We present the Galactic Radio Explorer (GReX), an all-sky monitor to probe the brightest bursts in the radio sky. Building on the success of STARE2, we will search for fast radio bursts (FRBs) emitted from Galactic magnetars as well as bursts from nearby galaxies. GReX will search down to ∼ ten microseconds time resolution, allowing us to find new super giant radio pulses from Milky Way pulsars and study their broadband emission. The proposed instrument will employ ultra-wide band (0.7-2 GHz) feeds coupled to a high performance (receiver temperature < 10 K) low noise amplifier (LNA) originally developed for the DSA-110 and DSA-2000 projects. In GReX Phase I (GReX-I), unit systems will be deployed at Owens Valley Radio Observatory (OVRO), NASA's Goldstone station, and at Telescope Array, Delta Utah. Phase II will expand the array, placing feeds in India, Australia, and elsewhere in order to build up to continuous coverage of nearly 4π steradians and to increase our exposure to the Galactic plane. We model the local magnetar population to forecast for GReX, finding the improved sensitivity and increased exposure to the Galactic plane could lead to dozens of FRB-like bursts per year.

Recent work has proposed that millimeter-wave beam steering antennas consisting of lens antenna subarrays (LASs) reduce hardware complexity. This manuscript extends the concept to 2D beam steering with extended hemispherical dielectric lenses (EHDLs). To accomplish this, we introduce a design process to maximize scan range and side lobe level (SLL) performance. The design process first employs the solution of the geometric disk covering problem to identify the initial positions of the feed antennas such that the subarray size, M , is minimized. This process is followed by systematic 3D full-wave simulationbased parametric sweeps of lens geometry and feed antenna positions to maximize scan range and minimize SLL. Finally, we demonstrate this process with a 38 GHz antenna consisting of L = 7 LASs and M = 17 feed antennas per LAS. The resulting antenna has a ±36°field of view, -9.5 dB SLL, 5°half-power beamwidth, and ∼20 dBi maximum realized gain. Compared to the existing literature on subarray-based beam-steering antennas, this antenna performs with a more extensive scan range while offering a comparable SLL performance.

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