A Fan-Beam Millimeter-Wave Antenna Based On Modified Luneberg Cylindrical Lens

A new design of lens antenna at millimeter-wave frequencies is introduced with special focus on ease of manufacturing and reliability. The system is composed of a modified Luneberg cylindrical lens and a feed antenna. The modified Luneberg cylindrical lens consists of two parallel plates with the space between plates only filled with air, thus free of dielectric loss. A planar linear tapered slot antenna (LTSA) is inserted into the air region between the parallel plates at the edge of the lens as a feed antenna. A combined ray-optics method and CST-MWS are used to analyze and design this cylindrical lens antenna at 30 GHz. Due to its spherical symmetry, the proposed lens can be used to launch multiple beams by implementing an arc array of planar LTSA elements at the periphery of the lens. The proposed antenna can be easily extended for higher mm-wave frequencies, and is well suitable for scanning fan-beam applications, such as aircraft landing systems.