A 3-D Printed Circularly Polarized Multi-beam Antenna with Full Azimuthal Coverage

This paper presents a 3-D printed circularly polarized (CP) multi-beam antenna with characteristic of full azimuthal coverage. The proposed antenna consists of a dielectric loaded circular parallel plate and a biconical dielectric polarizer. Regarding to the former, it is divided into 6 sectors to independently control each beam. For the latter, it is built by 24 annually arranged dielectric plates. Each plate is rotated by 45 degrees with respect to the parallel plate. Through our study, it is found that the proposed antenna can achieve a 3-dB axial ratio bandwidth (ARBW) of 6.8% from 9.65 GHz to 10.37 GHz, a realized gain of 9.51 to 10.53 dBic. By switching the feeding ports, the 6 beams can realize 360°,coverage in azimuth plane within 3-dB beamwidth range.