The planar array antenna with two-dimensional radiation pattern reconfigurable elements

We propose a sparse array antenna using radiation pattern reconfigurable antenna. The sparse array radiates grating lobes on undesirable directions and decreases the gain on the desired direction. In order to overcome the problem, we apply a radiation pattern reconfigurable antenna to the element of the sparse array. A feature of the proposal antenna is applicability to two dimensional beam scanning. Though two dimensional beam scanning of a sparse array radiates grating lobes on various directions, the proposed antenna yield 9 types of element patterns and reduce grating lobes by selecting the element pattern. The gain improvement and the grating lobe reduction are demonstrated by numerical simulation.