Beam-steerable patch antenna array using parasitic coupling and reactive loading

A parasitically-coupled and reactively-loaded patch antenna array is demonstrated to achieve beam steering in an analog manner. The strong parasitic coupling between closely-spaced patch antennas is used to form a phased array with a single driven element. The phase shift between the array elements is adjustable by changing the reactive loading on the parasitic patch antenna. A prototype of this antenna array is demonstrated at 2.3 GHz.