A Dual-Band Electronic-Scanning Leaky-Wave Antenna Based on a Corrugated Microstrip Line

A dual-band fixed-frequency beam-scanning leaky-wave antenna (LWA) based on a corrugated microstrip line (CML) has been proposed. The proposed CML includes a series of uniform grooves that are alternately loaded by capacitors and varactors. The unit cell of the CML supports two kinds of modes in two different frequency bands. In each band, the dispersion characteristics of the CML can be electronically tuned by changing the capacitance loaded in the unit cell. Therefore, by simply changing the bias voltage of the loaded varactor diodes in the CML, the surface impedance of the LWA is dynamically reconfigured, and moreover, the radiation beams of the LWA are electronically steerable at a fixed frequency in each band. The experimental results show that at 4.25 and 5.75 GHz, the designed dual-band LWA can electronically steer the radiation beams in the maximum range of 80° and 22°, respectively, by changing the bias voltage from 0 to 10 V.