A Novel Microstrip Antenna Array with Metamaterial-Based Electronic Beam Steering at 2.4 GHz

A metamaterial based electronically controlled microstrip structure, performing as leaky wave (LW) antenna with beam steering capability was synthesized. The structure has the configuration of metamaterial transmission line(TL) composed of cascade composite right- /left-handed(CRLH) unit cells. The direction of maximum radiation is tuned via the variation of varactros' capacities incorporated to the structure. Theoretical analysis and synthesis, based on the metamaterial TL theory, was made and novel methods to realize some of the elements of the units cells are proposed. Results, received via simulation, demonstrate that the LW antenna has steering capability of the direction of maximum radiation in a range of 40°, gain changing a little, 6 dB to 7 dB, during the scanning, whereas small number of cells is enough to obtain this performance.