Title
A dielectric dome antenna with reduced profile and wide scanning capability
Author
Gandini, E.
Silvestri, F.
Benini, A.
Gerini, G.
Martini, E.
Maci, S.
Vigano, M.C.
Toso, G.
Monni, S.
Publication year
2020
Abstract
The design and experimental validation of a wide scanning dome antenna with reduced profile is presented. The antenna is based on the combination of a planar phased array with limited scanning capabilities and a dielectric lens which allows to broaden the field of view. The angular variation of the scan loss can be almost arbitrarily designed if no constraint is imposed on the size of the dielectric lens. However, the focus of the paper is on the size minimization of the dome as required for applications where the form factor is critical. Therefore, a lower boundary of the height of the dome is derived and imposed as a design constraint. The antenna is analysed using in-house ray tracing and physical optics software tools. It is shown that, when the array is combined with the dielectric dome, a significant directivity enhancement can be achieved for wide scanning. A demonstrator of the lens is designed, manufactured and combined with an available phased array working in Ku-band. The experimental tests confirm the theoretical predictions, validating the analysis tools, and show a scanning range of 70° in all scanning planes over a 15% bandwidth. The directivity is enhanced by approximately 2 dB at the limits of the scanning range compared to the stand-alone illuminating array. The active element pattern is rotationally symmetric, thus, the radiation performance is almost independent on the scanning plane. Moreover, the dielectric lens allows to preserve the cross-polarization performance of the illuminating array without adding a significant contribution.
Subject
Dome antenna
Phased array antenna
Lens antenna
To reference this document use:
http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:df186789-2c5a-42e0-8a7e-8a7d51fbdfae
TNO identifier
885081
Publisher
IEEE, Piscataway, NJ, USA
ISSN
0018-926X
Source
IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, 69 (69)
Document type
article