W-Band Demonstration of Dynamic, High-Gain Beam Steering with a Scanning Lens Phased Array

We report the measured results of a sparse, 4x1 scanning lens phased array prototype at W-band that is capable of beam steering a directive (>30 dBi) beam towards ±20° with sidelobe levels around -10 dB. The array elements are high-aperture-efficiency resonant leaky-wave lens antennas with a feed that suppresses the spurious TM0 mode over a wide bandwidth by using a circular waveguide in a ground plane surrounded by annular corrugations. The scanning lens phased array relies on simultaneous electrical and mechanical phase shifting to steer the beams. We use 15 GHz IQ-mixers followed by x6 multipliers to achieve electronic amplitude and phase control at W-band and a piezo-electric motor for mechanical phase shifting, which allows us to scan this array up to 20°. Measurements at 90 GHz of the lens array are in excellent agreement with simulations. More measurement results will be presented at the conference.