Design of dielectric lens antennas for multibeam applications

Paper describes designing procedure of dielectric lens antennas (DLA) for multibeam applications. Two configurations of DLAs are considered, namely: two-shell circularly-layered lens excited by a horn antenna and shaped homogeneous flat-bottom lens excited by an array of printed feeds. Synthesis of the antennas is carried out in the 2-D formulation using highly-efficient in-house softwares based on rigorous mathematical approaches (Mie-type series solution for the former and Muller's boundary integral equations for the latter). It is demonstrated that simultaneous optimization of lens and feeding structure parameters enables one to design a beam-switching DLA with improve performance characteristics (boresight directivity and steering ability) using standard low-loss dielectric materials.