Full-Space Electronic Beam-Steering Transmitarray With Integrated Leaky-Wave Feed

A new low-profile, full-space, electronic beam-steering antenna architecture which combines the full-space beam-steering properties of reconfigurable transmitarrays with the low-profile feeding characteristics of leaky-wave antennas is proposed. The design uses an integrated leaky-wave feed to spatially distribute power across a reconfigurable transmitarray aperture in a low-profile manner while individual element phase control using varactor diodes enables full-space pencil-beam-steering. A 6× 6 element array was fabricated and experimentally verified, and full-space (both azimuth and elevation) beam-steering was demonstrated at angles up to 45° off broadside with a total efficiency for all scan angles on the order of 25%-35%. The design demonstrates a tenfold reduction in the overall thickness over the original transmitarray, improved aperture amplitude distribution control, as well as improved spillover control. The design also acts as a lower cost, scalable alternative to phased arrays as it does not require a complicated beamforming network and the feed and aperture are easily scaled.