Waveguide Slot Antenna Subarrays for Stable Beam Tilt
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Solution Overview
Problem
Waveguide traveling wave antenna arrays at millimeter-wave bands face challenges in implementing beam tilt due to large size and wavelength, leading to inconsistent beam directions and severe dispersion issues, which degrade the performance of broadband communications systems.
Innovation Solution
The proposed antenna array design includes a feeding waveguide covered by a cover with radiation slots arranged in a specific configuration to form two subarrays. The subarrays have opposite trends in beam direction angle changes with frequency, ensuring that the combined beam direction remains relatively unchanged across different frequencies.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Device complexity
If a waveguide traveling wave array is used to implement beam tilt, then the structure is simple, but the beam direction becomes inconsistent across different frequencies due to severe dispersion
Solution Approach 1:
The antenna array is divided into multiple independently controllable subarrays along the waveguide. Each subarray can be fed with different phase and amplitude excitations, allowing the system to compensate for frequency-dependent beam direction changes by adjusting the contribution of each segment across the frequency band.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements dynamic beam direction control by making the excitation parameters (phase and amplitude) of each subarray frequency-dependent. This allows the antenna system to adaptively maintain consistent beam direction across different operating frequencies, counteracting the natural dispersion of the waveguide structure.
2Ease of operation
If the center-to-center spacing between adjacent slots is increased to control beam direction, then the beam tilt can be achieved, but the dispersion problem worsens and beam direction becomes frequency-dependent
Solution Approach 1:
Different subarrays are assigned different local excitation characteristics (phase and amplitude weights) that are optimized for specific frequency ranges. This local optimization allows each subarray to contribute appropriately to the overall beam pattern, maintaining consistent beam direction across the entire frequency band despite variations in individual subarray performance.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent employs asymmetric excitation patterns across the subarrays, where the phase and amplitude distribution is deliberately made non-uniform and frequency-dependent. This asymmetric control compensates for the symmetric dispersion characteristics of the waveguide structure, enabling stable beam direction control.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
This design effectively reduces beam direction differences at different frequencies, thereby enhancing the communication effect of the antenna array by maintaining consistent beam direction across the frequency range.
Implementation Method 1
a plurality of radiation slots that are arranged in a length direction of the feeding waveguide and that are configured to transmit signals fed in from the waveguide port
Implementation Method 2
an electromagnetic wave is propagated towards a waveguide end 303 in the feeding waveguide
Implementation Method 3
A wave absorbing load for absorbing energy that is not radiated by the radiation unit is usually installed on the waveguide end 303
Data Source
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AI summary
An antenna array and a communications device are provided. The antenna array includes a feeding waveguide and a cover that covers the feeding waveguide, where a waveguide port is disposed on the feeding waveguide, and a plurality of radiation slots that are arranged in a length direction of the feeding waveguide and that are configured to transmit signals fed in from the waveguide port are disposed on the cover, and are classified into a first subarray and a second subarray, where at a center frequency of an operating frequency of the antenna array, a difference between a beam direction angle of the first subarray and a beam direction angle required by the antenna array and a difference between a beam direction angle of the second subarray and the beam direction angle required by the antenna array each are less than a specified threshold, and with a change of a frequency of the antenna array, a trend in which the beam direction angle of the first subarray changes with the frequency is contrary to a trend in which the beam direction angle of the second subarray changes with the frequency. Therefore, when the first subarray and the second subarray are combined, a beam direction difference at different frequencies can be better reduced, thereby improving an antenna array communication effect.