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

[EN] This article 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 4x8 slot-...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Sánchez-Escuderos, Daniel, Herranz Herruzo, José Ignacio|||0000-0002-0507-1487, Ferrando-Rocher, Miguel|||0000-0003-4098-7180, Valero-Nogueira, Alejandro|||0000-0001-9296-4162
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2021
País:España
Institución:Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV)
Repositorio:RiuNet. Repositorio Institucional de la Universitat Politécnica de Valéncia
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:riunet.upv.es:10251/182858
Acceso en línea:https://riunet.upv.es/handle/10251/182858
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Beam scanning
Gap-waveguide (GW) technology
Phase shifter
Reconfigurable antenna
Satellite communications
Slot array
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Descripción
Sumario:[EN] This article 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 4x8 slot-array antenna has been designed and fabricated, along with the phase-shifting mechanism. The whole antenna consists of two pieces: a lower rotatable block, which changes the length of concentric groove gap waveguides, 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 degrees, 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 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