Multi-Beam Luneburg Lens with Reduced Size Patch Antenna

Abstract

This paper describes the integration of a plate Luneburg lens with a microstrip patch antenna (MPA) with a complementary split ring resonator (CSRR) at 17 GHz frequency. The main advantage of the method is the compact size of the optimized MPA with CSRR such that the radiation pattern of the antennas successfully overlaps at −3 dB. The overlapping is achieved by positioning multiple MPA with CSRR structures around the plate Luneburg lens with 0.408λ distance between the elements. To test the performance of the lens, CST simulations are carried out using a classical WR62 open-ended waveguide to feed the structure, then adding more waveguides rotated at focal points of the lens. After that, the waveguide is substituted with the MPA with CSRR structure. The superiority of the proposed method over the conventional waveguide or regular patch antenna is confirmed by an overlap in radiation pattern at −3 dB with a narrow beamwidth of 10.9°.