Millimeter-Wave Beam-Steering Using an Array of Reconfigurable Antenna-Filter-Antenna Elements

This paper presents a novel beam-steerable filter-lens array (FLA) based on reconfigurable antenna-filter-antenna (AFA) unit cells. A 2-bit phase control is realized by using multi-mode AFA elements with programmable 3-pole/4-pole frequency response. A switchable compact AFA element of this type is designed and verified using finite element method simulations and measurements. Five proof-of-concept fixed FLAs have been fabricated for output beams scanned at 0deg, 10deg, 20deg, 30deg and 40deg in the H-plane. The measurement results show that up to plusmn40deg H-plane scan is possible at 16 GHz with a loss of less than 1.3 dB and a worst case sidelobe level (SLL) of -12 dB. The insertion loss of this FLA is approximately 1.5 dB at the center frequency assuming ideal switches