Simulation and design of a novel K-band Microstrip Leaky-Wave Antenna with Metamaterial unit cell and Slow-Wave structure

In this letter, a novel microstrip leaky-wave antenna (MLWA) is presented. The antenna includes symmetrical ring-structure (SRS) as a Metamaterial unit cell and interdigital capacitor (IDC) as a slow wave structure. The proposed antenna is a periodic LWA with 8-cell and each period includes oneSRS. One IDC is located between each SRS unit cell (in x-y plane). Actually the MLWA consists of a microstrip line with a series IDC etched in the conductor strip and a group of SRS printed in the ground plane at the bottom of the structure. The length of proposed antenna is not huge. Length of the8-cell antenna is 64.1mm. Accurately this novel LWA has been investigated by commercial software. As result this miniaturized antenna main beam can scan the space for K-band from 117 to 169 degree in phi = 0 (deg) plane. In the other word, the LWA only scans in the positive range of Theta

Keywords:

Leaky-wave antenna (LWA) , interdigital capacitor (IDC) , slow wave structure , symmetrical-ring structure (SRS) , Metamaterial , beam scanning , periodic structure