EFFICIENCY IMPROVEMENT FOR ELECTRONICALLY STEERED DUAL-BEAM ANTENNA BY USING METAMATERIAL BASED RADOME

Abstract

Efficiency improvement for electronically steered dual-beam antenna by using metamaterial based radome are a PCB based circular-patch antenna design for dual beam steering is presented. This design employs the symmetrical slots inserted into the surface at eight angles of circular-patch antenna, thus, the original circular-patch antenna is reconfigured as consisting of eight small square-patches placed on eight angles and separated by such the slots. The beam steering property of this antenna can be implemented by controlling the on/off state of PIN diodes, which connected between each small square-patches and main patch at each angle of the structure. When the diode is on, the small square-patch becomes a part of radiating patch, whereas is off, the small square-patch becomes the parasitic element. The antenna is designed for the future high altitude platform such as, drone, Aircraft, missile, etc. That can be tracked or commanded from its control station within the given range and without disconnection. This antenna is investigated at 5.8 GHz of frequency and provided the bandwidth at 113 MHz, which is high enough for the unmanned aerial vehicles UAVs application, The antenna provides the gain of 7.13 dB without meta radome and switchable the dual-beam in eight different space quadrants for the azimuth plane by exciting forward bias with binary sequence to the PIN diodes. While it provides the constant tilted beam of 35° and angular width (3dB) 52.4° in the elevation plane and efficiency improvement for the antenna provides a gain of 10.18 dB with meta radome, approximately.