Demonstration of Radial Line Helical Phased Array with Antenna Elements Rotated by Motors

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a novel radial line planar phased array in which helical antenna elements are individually rotated by their respective connected micromotors to realize dynamic beam-scanning. We designed, fabricated, and evaluated a 7-circle array with 168 helical antennas fabricated using molded interconnect device technology. The prototype antenna exhibits dynamic and accurate beam-forming performance, and also exhibits a low reflection coefficient of less than −17 and high antenna efficiency of 77%.