2D Steerable Multi-Beam Antenna for Concurrent Wireless Communication Systems

Multi-beam antenna is an essential subsystem for concurrent wireless communication systems in satellite and massive multi-input multi-output (MIMO) applications. In this brief, we presented the first experimantal demonstration of a concurrent two-dimension (2D) steerable multi-beam antenna (SMBA) based on multi-feed reconfigurable reflectarray. The features and practicality of the 2D SMBA are verified with theoretical analysis, full-wave simulation and experimental measurements based on a prototype working at 9.3 GHz with around 300 MHz bandwidth. With element’s tunable range of more than 290°, the SMBA can be steered continuously up to θ=±49.4° (φ = 0 360°) in two-dimension. Meanwhile, with multiple beams steered simultaneously, the 2D SMBA can eliminate the crossover regions between adjacent beams of conventional multi-beam systems. The architecture would be potentially used in many wireless communication applications, such as satellite communications.