2-D Single-Port Phase Coding Meta-Antenna Leveraging Frequency Diversity for Microwave Imaging

The diversity of the field pattern in a radiation aperture plays a pivotal role on the capacity enhancement of microwave imaging and sensing. Conventional methodologies typically employ multiple ports to excite a 2-D aperture for frequency diversity enhancement. However, multi-port excitation poses significant challenges for transceivers when MIMO technology is implemented, while employing switches can result in slower imaging speed. This paper presents a single-port 2D phase coding planar meta-antenna that generates frequency diverse radiation fields, aiming to achieve single-shot highspeed microwave imaging. A prototype of meta-antenna with 13.34λ0 × 6.67λ0 aperture size is designed and fabricated for microwave imaging within 10-15 GHz. It achieves a spatial resolution of 5 mm in y-direction and 9 mm in x-direction for experimental demonstration, which finally validates the proposed diversity-enhanced meta-antenna. The proposed meta-antenna may find wide applications in integrated communication and sensing.