Design of an Active Beam-Steering Array With a Perforated Wide-Angle Impedance Matching Layer

In this communication, a tapered slot antenna array with a perforated wide-angle impedance matching (WAIM) layer is studied for active beam steering. To achieve the wide-angle beam scanning characteristic, a tapered slot antenna is used in the array antenna design. For active impedance matching in a wide beam-steering angle, a thin dielectric type of WAIM is introduced, and an optimal WAIM characteristic is realized by changing the effective dielectric constant by adding an air hole to the WAIM. To verify the characteristics of the designed antenna, a 16 x 16 array is fabricated and measured. The fabricated array shows active S-parameter characteristics of less than -9.13 dB during E-plane scanning and -9.31 dB during H-plane scanning when the beam is steered up to 70 degrees on both planes. It was also confirmed that when the beam is steered to 70 degrees, no scan blindness or grating lobes occur within the operating frequency.

Automated summary

This study introduces a tapered slot antenna array with a perforated wide-angle impedance matching (WAIM) layer for active beam steering, successfully designing and verifying the antenna's characteristics to meet requirements even when the beam is steered to 70 degrees.