Design study of electronically steerable half-width microstrip leaky wave antennas

A half-width microstrip leaky-wave antenna (HMLWA) having electronic beam steering capabilities is presented. Electronic beam scanning is demonstrated in X-, Ku- and Ka-bands through detailed design analysis and measurements. Two physical design approaches are studied; one requiring multi-layer processing and another requiring only a single layer metallization. In this paper, only the single layer design was implemented. Varactor diodes are edge coupled to the antenna element to achieve beam scanning as a function of the applied voltage at a fixed frequency. Beam scanning of 45-degrees for an 8 GHz design and 30-degrees for a 16 GHz antenna design are demonstrated. Details of design, fabrication and measurements are presented.