A Conical-Beam Electronically Scanning Antenna Array With Fixed-Frequency Using Edge Loading

Abstract

This paper presents a conical-beam antenna array with fixed-frequency electronically scanning capability. Twelve half-width microstrip leaky-wave antennas with inclined beams are evenly distributed along a circle to realize conical beam. The fixed-frequency beam electronically scanning in the elevation plane can be realized by varying the capacitance of varactor diodes loaded on the radiation edge of the half-width leaky wave antenna. The simulated results show that the conical beam scans from 22° to 43° at 2.46 GHz in the elevation plane. The ripple is less than 1.5 dB and the gain is better than 4.8 dBi. This fixed-frequency beam electronically scanning capability makes the proposed antenna being potentially useful for wireless communication systems in the bio-medical applications.