Wideband Beam-Steerable Cylindrical Lens Antenna with Compact Integrated Feed Elements

In this paper, a wideband and compact high gain Lunenburg-based lens antenna for the Ka-band is proposed. The main potential applications are for 5G wireless communication systems and automotive radar applications. The antenna provides about 46.7% of bandwidth (|S11| ≤ -10 dB) covering a frequency band ranging from 23.6 - 38 GHz. It also exhibits excellent propagation characteristics with only a 2.7 dB maximum gain variation with sidelobe levels lower than -18 dB over the entire bandwidth. In addition, with a multi-feed system, the antenna presents a beam switching capability of ±32° in the azimuth plane with a gain fluctuation of less than 0.4 dB and sidelobes levels of less than -14 dB over the entire scan range. The simulated results show that the proposed antenna features a simple structure while supporting wider bandwidth and lower sidelobes levels when compared to that of Parallel plate waveguide (PPW) Luneburg-based lens antennas.