Design development and experimental validation of an EBG matrix antenna for tracking application

Abstract

Today's increase of functions, improvement of performances, and cost reductions required on an agile electronically scanned antenna, drive researchers to develop an innovative antennas’ concept in order to deal with the proposed challenge. In this context, this article describes and demonstrates an experimental prototype to show the reliability and efficiency of the electromagnetic band gap(EBG)matrix antenna theoretical aspect, for beam forming and beam steering applications. The originality of this work is the antenna itself which constitutes the subject of an accepted national and international patent. In fact, the proposed antenna is based on the equivalent radiating surface approach and used special EBG antennas called “pixels” to overcome some of the array approach defects. The antenna has demonstrated different electromagnetic behaviors, such as low mutual coupling, high gain preservation for high scanning angles values, etc.