Survey of Beam Steering Techniques Available for Millimeter Wave Applications

Abstract

Pattern reconfigurable antennas (beam steerable antennas) are essential for various applications in electronic engineering such as telecommunication and radar. They mitigate interference by channelling the antenna's radiation to the direction of interest. This ability is vital for millimetre wave frequency applications such as small cell backhaul links where high path loss, attenuation from obstacles, and misalignment due to wind sway and accidents are prevalent. Several techniques have been used to implement beam steering over the years, most of which achieves steering at the expense of antenna performance. In this article, we surveyed the various techniques used in achieving beam steering and analyse each based on some figures of merit with the aim of identifying areas of improvements for each beam steering technique.

Design and Realization of Circular Polarized Siw Slot Array Antenna for Cubesat Intersatellite Links

“…Fig. 3 illustrates the exploded structure, satellite walls and four face elements where the radiating antenna module is dynamically selected through a specific digital control switching circuit to activate beams in different directions to conform the radiation patterns accordingly [29]. This digital control switching circuit supporting the high gain functionality of the antenna beam to point into different directions based on the selection input [30,31].…”

Developments on phased array for low-cost, high frequency applications

“…In the earliest beam steering antennas [2] mechanical pointing was used to mitigate unwanted signals. In the following decades other solutions for steering beam antennas have been developed, such as direct radiating arrays, focal array fed reflectors, parasitic array antennas, array-fed lens antennas, switched beam antennas, traveling wave antennas, retro-directive antennas, and metamaterial antennas [3].…”

Directional antennas for point-to-multipoint millimetre wave communications

“…A lot of techniques have been developed for steering an antenna,with a survey for mmWave applications available from [4]. When selecting a beam steering technique, the following properties need to be considered: insertion loss, steering range and resolution, steering speed, complexity, size and cost.…”