Beam steerable traveling wave meander line antenna using varactor diode for X-band applications

This paper presents a novel beam steerable meander line antenna with varactor diode for X-band applications. Beam steering has been achieved by loading the arms of the meander line antenna with varactor diodes. The capacitances of the varactor diodes have been controlled by DC bias voltage. Instead of varactor diodes, RF-MEMS variable capacitances can be used [4] to scan the beam. Since the insertion loss of MEMS capacitances are small compared to loss of varactor diodes, use of MEMS capacitors will increase the overall efficiency of the antenna.