandwidth [23], [24]. As shown in Fig. 4, the proposed wideband CP antenna consists of radiator patch, a pair of perturbation elements, a pair of L-probe, ground plane and T-junction power divider. In order to provide a wide bandwidth, the difference in length beto provide 90 phase tween two branches of T-junction must be difference for the CP antenna. The determined geometry parameters

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Fig. 6. Photograph of the fabricated switched-beam antenna.

Fig. 9. Measured far eld results at 4.5, 5, and 5.5 GHz when port 1 was fed; (a) radiation patterns for RHCP and LHCP (left-handed circular polarization), (b) measured AR as a function of elevation angle.

Fig. 7. Measured and simulated reection coefcients of the proposed switched-beam antenna.

3-dB gain bandwidth of this element is in the frequency range of 4.2 % . The main polarization of this proposed antenna to 6.1 GHz is right-handed circular polarization (RHCP). III. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS The proposed antenna array was fabricated and measured in order to validate the design approach. The photograph of fabricated CP antenna array is shown in Fig. 6. Reection coefcient was carried out by Agilent E8363B vector network analyzer (VNA). As the array is nearly symmetrical, so we just measured the rst two ports. Measured and simulated reection coefcients of the port 1 and port 2 are shown in Fig. 7. Referring to Fig. 7, is less than dB in the frequency it is seen that the measured range from 4.04 to 5.78 GHz % Fig. 8 illustrates the far-eld radiation measurement setup. The radiation patterns of the proposed array were measured in an anechoic chamber with SATIMO Antenna Measurement System. Measured far eld results including radiation patterns and AR performance as a function of elevation angle at 4.5 GHz, 5.0 GHz, 5.5 GHz are shown in Figs. 9 and 10, which indicate that the main beam directions at 5 GHz when port 1 was fed and at are at when port 2 was fed, respectively. As for 1-D phased array, the corresponding beam-scanning angle is

Fig. 8. Illustration of antenna radiation measurement setup.

are:

mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm. Simulated impedance bandwidth of the proposed antenna element % for less than dB covers from 4.01 to 6.1 GHz dB and AR bandwidth covers from 4.45 to 5.5 GHz (21%) for AR dBi at 5 GHz. The as shown in Fig. 5. The simulated peak gain is

(5) where is the spacing of antenna elements in x-direction, is the phase difference between adjacent elements and is the wavelength in free-space.

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Fig. 10. Measured far eld results at 4.5, 5, and 5.5 GHz when port 2 was fed; (a) radiation patterns for RHCP and LHCP, (b) measured AR as a function of elevation angle.

Fig. 11. Measured and simulated gain and AR of proposed switched-beam anwhen port 1 was fed, tenna: (a) Gain and AR when port 2 was fed. (b) Gain and AR

As for the proposed array, the distance between the centers of at 5 GHz. So in this two adjacent patch antennas is xed to condition, there should be a little shift of main beam at other frequency points. Calculated by formula (5), when the phase difference of butler matrix is when the phase difference of butler matrix is . In Figs. 9(a) and 10(a), we can see a little shift of main beam at different frequency points when ports 1 and 2 were fed, this may also be caused by the incorrect of phase difference of butler matrix besides the reason of xed distance between the centers of adjacent antenna elements. Although a little shift of main beam was caused seen Figs. 9(a) and 10(a), the AR can cover a large angle below 3 dB around the main when port 1 was fed; 6 23 when port beam directions ( 2 was fed) as seen from Figs. 9(b) and 10(b). Therefore the proposed beam-steering CP array is still suitable for wideband communication system. The polarization isolation of two cases is over 16 dB at main beam directions. Fig. 11 shows the measured gain and AR versus frequency when different port was fed. When port 1 was fed, the measured results show a dB. When good AR bandwidth covers from 4 to 5.8 GHz for AR port 2 was fed, the measured AR bandwidth is from 4.3 to 5.75 GHz. Note that the measured and simulated AR results have obvious differences at the frequencies higher than 5.5 GHz in Fig. 11(a), which could be due to the phase difference of butler matrix and fabrication tolerance. The proposed array excited by port 1 and port 2 deliver about 9.27 dBi and 9.84 dBi gains at 5 GHz, respectively. Measured 3-dB gain bandwidth of this array is in the frequency range of 4.45.75 GHz % and 4.055.65 GHz % , when port 1 and port 2 was fed respectively. The difference between measured and simulated gain

