A single band beam scanning active phased array antenna

Abstract

A fixed frequency phased rectangular microstrip antenna array is proposed. It consists of two patch antennas places side by side and one element is fed with a meandered phase delay. Additionally varactor diodes have been used to vary the overall phase delay for beam scanning. The design avoids any additional bias paths and only on external bias-tee is required for biasing. A prototype that can scan its main lobe between 7° and 32° and with the resonance frequency tunable between 2027 MHz and 2210 MHz, under different bias conditions, has been fabricated as a proof of concept. The fabricated antenna also has an additional tunable resonance between 2356 MHz and 2450 MHz.