Rotman 3
Rotman 3
9, SEPTEMBER 2018
I. I NTRODUCTION
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NGUYEN et al.: DESIGN OF A 360ł SCANNING CIRCULARLY SYMMETRIC POLYGON LENS                                                                              4459
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4460                                                           IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 66, NO. 9, SEPTEMBER 2018
         360   √
                M   M
                             √
 ϕ =           | εr Fi P j − εeff T j − D j sin i |.               (10)
         M 2
               i=1 j =1
                                                                              G AF (Mmin ) = G min − G el . Now, in order for the circular
                                                                              lens to scan contiguously while maintaining the minimum gain
   However, for an optimal solution, the phase error should be                requirement, we need to satisfy the condition in (13) which
a function of all design parameters, including the radius of the              states that the total beamwidth covered by the linear array at
circle R and transmission line lengths T j . The solution offered             each facet (i.e., M × BW) must be at least 360°/N p degrees,
in [28] assumes an a priori knowledge or a good guess for                     and the value of N P is chosen such that it is the smallest even
this value. A change in the radius leads to a change in all port              integer. We note that our convention for all gain values are
positions Fi and P j . As a result, the optimization algorithm                in dBi in the calculations as follows:
which assumes one of the design parameters as known cannot
offer a general solution that our method inherently provides.                                M × BW°(G min , M) × N P > 360°.                        (13)
Any assumption of a priori knowledge likely needs some
iterative guesses for a successful result, while we solve for                    At this stage, we want to use (13) to determine the array
all unknowns simultaneously at the first attempt.                             dimension, the polygon shape, and the number of scan steps.
                                                                              Fig. 4 shows the beamwidth and the reduction in gain from
                                                                              the peak value for different array sizes ranging from M = 3
B. Proposed Circular Lens Solution
                                                                              to M = 10. We observe in Fig. 4 that for a given array size M
  Based on the previous discussion on the optimization                        and the minimum required gain G min , the beamwidth can be
approach, we are interested in an analytical solution, which                  computed, and finally the polygon shape N p is determined
accounts for a set of input parameters. A designer usually                    from (13). Hence, all the possible polygon shapes N p are
wants to have an antenna system that can scan in the full                     known from the designer input parameters including the min-
azimuth domain with a minimum gain G min requirement                          imum gain to scan, the antenna fed by the circular lens, and
everywhere in the scan region. Assuming a linear phased array                 the size of the linear array.
with half wavelength spacing, the gain can be calculated as                      We now consider a particular case and assume that the
              G arr (M, θ ) = G el (θ ) + G AF (M, θ ).               (11)    antenna designer would like to have a system that can cover
                                                                              the entire azimuth plane with a minimum gain of 10 dBi;
   In (11), G arr (M, θ ) is the total gain in dBi of the linear              i.e., G arr ≥ (G min = 10 dBi). In our analysis, we also
phased array which is a function of the array size and the                    assume using a patch antenna with a peak gain G el = 6.8 dBi
observed far-field angle θ , G el (θ ) is the gain pattern in dBi             for the elements of the arrays. Equation (11) suggests that
from a single element, and G AF (M, θ ) is the array factor                   G AF ≥ 3.2 dBi, and the minimum number of array ele-
in dBi of that array. For simplicity, we neglect mutual coupling              ments is determined as M ≥ 3 from (12), as observed in
effects between the antenna elements, so the gain of the array                the peak gain values for G AF (M) in Fig. 4. The smallest
can be computed using the following equation [29]:                            array can be used that needs to have three elements since
                                      2 × AF(θ )2                             G AF (3) = 4.7.
