Wide-Angle Frequent Scanning Metamaterial Leaky Wave Antenna Array for Automotive Radars

This paper designs a wide-angle frequency scanning metamaterial (MTM) leaky wave antenna (LWA) array for automotive radars. The gap capacitors and the vialess open stub-loaded resonators are used to construct the frequency scanning MTM LWA array. the propagation constant of the MTM LWA array is able to change from negative to positive values as the frequency is increased, resulting in backward to forward beam scanning. Compared to mechanical beam scanning arrays and phased arrays, the frequency scanning MTM LWA arrays have advantages of reducing the system complexity, light weight and low cost. The presented MTM LWA array has a maximum gain of 13 dB and wide scanning angle from −60°to +80° as the frequency varies from 23.5 to 25.6 GHz which is well suited for automotive radar applications.