Ultra-wideband, low-profile and wide-scanning phased array antenna based on meta-surface

To meet the requirement of antenna bandwidth, antenna profile and beam coverage for the multifunction electronic systems, a 6–18 GHz dual-polarized phased array antenna with planar, low-profile and wide-scanning performance is proposed. To suppress the parasitic resonant-modes in the operating band caused by the unbalanced and short-circuited balun and extend the bandwidth, the ridge-type structures consisting of the grounded post and the printed metal-plate are added into the array at first. Then, the electromagnetic meta-surface based wide-scanning impedance matching layer is designed to lower the reflection loss when scanning. Moreover, the dielectric layers of the proposed antenna are perforated periodically to reduce the effective permittivity around the radiators and eliminate the excitation of a surface wave when scanning. Based on the above methods, ultra-wideband and wide-scanning performance are achieved together with the low antenna profile using the multi-layer printed circuit board (PCB) process. The simulation results show that the array has the beam scanning capability of ±75° and ±60° respectively at the typical azimuth angle φ=90° and φ=0°, and the array profile height is less than 3.52 mm. To validate the correctness of this design, an 8×8 dual-polarized array is fabricated and measured. The measured and simulated results show a good agreement. This antenna achieves the ultra-wideband, low-profile and wide-scanning characteristics, as well as providing a novel antenna array structure for the multifunction electronic systems.