               G AF (M, θ ) =  π                        .           (12)        Now, to illustrate how (13) can be applied to solve for the
                                  0   AF(θ )2 sin θ dθ                        polygon shape, we compute the product in (13) for M ≥ 3
   In the rest of this paper, the peak values of the gain                     elements. The orange line in Fig. 5 shows this product,
functions will be denoted by dropping the angular dependence;                 while the solid blue line is the corresponding beamwidth
i.e., G el will refer to the peak gain for G el (θ ).                         in degrees for different arrays of patch antenna. As the
   Once G min and G el are given, the minimum number of                       array size increases, the product becomes larger; hence,
linear array elements Mmin is determined using (12), where                    the value of N p gets smaller. As a result, possible polygon
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NGUYEN et al.: DESIGN OF A 360ł SCANNING CIRCULARLY SYMMETRIC POLYGON LENS                                                                          4461
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4462                                                            IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 66, NO. 9, SEPTEMBER 2018
                                 TABLE II
                  P OSSIBLE C IRCULAR L ENS S OLUTIONS
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NGUYEN et al.: DESIGN OF A 360ł SCANNING CIRCULARLY SYMMETRIC POLYGON LENS                                                                               4463
                                  TABLE III
                 FABRICATED O CTAGON L ENS PARAMETERS
                                                                                 Fig. 9. Amplitude level between measurement and simulation from (a) beam
software FEKO. The S-parameter simulation results, therefore,                    port 1 and (b) beam port 3.
can be obtained by solving the entire lens using the full-
wave method, which takes into account the coupling effects
among all ports. Similar to [28], the phase response from all
beam ports in one facet is measured and compared with the
simulated model. Fig. 8 shows the phase comparison between
measured and simulated values across the four output ports for
each input port at a center frequency of 12 GHz. We observe
a good agreement with a maximum phase deviation of 13°.
The received amplitude levels of input ports 1 and 3 at a
center frequency of 12 GHz are shown in Fig. 9(a) and (b),
respectively. In order to compare the amplitude response
accurately, the external loss from the measurement process
has been compensated. The received amplitude level shows a
good agreement with a maximum mismatch of 2 dB. We note
that during the S-parameter measurements, all ports other than
the two ports under test were terminated with 50 loads.                          Fig. 10. (a) Single patch dimension. (b) Linear patch array of four elements.
   To investigate the effect of the errors in amplitude and
phase values, we fed the measured S-parameter data to a                          limited by the antenna element. Fig. 11 shows the measured
patch array in FEKO, to simulate the radiation pattern. The                      return loss of all four receiving ports in the band of interest
patch element was designed at a center frequency of 12 GHz                       from 10 to 14 GHz. The lens ports yield a good return loss
with an input impedance of 50           using an inset feed.                     of more than 15 dB from 10 to 13 GHz, thus providing a
Fig. 10(a) shows the design details of the single patch while                    broadband performance. Hence, the bandwidth of the overall
Fig. 10(b) demonstrates the fabricated patch array support-                      system is determined by the bandwidth of the array elements
ing one of the facets of the octagon lens, with a 1 by 4                         that the lens feeds.
switch matrix. The microstrip Rotman lens itself is inher-                          The patch array is used to radiate the received fields at the
ently broadband, but the overall bandwidth of the system is                      output ports of each facet, whereas the beam ports steer the
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4464                                                              IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 66, NO. 9, SEPTEMBER 2018
radiated beam. The radiation pattern of one pair of sectors                                                  VI. C ONCLUSION
at 12 GHz is shown in Fig. 12(a), while the full coverage                           In this paper, we propose a novel design of a 360° scanning
of the octagonal lens generated by all eight sectors is shown                     polygon lens. The design formulation involves simultaneously
in Fig. 12(b). The peak gain achieved is 11 dBi with the                          solving three optical phase equations, using the Bootlace lens
corresponding beamwidth of 15° so that at least 10 dBi gain is                    model, for three focal beam ports residing on a circular
achieved as the lens transitions from one beam to the next. The                   inner contour. The advantages of this analytical design are
scanning range of one facet would not cover 45° or ±22.5°                         the simplicity and the generalization when compared with
as can be observed in Fig. 12(a) because the beam that                            earlier proposed designs. As an example, an octagon lens
scans to the maximum range, i.e., −22.5°, is generated by                         was fabricated for experimental validation of our design. The
the shared beam port to avoid overlapping. It is important to                     comparison between measurements and simulations shows
note that our full-wave simulation for the radiation pattern                      good agreement over the band of interest.
