On the beam scanning capabilities of discrete dielectric flat lens at 73.5GHz and 83.5GHz

This article focuses on the beam scanning capabilities of single layer discrete dielectric lens at the center frequencies of E-band (73.5GHz and 83.5GHz) for next generation high data rate point-to-point communication systems. Radiation characteristics such as scanning range, beam scanning gain loss, side lobe level, beam width and |S11| matching are investigated in details for the scanned beams both numerically and experimentally. A mechanical beam scanning technique is considered here using small pyramidal horn antenna whose position (phase center) is rotated with scan angles of 0°, ±5°, ±10°, ±15° and ±20° along the lens focal arc in both horizontal and vertical planes in front of the receiving side of the lens and the scanned collimated beams on the lens transmitting side is investigated. It is shown in this article that using this kind of lenses its possible to steer the main beam by 40° (±20° or ±7 beam widths) away from the lens main axis in horizontal and vertical planes with scan gain loss less than 1.3dB at 73.5GHz and less than 1dB at 83.5GHz with low SLL and stable beam width and measured |S11| <−10dB for all scanned beams. The lens has almost stable beam scanning characteristics over the entire E-band frequencies.