Design of Beam Steering Patch Arrays Using

2020 IEEE International Symposium on Antennas and Propagation and North American Radio Science Meeting | 978-1-7281-6670-4/20/$31.00 ©2020 IEEE | DOI: 10.1109/IEEECONF35879.2020.9329451

Self-Phased Metasurface Pixels

Quang Nguyen and Amir I. Zaghloul

CCDC Army Research Laboratory (ARL), Adelphi, MD, 20783, USA
[email protected]; [email protected]

Abstract — In this paper, we present a new design concept of In this work, we propose a new approach to scan the beam in
microstrip patch antenna arrays that have analog beam steering phased array antenna using Huygens’ metasurfaces. The
without using phase shifters external to the array elements. This proposed structure has Huygens’ metasurfaces placed on top a
can be achieved by combining traditional probe-fed microstrip conventional patch array which is fed by probes. By tuning the
patch antenna arrays with anisotropic Huygens metasurfaces. A
metasurface pixel is fed by a microstrip patch, forming the phased-
dieletric constant of the substrate supporting the metasurface on
array element. The phase shifts between antenna elements are each patch, we create a required progressive phase variation
obtained by the Huygens’ metasurface pixel. Three layers of a between each element which results in tilting the beam in
metallic mesh are separated by two dielectric substrates to form desired direction. This can be achieved by using constituent
the Huygens metasurface pixel, which has an overall thickness of material as the substrate [3]. A proposed phased array is
about one third the operating wavelength. A proposed phased designed and simulated using full-wave electromagnetics
array is designed and simulated. The radiation pattern is shown to commercial software, FEKO. Beam steering from -20o to +20o
be able to steer the beam from minus 20 degrees to plus 20 degrees is demonstrated.
in analog fashion. This novel technique can greatly reduce the cost
of a phased-array system, especially in 5G massive MIMO system.
II. THEORY AND DESIGN
Index Terms — Beam steering, Huygens metasurface, patch The proposed phased array system composes of metasurface
antenna, self-phased. layers placed on top of conventional probe-fed microstrip
square patches as the phased array elements. The key concept
I. INTRODUCTION is to design metasurface layers that allow EM waves to totally

P HASED array is a key element in modern communication transmit with 2π phase control via tuning dieletric constant in
system nowadays. This is due to its wide range use in the substrate supporting the metasurfaces. This is a quite
various civil and military applications, such as cellular base challenging task since the phase variation is linked directly to
stations, radar, satellite communications and weather transmission amplitude and vice versa. In other word, one can
forecasting. In conventional phased array systems, one needs to either get 2π phase control with low-efficiency transmission or
create the phase shifts between antenna elements in order to high-efficiency transmission without 2π phase variation. To
steer the main beam to desired directions. This can be done by tackle this issue, we utilize the concept of electromagnetic
using feed network, incorporated with phase shifters. Although coupling between the cascaded metasurfaces which has
phase shifters have numerous technical advantages in demonstrated the ability to control both transmission phase and
controlling the phase, their cost is up to half of the cost of the amplitude completely [4]. Thus, we design the unit cell that is
entire scanning phased array system. Thus, developing a new composed of three layers of a metallic mesh, coupled with a
scanned phased array system without using phase shifters metallic patch, integrated with a dieletric substrate [5]. The
becomes essential task. geometry of single element phased array system is shown in
Fig. 1.
Recently, the Fabry-Perot Cavity Antenna (FPA) system has
received significant attention due to its simple planar structure In order to validate the design concept, a microstrip square
without complex feed network and phase shifters. It yields high patch with a length of 7.8 mm is simulated in FEKO. The probe-
gain and is generally formed by a partially reflective surface feeding position is 1.3 mm from the edge and the patch is placed
(PRS) on the top and perfect electric conductor (PEC) on the on a 1.5 mm thick substrate (εr = 3.55). The Huygens’
bottom to create a cavity. Inside a cavity, a simple feeding metasurfaces consists of 2x2 cells. Each cell contains three
element such as a dipole or patch antenna is used to excite the metallic layers and two intermediate dieletric layers. The
system. In [1], the authors utilized the phase-gradient passive metallic layer contains a square loop slot, with a side length of
PRS in FPA to create a fixed scanned beam. Active circuit 11 mm and a slot width of 0.5 mm, surrounding an 8 mm inner
elements, such as varactor or pin diodes, are incorporated in square patch. Each of the two dieletric layers has a thickness of
PRS to electronically control scanning [2]. 1.5 mm, with a dielectric constant that can be tuned from 2.65

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to 3.65 to realize the desired progressive phase variation
between antenna elements. There are also 3 mm thick foam
spacer between microstrip patches and metasurfaces (see Fig.
1). We choose the operating frequency of the system to be 9.1
GHz.

Figure 1. Geometry of proposed single-element phased array system

Figure 3. Simulated radiation pattern of the proposed three-element phased
III. SIMULATION RESULTS AND DISCUSSION array system.

As mentioned in the previous section, the required three-element phased array is shown in Fig. 3. It can be seen
progressive phase variation between elements in the array that a 20 degrees beam tilt in E-plane (x-z plane) toward +x
depends on the dieletric constant of metasurfaces’ supporting direction is realized at 9.1 GHz, which agrees with the design
layers. Thus, we computed the far field (phase) of a single patch criteria in the example mentioned above. In addition, the beam
with 2x2 metasurface cells on top as a function of dieletric can also steer toward -x direction if we switch the dieletric
constant with FEKO simulations, as depicted in Fig. 2. As seen constant of metasurfaces between element one and three.
in Fig. 2, by varying εr from 2.65 to 3.65, we can cover up to
220 degrees in transmission phase. Based on this result, we can IV. CONCULSION
tune the dieletric constant to obtain correct phase shift to steer The introduced design concept of patch antenna array
the beam in the desired direction. incorporated with Huygens’ metasurfaces has analog beam
steering without using phase shifters. By tuning the dielectric
constants of metasurfaces’ supporting layers, the main beam
direction can be tilted from -20 degrees to +20 degrees at 9.1
GHz in the three-element phased array. We believe that using
this design concept, ultralow cost, low profile phased array
system becomes a reality. In the near future, we will
experimentally verify the performance of this design.

REFERENCES
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Propagation Symposium and North American Radio Science Meeting
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respectively. The simulated radiation pattern of the proposed

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