A dual-beam curve element array antenna and a design method thereof

Abstract

The application discloses a dual-beam curve-vibrator array antenna and a design method thereof, and belongs to the technical field of antenna design. The dual-beam curve-vibrator array antenna is constructed based on a dual-beam unit; the dual-beam unit comprises an arc-shaped vibrator array antenna; the arc-shaped vibrator array antenna comprises a first arc-shaped vibrator array and a second arc-shaped vibrator array, the first arc-shaped vibrator array and the second arc-shaped vibrator array are in a 3-shaped arrangement, and are symmetrically arranged about a center in the same plane; the first arc-shaped vibrator array and the second arc-shaped vibrator array are arranged in an upper layer dielectric substrate; the upper layer dielectric substrate and a lower layer dielectric substrate are bonded through a bonding layer; and the arc-shaped vibrator array antenna and a feed network are connected through a connecting column. According to the application, the 3-shaped arc-shaped vibrator arrays with different orientations are integrated together by using a directivity diagram superposition principle, and the structure is simple and compact, two symmetrical beams can be generated in a wide band, and great potential is shown in wide-band dual-beam applications.

Description

Technical Field

[0001] The present invention relates to the technical field of antenna design, and more particularly to a dual-beam curved dipole array antenna and a design method thereof. Background Art

[0002] Dual-beam antennas have attracted widespread attention in recent years due to their ability to provide dual-target communication and multi-area radio coverage. In mobile communication systems, dual-beam antennas can generate two beams to cover different areas, thereby improving signal coverage and capacity. In indoor wireless systems, dual terminals can be connected to dual-beam antennas, reducing the number of antennas. In satellite communications, dual-beam antennas can simultaneously receive or transmit signals in two different directions, enabling communication with multiple satellites or ground stations. In radar systems, dual-beam antennas can track two targets, for example.

[0003] To date, much work has been devoted to dual-beam antennas. As early as 1979, dual-beam microstrip antennas operating in the higher TM02 mode were studied. Although microstrip antennas have a low profile, their operating bandwidth is very narrow, typically less than 10%. To address this issue, a dual-beam U-slot microstrip antenna with an 11.8% bandwidth was proposed. Furthermore, a cross-probe feeding technique was developed to feed microstrip patch antennas, achieving an impedance bandwidth of 13.2%. However, the bandwidth of dual-beam microstrip antennas still does not exceed 30%, posing some challenges to the development of dual-beam antennas in broadband wireless systems. Regarding broadband antennas, traveling-wave antennas are a typical broadband structure, and several dual-beam antennas based on traveling-wave antennas have been proposed. A dual-symmetric-beam microstrip leaky-wave antenna (LWA) with a bandwidth of 23% has been proposed. However, due to the dispersion effects of the leaky-wave structure, the beam direction varies rapidly with frequency. To reduce beam sweeping in leaky-wave antennas, a dual-beam periodic leaky-wave antenna operating in TEM mode and a printed dual-beam fixed-beam leaky-wave antenna based on a grounded coplanar waveguide were proposed, achieving bandwidths exceeding 40%. Leaky-wave antennas are typically long and bulky, making them difficult to embed into miniaturized systems.

[0004] Therefore, how to propose a compact, broadband, and efficient dual-beam curved dipole array antenna and a design method thereof is an urgent problem that needs to be solved by those skilled in the art. Summary of the Invention

[0005] In view of this, the present invention provides a dual-beam curved dipole array antenna and a design method thereof, which generates symmetrical dual-beam radiation in a broadband by exciting two dipole arrays in different directions based on the principle of pattern superposition.

[0006] In order to achieve the above object, the present invention adopts the following technical solutions:

[0007] On the one hand, the present invention proposes a dual-beam curved dipole array antenna, which is constructed based on dual-beam units;

[0008] The dual-beam unit includes an arc-shaped dipole array antenna, a connecting column, an upper dielectric substrate, an adhesive layer, and a lower dielectric substrate with a feeding network arranged thereon;

[0009] The arc dipole array antenna includes a first arc dipole array and a second arc dipole array, the first arc dipole array and the second arc dipole array are in a 3 shape, and the first arc dipole array and the second arc dipole array are mirror-imaged about the center in the same plane; the first arc dipole array and the second arc dipole array are placed in the upper dielectric substrate; the upper dielectric substrate and the lower dielectric substrate are bonded by the adhesive layer; and the arc dipole array antenna and the feeding network are connected by the connecting column.

[0010] Preferably, the bottom layer of the upper dielectric substrate is a metal bottom plate.

