A two-dimensional (2-D) discrete dielectric lens antenna is designed to radiate fan-shaped multi-beam patterns for gain stability in beam switching. The target is to minimize adjacent-beam overlapping transition regions and provide sufficient and similar gains for all field angles when the antenna is employed in a mobile device. This design starts with a conventional 2-D Luneburg lens antenna, and distorts its dielectric permittivity and the sizes of discrete dielectric rings to defocus the pencil beam patterns into shaped ones with a relatively flat pattern for uniform field distribution. The design is realistically implemented at 38 GHz with both simulation and measurement results shown to validate the concept. Successful validation of feasibility in beam synthesis is achieved. Fabrication discrepancy to result in slight radiation degradation is also discussed. INDEX TERMS Genetic algorithm, Luneburg lens antenna, multi-beam radiation, pattern synthesis.
In this paper, a multi-shell spherical dielectric lens antenna is synthesized to radiate multibeams with optimum shaped patterns for radio coverage at millimeter wave (mmW) frequencies. In particular, the design considers the composing characteristics of discrete multi-shell Luneburg lens antenna as an initial structure, and synthesizes its permittivity and sizes of dielectric shells to produce relatively shaped main beam patterns rather than conventional pencil-shapes. It targets to minimize inter-beam overlapping transition regions with slowly varying power density in the coverage boundary, and therefore reduce the ping-pong effect of inter-sector handovers to potentially minimize the inter-cell interferences arising from the over-large gain of pencil beam when the user equipment (UE) is at near the sector boundary far-off the beam peak. After the synthesis, the antenna is implemented at 38 GHz with both numerical simulation and measurement results shown to validate the concept. Successfully validation on the feasibility of beam synthesis in comparison to that of Luneburg lens antennas has been achieved. Discrepancy in fabrication to potentially result in slight radiation degradation is also discussed.INDEX TERMS Genetic algorithm, Luneburg lens antenna, multi-beam radiation, pattern synthesis.
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