Boyarsky Michael, Sleasman Timothy, Imani Mohammadreza F, Gollub Jonah N, Smith David R
Center for Metamaterials and Integrated Plasmonics, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Duke University, Durham, NC, 27708, USA.
Sci Rep. 2021 Feb 25;11(1):4693. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-83377-9.
Mobile devices, climate science, and autonomous vehicles all require advanced microwave antennas for imaging, radar, and wireless communications. We propose a waveguide-fed metasurface antenna architecture that enables electronic beamsteering from a lightweight circuit board with varactor-tuned elements. Our approach uses a unique feed structure and layout that enables spatial sampling at the Nyquist limit of half a wavelength. We detail the design of this Nyquist metasurface antenna and experimentally demonstrate electronic beamsteering in two directions. Nyquist metasurface antennas can realize high performance without costly and power hungry phase shifters, making them a compelling technology for future antenna hardware.
移动设备、气候科学和自动驾驶车辆都需要先进的微波天线用于成像、雷达和无线通信。我们提出了一种波导馈电的超表面天线架构，该架构能够通过变容二极管调谐元件在轻质电路板上实现电子波束转向。我们的方法采用了独特的馈电结构和布局，能够在半波长的奈奎斯特极限处进行空间采样。我们详细介绍了这种奈奎斯特超表面天线的设计，并通过实验证明了其在两个方向上的电子波束转向。奈奎斯特超表面天线无需昂贵且耗电的移相器就能实现高性能，使其成为未来天线硬件的一项极具吸引力的技术。
