A Photonically-Excited Leaky-Wave Antenna Array at E-Band for 1-D Beam Steering

Abstract

This manuscript reports the first leaky-wave antenna (LWA) array excited by a photomixer as well as its potential application for alignment in wireless links. The designed array is manufactured in printed circuit board (PCB) technology, works at the E-band (from 75 to 85 GHz), and provides a directive beam of about 18 dBi with a frequency scanning span of 22°. The antenna element consists of a microstrip line periodically loaded with stubs, and it has been designed employing a hybrid approach combining full-wave simulations and transmission line theory. This approach enables the optimization of the periods when the open-stopband of the LWA is mitigated or removed at the frequency of broadside emission. The proposed antenna was first tested using a ground signal ground (GSG) probe; the measured return loss and radiation patterns of the fabricated prototype were in good agreement with full-wave simulations. Then, the LWA array was integrated with the photomixer chip using conductive epoxy threads. Measurements of the radiated power yielded a maximum of 120 µW at 80.5 GHz for a 9.8 mA photocurrent. Finally, the antenna was used in a 25 cm wireless link, obtaining a 2.15 Gbps error-free data rate.

An Antenna Array for Photonic Beam Switching in mm-Wave Wireless Communications

“…Finally, the beam forming network is largely simplified respect to that of a phased array, and beam switching can be performed using low insertion loss and low power consuming optical switches. stacked patches, each sub-array is integrated with a photodiode (PD) as in [11].…”

Low-Cost and Low-Profile Sub-Terahertz Luneburg Lens Beamformer on Polymer

“…Beam-steering is also compulsory to accurately align antennas with narrow beamwidth in long-distance point-to-point links [4] and to enable user mobility and point-to-multipoint operation [5]. Leakywave antennas (LWA) [6] are a simple solution to steer a beam without the need of phase shifters [7] by just using a different carrier frequency. As a result, low-profile LWA architectures based on low-cost organic materials and fabrication techniques are a promising solution to satisfy the stringent tolerances and to overcome losses at such high frequencies.…”

Cavity-Backed Broadband Microstrip Antenna Array for Photonic Beam Steering at W Band

“…Different solutions have been explored so far for photonic-enabled beam steering, such as tapered slot antennas (TSA) [5], horns [6], super-lattice photo-mixing arrays [7] or leaky-waves antennas [8]- [9]. These solutions are suitable for the photonic generation of the carrier, but are not easy to integrate into large 2D arrays because of the endfire radiation of TSAs, the large form factor of metallic horns and the inherent difficulty of integrating the photodiodes in arrays with a larger element count.…”