A beam-steering array using liquid crystal phase shifter

Abstract

A beam-steering array operating in the 28-GHz band is described, including a 1-by-4 patch antenna array, liquid crystal (LC) based microstrip meander line phase shifters and feeding networks. The RF signal is coupled to the patch antenna array from the slots in the ground plane. The LC phase shifters are implemented in a kind of inverted microstrip line (IMSL) topology by filling liquid crystal between two RT/duroid 5880 substrates(εr = 2.2, tanδ = 0.0009) with a figure-of-merit of 45.2°/dB at 28 GHz. Simulation results of the scattering parameters and the radiation patterns of the antenna are presented and discussed here.