Analysis of Conformal Circular Array for the Design of mm-Wave Beam Steering Antenna with Substrate Integrated Frequency Selective Structure

Using reconfigurable substrate integrated frequency selective structure is an alternative proposed by our research group for designing beam steering antenna with large angular range and low gain dispersion vs. steering angle. This type of antenna, which is suitable for fifth-generation (5G) new radio, can have lower cost and lower loss in comparison with classical phased array. In this work, we propose a parametrical analysis of a conformal circular array in order to predict the gain performance and to estimate the optimum configuration of the reconfigurable frequency selective structure. We study the effect of the angle determined by the excited elements of the conformal circular array, the effect of the radius and the effect of the spacing between elements. The analysis is validated experimentally for a beam steering antenna operating at 28 GHz.