IEEE Access (Jan 2022)

Wide-Angle Ceramic Retroreflective Luneburg Lens Based on Quasi-Conformal Transformation Optics for Mm-Wave Indoor Localization

  • Petr Kadera,
  • Jesus Sanchez-Pastor,
  • Hossein Eskandari,
  • Tomas Tyc,
  • Masoud Sakaki,
  • Martin Schusler,
  • Rolf Jakoby,
  • Niels Benson,
  • Alejandro Jimenez-Saez,
  • Jaroslav Lacik

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2022.3166509
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 10
pp. 41097 – 41111

Abstract

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This paper presents a quasi-conformal transformation optics (QCTO) based three-dimensional (3D) retroreflective flattened Luneburg lens for wide-angle millimeter-wave radio-frequency indoor localization. The maximum detection angle and radar cross-section (RCS) are investigated, including an impedance matching layer (IML) between the lens antenna and the free-space environment. The 3D QCTO Luneburg lenses are fabricated in alumina by lithography-based ceramic manufacturing, a 3D printing process. The manufactured structures have a diameter of 29.9 mm ( $4 \lambda _{0}$ ), showing a maximum realized gain of 16.51 dBi and beam steering angle of ±70° at 40 GHz. The proposed QCTO Luneburg lens with a metallic reflective layer achieves a maximum RCS of −20.05 dBsqm at 40 GHz with a wide-angle response over ±37°, while the structure with an IML between the lens and air improves these values to a maximum RCS of −15.78 dBsqm and operating angular response between ±50°.

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