A Leaky-Wave Antenna With Improved Directivity and Scanning Range

A new periodic leaky-wave antenna with high directivity and wide scanning range is proposed. The conventional series-fed patch array (SFPA) has limited scanning range and directivity due to low radiation capability of the rectangular patch i.e. unit cell. In this work, the leaky band performance of the unit cell has been improved by truncating the edge of the rectangular patch and loading of balanced shorting pins. The proposed antenna is a series-fed 8 unit cell structure. The antenna has a wide leaky band of 57% from 10 GHz to 18 GHz with center frequency 14 GHz and the maximum simulated directivity of 19 dBi. It shows forward, broadside and backward scanning capability with a scanning range of 91□ (from +66□ to -25□). Thus the proposed unit cell structure can be effective to reduce the required antenna array length for high directivity.