Compact Folded Leaky-Wave Antenna Radiating a Fixed Beam at Broadside for 5G mm-Wave Applications

A compact planar fixed-beam leaky-wave antenna that radiates its main beam at broadside is presented, that consists of two folded branches of periodically distributed series-fed microstrip patches. The antenna is fed from the center through a 50 Ω transmission line that subsequently feeds two constituent 100 Ω parallel branches, each consisting of eight series-fed microstrip patches. Fixed-beam operation is achieved by the combination of the two oppositely directed beams that are generated by the two branches. The proposed structure achieves a significant reduction of the longitudinal size by incorporating a 180° bend at the center of each branch, thus effectively folding the antenna in half. This results in a longitudinal size that is 1.8 times smaller than the analogous unfolded antenna. The antenna maintains a measured fixed beam at broadside over a wide zero beam-squinting bandwidth of 3 GHz in the 28 GHz band, with a radiation efficiency above 60% and a maximum measured gain of 14 dBi at 27.4 GHz, with an overall compact size of 5.8 × 1.1 cm.