[0011] Preferably, the first arc-shaped dipole array and the second arc-shaped dipole array in the arc-shaped dipole array antenna are both composed of two arc-shaped metal strips.

[0012] Preferably, the feeding network is a one-to-two power splitter.

[0013] Preferably, a dual-beam dipole array antenna is obtained by adding an arc dipole array antenna and correspondingly changing the number of connecting columns and the feedback network structure.

[0014] On the other hand, the present invention also discloses a design method for a dual-beam curved dipole array antenna, which is used to obtain the above-mentioned dual-beam curved dipole array antenna, comprising the following steps:

[0015] Determine the operating frequency band of the antenna, and obtain a dielectric integrated half-wave arc dipole unit with a size corresponding to the operating frequency band;

[0016] The dielectric integrated half-wave arc vibrator unit obtains a 3-shaped arc vibrator array according to the principle of symmetry and directional pattern superposition;

[0017] The 3-shaped arc dipole array obtains an arc dipole array antenna according to the principle of mirror image and pattern superposition;

[0018] A broadband one-to-two power splitter is designed, and the arc-shaped dipole array antenna is excited by single-port feeding to generate broadband dual-beam radiation, completing the design of the dual-beam curved dipole array antenna.

[0019] As can be seen from the above technical solutions, the present invention discloses a dual-beam curved dipole array antenna and a design method thereof, which has the following beneficial effects compared with the prior art:

[0020] 1. To address the problem of limited dual-beam bandwidth, which usually does not exceed 30%, a broadband curved dipole array antenna is used as the radiation structure, and the principle of pattern superposition is adopted to generate a dual-beam radiation pattern within the broadband.

[0021] 2. In order to solve the problem of the complex structure of existing dual-beam antennas, a simpler dipole antenna is adopted, and dual-beam radiation is achieved by simultaneously exciting two dipole arrays in opposite directions.

[0022] 3. To address the problem that existing dual-beam antennas have a relatively large structure and size, which is not conducive to embedding the antenna into a miniaturized wireless communication system, the present invention integrates two vibrator arrays with different orientations into one component without increasing the antenna volume, thereby not increasing the antenna's occupied space. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0023] In order to more clearly illustrate the embodiments of the present invention or the technical solutions in the prior art, the following briefly introduces the drawings required for use in the embodiments or the description of the prior art. Obviously, the drawings described below are merely embodiments of the present invention. For ordinary technicians in this field, other drawings can be obtained based on the provided drawings without paying any creative work.

[0024] Figure 1 Schematic diagram of the dual-beam generation mechanism of the present invention;

[0025] Figure 2 A three-dimensional structural diagram of the dual-beam unit (antenna) of the present invention;

[0026] Figure 3 A three-dimensional structural diagram of a dual-beam 2×1 array antenna according to an embodiment of the present invention;

[0027] Figure 4 The simulated and measured S parameters of the unit antenna of the present invention;

[0028] Figure 5 The simulated and measured S parameters of the 2×1 array antenna of the present invention;

[0029] Figure 6 The present invention is based on the efficiency curve and gain curve within the dual-beam unit antenna and 2×1 array antenna band;

[0030] Figure 7 The H-plane radiation pattern of the unit antenna and 2×1 array antenna of the present invention at 9GHz;

[0031] FIG8( a ), FIG8 ( b ) and FIG8 ( c ) are the E-plane radiation patterns of the 2×1 array antenna of the present invention at 7.5, 9.5 and 11.5 GHz respectively. DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0032] The following will clearly and completely describe the technical solutions in the embodiments of the present invention in conjunction with the accompanying drawings. Obviously, the described embodiments are only part of the embodiments of the present invention, not all of the embodiments. Based on the embodiments of the present invention, all other embodiments obtained by ordinary technicians in this field without making creative efforts are within the scope of protection of the present invention.

[0033] On the one hand, an embodiment of the present invention provides a dual-beam curved dipole array antenna, which is constructed based on a dual-beam unit (antenna);

[0034] Dual beam unit structure such as Figure 2 As shown, it includes an arc dipole array antenna, a connecting column 3, an upper dielectric substrate 4, an adhesive layer 6 and a lower dielectric substrate 7 with a feeding network 8;

[0035] The arc dipole array antenna includes a first arc dipole array 1 and a second arc dipole array 2, the first arc dipole array 1 and the second arc dipole array 2 are in a 3 shape, and the first arc dipole array 1 and the second arc dipole array 2 are mirror-imaged about the center in the same plane; the first arc dipole array 1 and the second arc dipole array 2 are placed in an upper dielectric substrate 4; the upper dielectric substrate 4 and the lower dielectric substrate 7 are bonded by an adhesive layer 6; and the arc dipole array antenna and the feeding network 8 are connected by a connecting column 3.