may be caused by measurement error. Also, the output amplitude imbalance of butler matrix and AR characteristic affect the antenna gain. From measured results, a good AR bandwidth was achieved in the fre% when port 1 and port 2 was quency range of 4.35.75 GHz fed separately. IV. CONCLUSION In this communication, a broadband CP beam-steering antenna array is reported. With the arrangement of wideband 90 branch-line coupler, wideband 45 phase shifter, and wideband CP antenna element, the proposed beam-steering antenna array can achieve a % and AR bandwidth of wideband impedance bandwidth of %. Also, rotation technology is employed to maintain a high quality of CP performance when the main beam of this array scanned to different directions.

REFERENCES
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[6] X.-S. Yang, B.-Z. Wang, S. H. Yeung, Q. Xue, and K. F. Man, Circularly polarized recongurable crossed-Vagi patch antenna, IEEE Antennas Propag. Mag., vol. 53, no. 5, pp. 6580, Oct. 2011. [7] H. Liu, S. Gao, and T. H. Loh, Circularly polarized electronically steerable parasitic array radiator antenna for satellite, presented at the 4th Eur. Conf. on Antennas Propag., Apr. 2010. [8] C. T. Rodenbeck, M. Y. Li, and K. Chang, Circular-polarized recongurable grating antenna for low-cost millimeter-wave beam-steering, IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 52, no. 10, pp. 27592763, Oct. 2004. [9] V. F. Fusco, Mechanical beam scanning reect array, IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 53, no. 11, pp. 38423844, Nov. 2005. [10] J. R. Costa, E. B. Lima, and C. A. Fernandes, Compact beam-steerable lens antenna for 60-GHz wireless communications, IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 57, no. 10, pp. 29262933, Oct. 2009. [11] J. Ouyang, A circularly polarized switched-beam antenna array, IEEE Antennas Wireless Propag. Lett., vol. 10, pp. 13251328, 2011. [12] C. Liu, S. Xiao, Y. X. Guo, M.-C. Tang, Y. Y. Bai, and B.-Z. Wang, Circularly polarized beam-steering antenna array with butler matrix network, IEEE Antennas Wireless Propag. Lett., vol. 10, pp. 12781281, 2011. [13] K. C. Huang and Z. C. Wang, Millimeter-wave circular polarized beam-steering antenna array for gigabit wireless communications, IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 54, no. 2, pp. 743746, Feb. 2006. [14] N. B. Buchanan, V. F. Fusco, M. van der Vorst, and D. Zelenchuk, A circular polarized self tracking l band array with high bandwidth and scan beamwidth for Inmarsat BGAN applications, in Proc. 5th Eur. Conf. on Antennas Propag. (EUCAP), 2011, pp. 211215. [15] G. Exposito-Dominguez, J. M. Fernandez-Gonzalez, P. Padilla, and M. Sierra-Castaner, Dual circular polarized steering antenna for satellite communications in x band, Progr. Electromagn. Res., vol. 122, pp. 6176, 2012. [16] J. Hong, A technique for an array to generate circular polarization with linearly polarized elements, IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. AP-34, no. 9, pp. 11131124, Sep. 1986. [17] A. K. Bhattacharyya, Comparison between arrays of rotating linearly polarized elements and circularly polarized elements, IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 56, no. 9, pp. 29492954, Sep. 2008. [18] H. Hayashi, D. A. Hitko, and C. G. Sodini, Four-element planar butler matrix using half-wavelength open stubs, IEEE Microw. Wireless Compon. Lett., vol. 12, no. 3, pp. 7375, Mar. 2002. [19] C. DallOmo, T. Monediere, B. Jecko, F. Lamour, I. Wolk, and M. Elkael, Design and realization of a 4 4 microstrip Butler matrix without any crossing in millimeter waves, Microw. Opt. Technol. Lett., vol. 38, no. 6, pp. 462465, Sep. 20, 2003. [20] Y. J. Cheng, W. Hong, and K. Wu, Millimeter-wave multibeam antenna based on eight-port hybrid, IEEE Microw. Wireless Compon. Lett., vol. 19, no. 4, pp. 212214, Apr. 2009. [21] S. Zheng, W. S. Chan, S. H. Leung, and Q. Xue, Broad band butler matrix with at coupling, Electron. Lett., vol. 43, pp. 576577, May 2007. [22] S. Y. Eom and H. K. Park, New switched-network phase shifter with broadband characteristics, Microw. Opt. Technol. Lett., vol. 38, no. 4, pp. 255257, Aug. 2003. [23] Y. X. Guo, L. Bian, and X. Q. Shi, Broadband circularly polarized annular-ring microstrip antenna, IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 57, no. 8, pp. 24742477, Aug. 2009. [24] S.- L. S. Yang and K.-M. Luk, A wideband L-probes fed circularly polarized recongurable microstrip patch antenna, IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 56, no. 2, pp. 581584, Feb. 2008.

