Millimeter-wave homogenous cylindrical lens antenna for multiple fan-beam scanning.

A multi-beam cylindrical lens antenna operating at mm-wave frequencies has been designed using dielectric-filled parallel plate techniques. The system is composed of a homogeneous cylindrical lens and an arc feed array of planar linearly tapered slot antenna (LTSA). The cylindrical lens is made out of Rexolite (∊T=2.54) and sandwiched between two parallel plates. The LTSA feed array is placed between the parallel plates at the periph-ery of the cylindrical lens to launch multiple beams. A ray-tracing method and CST-MWS are used to analyze and design this cylindrical lens antenna at 30 GHz. Measured results of a fabricated cylindrical lens, with a diameter of 100 mm, show good agreement with simu-lations. The measured 3-dB E- and H-plane beamwidths are 6.0° and 52°, respectively, and the sidelobe level in the E-plane is --14.7 dB. An impedance bandwidth of 16.7% is achieved over which the measured aperture efficiencies are better than 61.5%. The mea-sured £-plane patterns of a 25-beam array with a crossover of --3 dB and a scan angle of 150° are also demonstrated, which provide a wide scan angle at mm-wave band. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]