[0036] Preferably, the bottom layer of the upper dielectric substrate 4 is a metal bottom plate 5 .

[0037] Preferably, the first arc dipole array 1 and the second arc dipole array 2 in the arc dipole array antenna are both composed of two arc-shaped metal strips.

[0038] Specifically, the first arc-shaped vibrator array 1 can generate a left-tilted beam after being acted upon by the metal base plate 5; the second arc-shaped vibrator array 2 is mirrored with the first arc-shaped vibrator array 1 about the center, and is used to generate a right-tilted beam; the connecting column 3 can transmit the energy fed from the power divider to the first arc-shaped vibrator array 1 and the second arc-shaped vibrator array 2 for exciting the vibrators, thereby obtaining the desired dual-beam radiation pattern; the upper dielectric substrate 4 is made of F4BM320, with a dielectric constant of 3.2 and a dielectric loss of 0.0015; the feeding network 8 is a microstrip one-to-two power divider, which is used to split the fed signal into two and excite the arc-shaped vibrators (the first arc-shaped vibrator array 1 and the second arc-shaped vibrator array 2).

[0039] Furthermore, by adding an arc dipole array antenna and correspondingly changing the number of connecting columns and the feedback network structure, a dual-beam dipole array antenna is obtained. This embodiment takes a 2×1 dual-beam antenna array as an example to improve the antenna gain. Its three-dimensional structure diagram is shown as follows: Figure 3 As shown:

[0040] Figure 3 It includes two groups of arc-shaped dipole array antennas; 3 is a connecting column, which can transfer the energy fed from the power splitter to the four arc-shaped dipole arrays (i.e., 1 and 2) to excite the dipole arrays, thereby obtaining a dual-beam radiation pattern with a narrower H-plane beam and higher gain; 4 is an upper dielectric substrate, made of F4BM320, with a dielectric constant of 3.2 and a dielectric loss of 0.0015; 5 is a metal floor below the upper dielectric substrate; 6 is an adhesive layer for bonding the upper and lower dielectric substrates; 7 is a lower dielectric substrate for laying out a feed network 8. In this embodiment, 8 is a microstrip one-to-four power splitter, which first splits the signal into two and excites the left and right arc arrays at the same time, and then splits the two columns of fed signals into two and excites the arc dipoles, so that all four dipoles are excited at the same time. Specifically, the RF signal is fed from the feed port 17 to the power splitter and then radiated through the through hole to the radiation patch; 16 is a pad on the side wall of the dielectric substrate, which is used to fix the outer conductor of the feed port 17.

[0041] To verify the proposed antenna design, this embodiment designed, physically processed, and measured a dual-beam unit and array antenna based on the pattern superposition principle. Standard multi-layer printed circuit board (PCB) technology was used for manufacturing.

[0042] Figure 4 and Figure 5 The simulated and measured |S11| values ​​for the dual-beam unit antenna and the 2×1 array antenna are given, respectively. It can be seen that the simulation and measurement results are in good agreement. When the basic reflection coefficient is less than -10 dB, the measurement bandwidths of the dual-beam unit antenna and the array antenna are 43.7% (7.04 to 10.98 GHz) and 55.9% (7 to 12.43 GHz), respectively.

[0043] Figure 6 The efficiency and gain curves for the dual-beam element antenna and array antenna within the band are presented. It is shown that with proper design, both element antennas and array antennas can achieve a total radiation efficiency of approximately 90% within the frequency band of interest, and the gain of the array antenna can be approximately 3dB higher than that of the element antenna. This approach to array antennas allows for the successful design of dual-beam array antennas, which are expected to be applicable to the design of larger-scale, high-gain dual-beam arrays.

[0044] Figure 7Select 9GHz as a representative, the two-dimensional pattern in the plane of θ=45°(H plane of the element and array antenna) is given, it can be seen that the beam of the array antenna is narrower and the gain is higher, which is more suitable for some high directivity demand double-beam communication scenarios.

[0045] Fig. 8(a), Fig. 8(b) and Fig. 8(c) respectively give the simulation and measurement patterns of the 2x1 array antenna at 7.5, 9.5 and 11.5 GHz, from which it can be seen that the proposed antenna array can produce double beams in a wide frequency range, and the cross-polarization level in the 3dB main beam width is less than-15dB in the working frequency band, thereby verifying the effectiveness of the design.

