True-Time-Delay Mechanical Phase Shifter in Gap Waveguide Technology for Slotted Waveguide Arrays in Ka-band

Daniel Sanchez-Escuderos, Jose I. Herranz-Herruzo, Miguel Ferrando-Rocher, Alejandro Valero-Nogueira
2020 IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation  
This paper proposes a novel all-metal mechanical phase shifter in gap waveguide technology. The phase shifter is aimed at providing beam-scanning capabilities to conventional slot array antennas along the elevation plane. To validate experimentally the beam-steering functionality, a 4×8 slot-array antenna has been designed and fabricated, along with the phaseshifting mechanism. The whole antenna consists of two pieces: a lower rotatable block, which changes the length of concentric Groove Gap
more » ... veguides, and an upper fixed block, where the slot-array antenna is placed. Experimental results validate the proposed concept, having obtained steering angles of up to 25 • , with gain levels around 20 dBi with an antenna efficiency close to 90%. A reflection coefficient below −10 dB is achieved for a wide range of rotation angles from 29.5 GHz to 30.5 GHz. The proposed phase shifter is completely scalable to any array size and its true-time-delay nature enables wide steering ranges for closely-spaced slot arrays with wideband radiation performance.
doi:10.1109/tap.2020.3030993 fatcat:6piv37nuyvejredhesppzzshna