Printed Endfire Beam-Steerable Pixel Antenna

A novel design for an endfire beam-steerable planar printed pixel antenna is described. A key performance highlight of the antenna is its ability to beam steer through 300° in the azimuth plane without using any phase shifters. The design consists of a printed half-wavelength driven element and balun with a rectangular grid of parasitic pixels, switches, lumped elements, and dc bias lines on the same layer as the driven element. The pixels can be connected/disconnected together by means of switches, resulting in reconfigurability of the endfire beam direction. Simulation and experimental results are provided for a design operating at 2.5 GHz when p-i-n diode-based switches are used and its bandwidth is approximately 200 MHz (8%). The measured gain for different configurations at 2.5 GHz is 7.5 ± 2 dBi when the endfire beam is steered through a steerable range of over 300° in the azimuth plane. In addition, the effects of the switches on efficiency are also provided. Due to the potential performance of the proposed antenna, it can be considered as a possible candidate for biomedical applications, wearable systems, wireless powered communications, and future wireless communication applications.