obtained in Fig. 12 incorporates all coupling effects between
the ports when we compute the received amplitude and phase                                                       R EFERENCES
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       Authorized licensed use limited to: XIDIAN UNIVERSITY. Downloaded on November 20,2024 at 15:36:12 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
NGUYEN et al.: DESIGN OF A 360ł SCANNING CIRCULARLY SYMMETRIC POLYGON LENS                                                                                 4465
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[16] N. J. G. Fonseca, “A focal curve design method for Rotman lenses with                                ing and Computer Science, CUA. His current
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     Antennas Propag., vol. 56, no. 8, pp. 2504–2513, Aug. 2008.                                            degrees in electrical engineering with a focus on
[20] O. Kilic and S. Weiss, “Rotman lens designs for military applications,”                                electrophysics from The George Washington Uni-
     Radio Sci. Bull., no. 333, pp. 10–24, Jun. 2010.                                                       versity, Washington, DC, USA, in 1991 and 1996,
[21] T. K. Vo Dai, T. Nguyen, and O. Kilic, “A non-focal Rotman lens design                                 respectively, and the B.S. degree in electrical and
     to support cylindrically conformal array antenna,” ACES Express J.,                                    electronics engineering from Boğaziçi University,
     vol. 1, no. 7, pp. 205–208, Jul. 2016.                                                                 Istanbul, Turkey, in 1989.
[22] N. Jastram and D. S. Filipovic, “Design of a wideband millimeter wave                                    She was an Electronics Engineer with the U.S.
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     no. 6, pp. 2790–2796, Jun. 2015.                                                                       where she managed small business innovative
[23] T. Nguyen, T. K. Vo Dai, and O. Kilic, “Rotman lens-fed aper-                                          research programs for the development of hybrid
     ture coupled array antenna at millimeter wave,” in Proc. IEEE Int.          numerical electromagnetic tools to analyze and design electrically large
     Symp. Antennas Propag. (APSURSI), Fajardo, PR, USA, Jun./Jul. 2016,         structures, such as the Rotman lens. She was a Senior Member of the Technical
     pp. 63–64.                                                                  Staff and a Program Manager with COMSAT Laboratories, Clarksburg, MD,
[24] A. I. Zaghloul and J. Dong, “A concept for a lens configuration for 360°    USA, with a specialization in satellite communications, link modeling and
     scanning,” IEEE Antennas Wireless Propag. Lett., vol. 8, pp. 985–988,       analysis, and phased arrays and reflector antennas for satellite communications
     Aug. 2009.                                                                  system, for five years. In 2005, she joined The Catholic University of
[25] P. Chen et al., “A multibeam antenna based on substrate integrated          America (CUA), where she is currently the Associate Dean of engineering
     waveguide technology for MIMO wireless communications,” IEEE                and a Professor with the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer
     Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 57, no. 6, pp. 1813–1821, Jun. 2009.          Science. Her current research interests include antennas, wave propagation,
[26] N. J. G. Fonseca, “Design and implementation of a closed cylindrical        satellite communications, numerical electromagnetics, and microwave remote
     BFN-fed circular array antenna for multiple-beam coverage in azimuth,”      sensing.
     IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 60, no. 2, pp. 863–869, Feb. 2012.         Prof. Kilic has been serving leadership and editorial positions in a number
[27] J. Zhang, W. Wu, and D.-G. Fang, “360° scanning multi-beam antenna          of organizations such as the IEEE AP-S, USNC URSI, and ACES and has
     based on homogeneous ellipsoidal lens fed by circular array,” Electron.     wide range of experience in education, membership development, technical
     Lett., vol. 47, no. 5, pp. 298–300, Mar. 2011.                              committees, government/industry interface, and program management. She is
[28] J. Dong, “Microwave lens designs: Optimization, fast simulation             also serving as the Director of the Engineering Center for Care of Earth,
     algorithms, and 360-degree scanning techniques,” Ph.D. dissertation,        CUA, based on her past experience in applying microwave remote sensing
     Dept. Elect. Eng., VirginiaTech, Falls Church, VA, USA, 2009.               technology to monitoring of the vegetation and forest coverage on earth, and
[29] C. A. Balanis, “Arrays: Linear, planar, and circular,” in Antenna Theory,   her personal interest in the well-being of earth as human population and needs
     3rd ed. Hoboken, NJ, USA: Wiley, 2005, ch. 6, sec. 10, pp. 349–362.         increase.
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