A Study on Conformal Metasurface Influences on Passive Beam Steering

Abstract

Beam-steering has drawn significant interest due to the expansion of network capacity. However, a traditional beam steering system involves active phase shifters and controlling networks which can be complex. This work studied the influence of passive conformal metasurface on conventional patch antenna. The phase shifting was achieved by changing the curvature of a conformal metasurface. In addition, three low-cost conformal prototypes were fabricated and tested using different techniques such as 3D printing. The simulations and measurement results indicate up to 20° of beam shifting and reasonable gain increase. Compared with other research in the similar topic, the antenna system is completely passive, and the conformal metasurface is independent of the conventional patch antenna. Therefore, such study will be easy to implement with other antenna research especially for low power consumption beam steering systems.