Broadband Dual-Polarized Phased Array With Dynamic Scanning Control for Intelligent Mobile Communication Application

This work investigates a low-cost, broadband, dual-polarized, beamwidth reconfigurable phased array for dynamic beam-scanning control. Both the beamwidth in the E-plane and H-plane are synchronously extended by introducing the vertically polarized (VP) field components. Then, by exploring a switch-loaded omnidirectional source, a novel dual-polarized wide/narrow beamwidth switchable or reconfigurable method is proposed. To meet the demand for intelligent mobile communication for dynamic beam steering, the dual-polarized beamwidth reconfigurable radiator as the array element is used for the phased array or MIMO designs. As a proof of concept, an interesting four-element reconfigurable dual-polarized phased array is implemented in the Sub-6 GHz band. By controlling the switch states of each element, this array can be operated in two modes:
wide-angle scanning coverage (V2V connection) and long-distance high-gain scanning (V2I communication)
. In wide-angle scanning mode, the main lobe of the array can scan from −60° to +55°, and its peak gain is 9.1 dBi. In long-distance high-gain scanning, this array can scan the beam in the range of [−35°, +35°] with a peak gain of 11.2 dBi. Besides, the isolation between different elements or polarization is greater than 13 dB. This reconfigurable phased array demonstrates the advantages of low-cost, broadband, and flexible beam-steering capability. It is expected to find broad applications in intelligent vehicular communication and low-cost phased array.