[0046] On the other hand, the embodiment of the present application also discloses a design method of a double-beam curved element array antenna, which is used to obtain the above-mentioned double-beam curved element array antenna, referring to Figure 1 , the design method comprises the following steps:

[0047] S1. Determine the working frequency range of the antenna, obtain a medium integrated half-wave arc-shaped element with a size corresponding to the working frequency range, and the radiation direction of the medium integrated half-wave arc-shaped element is horizontally inclined, as shown in step 1 of Figure 1 ;

[0048] S2. The medium integrated half-wave arc-shaped element obtains a 3-shaped arc-shaped element array according to the symmetry and pattern superposition principle, so that a horizontally inclined beam can be generated when the two element centers are excited, as shown in step 2 of Figure 1 ;

[0049] S3. The 3-shaped arc-shaped element array obtains an arc-shaped element array antenna according to the mirror image and pattern superposition principle, and generates an inclined double beam by exciting the 3-shaped arc-shaped element array in the arc-shaped element array antenna and the mirror image placed ε-shaped arc-shaped element array, as shown in step 3 of Figure 1 ;

[0050] S4. Design a broadband one-to-two power divider, excite two element arrays in the arc-shaped element array antenna through single-port feeding, generate broadband double-beam radiation, and complete the design of the double-beam curved element array antenna.

[0051] Each embodiment in the specification is described in a progressive manner, and each embodiment focuses on the difference from other embodiments. The same and similar parts of each embodiment can be referred to each other. For the device disclosed in the embodiment, since it corresponds to the method disclosed in the embodiment, the description is relatively simple, and the related parts can be referred to the method part.

[0052] The above description of the disclosed embodiments is intended to enable one skilled in the art to implement or use the present invention. Various modifications to these embodiments will be readily apparent to one skilled in the art, and the general principles defined herein may be implemented in other embodiments without departing from the spirit or scope of the present invention. Therefore, the present invention is not limited to the embodiments shown herein but is intended to conform to the widest scope consistent with the principles and novel features disclosed herein.

Claims

1. A dual-beam curved dipole array antenna, characterized in that: The dual-beam curved dipole array antenna is constructed based on a dual-beam unit; The dual-beam unit comprises an arc-shaped dipole array antenna, a connecting post (3), an upper dielectric substrate (4), an adhesive layer (6), and a lower dielectric substrate (7) provided with a feed network (8); The arc dipole array antenna comprises a first arc dipole array (1) and a second arc dipole array (2), wherein the first arc dipole array (1) and the second arc dipole array (2) are in a 3-shape, and the first arc dipole array (1) and the second arc dipole array (2) are arranged in a mirror image about a center on the same plane; the first arc dipole array (1) and the second arc dipole array (2) are placed in the upper dielectric substrate (4); the upper dielectric substrate (4) and the lower dielectric substrate (7) are bonded by the bonding layer (6); and the arc dipole array antenna and the feeding network (8) are connected by the connecting column (3).

2. The dual-beam curved dipole array antenna according to claim 1, characterized in that: The bottom layer of the upper dielectric substrate (4) is a metal bottom plate (5).

3. The dual-beam curved dipole array antenna according to claim 1, characterized in that: The first arc-shaped dipole array (1) and the second arc-shaped dipole array (2) in the arc-shaped dipole array antenna are both composed of two arc-shaped metal strips.

4. The dual-beam curved dipole array antenna according to claim 1, wherein: The feed network (8) is a one-to-two power splitter.

5. The dual-beam curved dipole array antenna according to claim 1, characterized in that: By adding an arc-shaped dipole array antenna and correspondingly changing the number of connecting columns and the feedback network structure, a dual-beam dipole array antenna is obtained.

6. A design method for a dual-beam curved dipole array antenna, for obtaining a dual-beam curved dipole array antenna according to any one of claims 1 to 5, characterized in that: The following steps are involved: Determine the operating frequency band of the antenna, and obtain a dielectric integrated half-wave arc dipole unit with a size corresponding to the operating frequency band; The dielectric integrated half-wave arc vibrator unit obtains a 3-shaped arc vibrator array according to the principle of symmetry and directional pattern superposition; The 3-shaped arc dipole array obtains an arc dipole array antenna according to the principle of mirror image and pattern superposition; A broadband one-to-two power splitter is designed, and the arc-shaped dipole array antenna is excited by single-port feeding to generate broadband dual-beam radiation, completing the design of the dual-beam curved dipole array antenna.

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