Ricerc@Sapienza

Directive pencil beams scannable in both elevation and azimuth are obtained through a planar phased array placed inside a Fabry-Perot cavity. The key element of the proposed approach is the exploitation of a conical element pattern (EP) with high directivity in elevation, obtained through the excitation of a dominant, weakly attenuated cylindrical TM leaky wave of azimuthal order n = 0 by means of a simple coaxial probe. Then, a highly reduced number N of such sources are arranged to form a phased array radiating directive pencil beams. Beam-angle reconfigurability with continuous scanning both in azimuth and elevation inside a wide solid angular range is achieved by varying the array phasing and the operating frequency. An investigation on the features of truncated cylindrical leaky waves is first developed to properly characterize the EP. Then, conventional array theory is exploited to calculate the pattern of the entire array. The radiation efficiency is also evaluated accounting for the spurious surface wave related to the undesired excitation of the quasi-TEM mode. The proposed array design provides a simple and inexpensive innovative solution for obtaining a high-gain pencil beam continuously scanning in the 3-D space without suffering gain losses. In the presented implementation, the elevation angular scan, which is generally constrained by the wideband capability of the feeding system, by the requirements on the sidelobe level, and by the cutoff of the relevant leaky mode, ranges from about 21 degrees to about 68 degrees. Possible applications are envisaged for the next generation of wireless power transfer devices, for advanced radar and surveillance systems, earth observation, as well as for ceiling-mounted indoor localization and tracking.