Design and Analysis of Spoof Surface Plasmon Polaritons based Leaky-wave Antenna for Continuous Beam Scanning

This research presents a general idea to develop a continuous beam scanning antenna utilizing the spoof surface plasmon polaritons (SSPPs)-based transmission line. The transmission line using the corrugated metallic grooves helps in strong confinement of field within the line, which further improves the coupling between the line and the radiators. Theoretically and numerically simulated results shows good agreement in terms of dispersion and scanning range. It is found that the antenna is highly capable of dual beam continuous scanning in the sub-6 GHz frequency band. The dual beam continuous scan from -90° (at 3.07 GHz) to +16° (at 4.9 GHz) in the visible space. The antenna achieved an overall gain of 9.8 dB and fractional bandwidth of 117% at centre frequency of 3.15 GHz. Owing to the single layer, groundless, and improved performance characteristics, the proposed antenna seems to be potential candidate for sub-6 GHz applications.