A Binary-switch Controlled Periodic Half-width Leaky-wave Antenna for Fixed Frequency Beam Steering near the Endfire Region

A leaky-wave antenna (LWA) with fixed-frequency beam scanning capabilities is presented in this paper. The main structure is a half-width microstrip LWA (HW-MLWA), and the direction of the main beam at a fixed operating frequency is controlled by using a group of gap capacitors and binary switches. Different binary switching patterns are applied to change the reactance profile of the radiating structure and hence beam scanning at a fixed frequency is achieved in discrete steps. Results from the full-wave simulation demonstrate that the radiating antenna beam can be steered from 38° to 68° in a discrete step at 7 GHz.