Ray-Tracing and Physical Optics Modeling of Leaky Wave Antennas Combined With Lenses

We present an efficient and accurate modeling of arbitrary-shaped locally modulated leaky wave antennas (LWAs) combined with dielectric lenses by means of a combined ray-tracing (RT) and physical optics (PO) approach. An in-house RT is used to obtain the amplitude and phase of the fields at the arbitrary lens aperture considering the modulated leaky mode that radiates from a conformal LWA. Next, we calculate the far-field radiation pattern using PO, and more specifically through Kirchhoff’s scalar diffraction theory. Our proposed approach has a reduction in computational time above 99% compared to full-wave simulations of commercial software. This time reduction is critical for the efficient design of bespoke modulated curved LWAs combined with lenses, which can provide directive frequency-scanned radiation with enhanced performance when compared to the use of LWAs without lenses.