Millimeter-Wave Wideband Wide-Angle Scanning Proactive Conformal Phased Array Antenna

Though conformal phased array antennas have better wide-angle scanning capability than their traditional planar counterparts do, their fabrication is generally complex. Therefore, this letter presents a millimeter-wave (mmWave) proactive conformal (PC) phased array antenna (PAA) formed by high-low alternate elements/subarrays to proactively modulate the array aperture, achieving wide-angle scanning and easy fabrication. A 1×6-element endfire high-gain low sidelobe level subarray is designed, based on which a 4×6-element PC PAA is implemented. The measured results show that the reflection coefficient of the fabricated prototype is mostly <−10 dB, the port isolation is >18 dB, the endfire scanning gain is >15.5 dBi, and the 3-dB gain variation scanning range is >±60° with a peak up to ±68° within 24.25–29.5 GHz (19.5%).