A Compact Broadside Coupled Stripline 2-D Beamforming Network and Its Application to a 2-D Beam Scanning Array Antenna Using Panasonic Megtron 6 Substrate

Abstract

This article presents a 4-way 2-D butler matrix (BM)-based beamforming network (BFN) using a multilayer substrate broadside coupled stripline (BCS). To achieve the characteristics of a compact, wide-bandwidth, high-gain phased array, a BCS coupler is implemented using the Megtron 6 substrate. The compact 2-D BFN is formed by combining planarly two horizontal BCS couplers and two vertical BCS couplers. The BFN is proposed without a crossover and without a phase shifter, generating phase responses of ±90° in the x- and y-directions, respectively. The proposed BFN exhibits a wide operating band of 66.7% (3–7 GHz) and a compact physical area of just 0.25 λ0 × 0.25 λ0 × 0.04 λ0. The planar 2-D BFN is easily integrated with the patch antenna radiation elements to construct a 2-D multibeam array antenna that generates four fixed beams, one in each quadrant, at an elevation angle of 30° from the broadside to the array axis when the element separation is 0.6 λ0. The physical area of the 2-D multibeam array antenna is just 0.8 λ0 × 0.8 λ0 × 0.04 λ0. The prototypes of the BCS coupler, the 2-D BFN, and the 2-D multibeam array antenna were fabricated and measured. The measured and simulated results were in good agreement. A gain of 9.1 to 9.9 dBi was measured.