Beam Steering for Time Modulated Arrays

Abstract

This paper proposes an analytical method to calculate the switch-on sequences that provides Time Modulated Antenna Arrays (TMAA) with beam scanning in the sideband region. Such time sequences can be calculated to locate the main beam both in the azimuth and elevation planes. A comparison between H. Shanks’ method and the method proposed in this paper is presented. The radiation patterns of uniform linear, square and circular arrays are presented to demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed method. Additionally, a 6-element circular antenna array prototype for 5G applications was constructed. Such array resonates at the frequency of 3.612 GHz. The radiation patterns were measured in the anechoic chamber, demonstrating the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Keywords

• Antenna arrays
• beam scanning
• beam steering
• circular array
• harmonic beamforming
• time modulated