All-metal Ku-band Luneburg lens antenna based on variable parallel plate spacing Fakir bed of nails

C.D. Diallo (1) , E. Girard , H. Legay , R. Sauleau (1)

1 IETR - Institut d'Électronique et des Technologies du numéRique

This paper presents an all-metal parallel plate waveguide (PPW) Luneburg lens designed using an array of subwavelength Fakir bed of nails unit-cells. Variation of the metal post height and PPW-spacing modulates the effective refractive index. The lens operates in the Ku-band of frequencies, with more than 40% bandwidth, in a quasi-TEM mode. Broadband and low loss, with high directivity and wide field-of-view, this antenna could be an excellent candidate as a lens-like beamformer for multiple beams satellite communication applications. © 2017 Euraap.

Keywords: Luneburg; metamaterial; multibeam; multiple beams; parallel-plate; satellite; unit-cell; waveguide; Bed-of-nails; communication; Fakir; fan beam; lens

Domains: Computer Science [cs]; Networking and Internet Architecture [cs.NI]; Engineering Sciences [physics]; Electronics

C.D. Diallo, E. Girard, H. Legay, R. Sauleau. All-metal Ku-band Luneburg lens antenna based on variable parallel plate spacing Fakir bed of nails. 11th European Conference on Antennas and Propagation, EUCAP 2017, Mar 2017, Paris, France. ⟨10.23919/EuCAP.2017.7928274⟩. ⟨hal-01622653⟩