Microwave plasmonic frequency diverse array for high-resolution far-field target localization using a single physical channel

Abstract Developing highly compact, low-cost and light-weight localization apparatus enables the feasibility of their massive deployment greatly broadens the horizon of their applications, which prompts the need to reduce the receiver hardware complexity. The optimal solution would be a single-channel system, but it inherently suffers from the tightly constrained angular resolution. Here, a non-uniform frequency diverse array (FDA) is proposed to achieve high-resolution localization with a single receiver channel. By integrating the spoof plasmonic technology into the FDA system to mitigate mutual coupling, the transmitting frequency diverse components are isolated at the receiver to enable further utilization of virtual multi-channel processing and push the resolution limit. The capability of the designed FDA prototype is confirmed by measured results of time-varying electromagnetic distributions and several closely-spaced target localizations and their resolutions.