Frequency-Controlled Wide-Angle Scanning Antenna Based on Sinusoidally Modulated Waveguide Using Stereo Lithography Appearance Technology

In this letter, an all-metal frequency-controlled wide-angle scanning antenna based on a sinusoidally modulated waveguide is investigated. The antenna is constructed by an array of metal block waveguides that are sinusoidally modulated in height. Consequently, the antenna possesses frequency-controlled beam-scanning properties. For demonstration, an antenna prototype is fabricated using the low-cost stereo lithography appearance (SLA) technology. Measurement results show that the radiation beam scans from 3° to 45° over an impedance bandwidth (|
S
₁₁
| < −10 dB) ranging from 6.7 to 8.2 GHz. The peak gain is 9.9 dBi, and the radiation efficiency maintains above 95% across the whole working band. The advantages of wide scanning range, high radiation efficiency, large power capacity and low cost ensure the promising potential of the proposed antenna for applications in radar and communication systems.