A Planar Phased Array With Wide Scanning Range and Low Cross Polarization

A low cross-polarization planar phased array having 2-D ultrawide scanning ability is proposed in this letter. First, a patch element is developed with two shorted vias and a pair of planar Π-shaped metal via-strips (MVSs) for achieving a wide-beam performance for the beam-scanning. The radiation gain and beamwidth of the element can be flexibly adjusted by designing the MVSs. Then, a 32 × 16 planar array is designed with wide beam-scanning performance by using the proposed element. Experimental results show that the proposed array can scan from −80° to +80° and from −75° to +75° with a gain fluctuation of less than 4.5 dB and 4.9 dB in the E- and H-planes, respectively. Meanwhile, it has a cross-polarization level below −27 dB. The proposed antenna shows merits of 2-D ultrawide scanning range, low cross-polarization level and low profile, which is a good candidate for wireless communication and sensing applications.