RCS Reduction of Waveguide Slot Antenna With Metamaterial Absorber

Tao Liu, Xiangyu Cao, Jun Gao, Qiurong Zheng, Wenqiang Li, and Huanhuan Yang

AbstractThis communication investigates the application of metamaterial absorber (MA) to waveguide slot antenna to reduce its radar cross section (RCS). A novel ultra-thin MA is presented, and its absorbing characteristics and mechanism are analyzed. The PEC ground plane of waveguide slot antenna is covered by this MA. As compared with the slot antenna with a PEC ground plane, the simulation and experiment results demonstrate that the monostatic and bistatic RCS of waveguide slot antenna are reduced signicantly, and the performance of antenna is preserved simultaneously. Index TermsMetamaterial absorber (MA), radar cross section (RCS), waveguide slot antenna.

I. INTRODUCTION Recently, the design of resonant metamaterial absorber (MA) with near-unity absorptivity has been proposed at microwave band [1]. Later, many efforts have been made on MA to achieve wide-angle and polarization-insensitive absorption [2][4], multiband absorption [4][6] and broadband absorption [7], [8]. These MAs display great absorption capability. The designed idea of MA is to adjust the and independently by varying the dimensions effective of electric resonant component and magnetic resonant component in the unit cell so as to match the effective impedance of MA to free space and achieve a large resonant dissipation in the meantime. Thus, wave transmission and reection are minimized simultaneously and absorption is maximized. Reduction of radar cross section (RCS) of an antenna without compromising its radiation characteristics has been a topic of immense strategic interest. For out-of-band frequencies, frequency selective surfaces (FSS) can be employed to reduce the RCS of antenna [9][11]. For in-band frequencies, it is more difcult to reduce the RCS using conventional radar absorbing material (RAM). Waveguide slot antenna is used widely in radar and communication systems, but it is easy to be detected due to its large backward RCS. In [12], the application of electromagnetic band-gap (EBG) RAM loaded with lumped resistances to ridged waveguide slot antenna array to reduce its in-band RCS is investigated, in which the lumped resistive elements are used to better match to the impedance of free space, and as the chief contributor for absorption. The designed idea is different from the work in [1]. In [13], an articial magnetic conductor and perfect electric conductor (PEC) surface are combined together for in-band RCS reduction and radiation improvement of waveguide slot antenna based on the principle of passive cancellation. Compared with the above two structures, this novel MA is also one potential solution to reduce the in-band RCS of antenna. However, to our knowledge, the application of this MA to the in-band
Manuscript received February 27, 2012; revised June 06, 2012; accepted November 25, 2012. Date of publication December 04, 2012; date of current version February 27, 2013. This work was supported in part by the Postdoctoral Foundation of China (Grant 20100481497), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant 61271100), the Key Program of Natural Science Foundation of Shanxi Province, China (Grant 2010JZ010), and in part by the Natural Science Basic Research of Shanxi Province, China (Grants SJ08-ZT06 and 2010JM8003). The authors are with Telecommunication Engineering Institute, Air Force Engineering University of CPLA, Xian, Shannxi Province 710077, China (e-mail: lt9571@163.com). Digital Object Identier 10.1109/TAP.2012.2231922