Design of a SIW Variable Phase Shifter for Beam Steering Antenna Systems

Abstract

This paper proposes a new beam steering antenna system consisting of two variable reflection-type phase shifters, a 3 dB coupler, and a 90° phase transition. The entire structure is designed and fabricated on a single layer of substrate integrated waveguide (SIW), which makes it a low loss and low-profile antenna system. Surface mount tuning varactor diodes are chosen as electrical phase control elements. By changing the biasing voltage of the varactor diodes in the phase shifter circuits, the far-field radiation pattern of the antenna steers from −25° to 25°. The system has a reflection coefficient better than −10 dB for a 2 GHz bandwidth centered at 17 GHz, a directive radiation pattern with a maximum of 10.7 dB gain at the mid-band frequency, and cross polarization better than 20 dB. A prototype is fabricated and measured for design verification. The measured far-field radiation patterns, co and cross polarization, and the reflection coefficient of the antenna system agree with simulated results.

Millimeter-Wave Communications

“…In one case, a 60 GHz segmented parabolic reflective curved antenna, with a gain of 20 dBi at 64 GHz, is presented by Cai, Sun, and Lei [3], while Massaccesi, Dassano, and Pirinoli [4] design a perforated dielectric transmitarray and analyze its beam scanning capabilities. Also related to beam steering antennas, Salem Hesari and Bornemann [5] describe the design, fabrication, and assessment of a substrate integrated waveguide variable phase shifter that may steer the radiation pattern of the antenna by ±25º.…”

A Compact 3.3–3.5 GHz Filter Based on Modified Composite Right-/Left-Handed Resonator Units

“…where φ C is the phase shift due to two CRLH units, and φ SIW is the phase shift due to the SIW section: where a eff is the effective width of the SIW TL. Then, a resonate frequency can be derived by putting Equations (10) and (11) into Equation (9) and solving the equation:…”

“…Due to the need to meet the small size requirement of sub-6G portable devices, compact sub-6G filter design has become a hot research topic in recent years. Substrate integrated waveguides (SIWs) are widely used in RF (Radio Frequency) passive device designs due to their low loss and low cost and the flexibility of their integration properties, such as their filter [1][2][3][4][5][6], antenna [7][8][9], phase shifter [10][11][12][13][14], power divider [15][16][17][18], coupler [19][20][21][22], etc. However, SIW filters under 6 GHz are still too large to meet the requirement of portable communication devices because of their long wavelength.…”