Design of Electronically Steerable Direction Shifting Microstrip Antenna Array using Beam Steering Technique

A direction shifting electronically beam steerable Microstrip antenna array is proposed. In order to reduce the overall size, the antenna array is designed on a dielectric substrate. A single antenna element in the array consists of a dipole element and two parasitic elements, designed over a multilayer dielectric structure. The length of the parasitic elements can be reconfigured using RF switches. Switching the length of the parasitic elements in various configurations, the main lobe of the single antenna of the array is shifted in three directions. This leads to three modes of operation. By configuring the switches of every antenna in the array, the main lobe of the array shifts the direction. The main lobe of the antenna array in a particular mode is made steerable by changing the phase shift between the antenna elements. Simultaneously altering the length of parasitic elements by switches and changing the phase shift between the antenna elements in the array, the main lobe is made steerable in any of the three modes. This paper discusses the design of an array with pattern reconfigurability and beam steering on multilayer structure with a minimum number of RF switches. The proposed antenna is designed to operate in C Band.