Planar three-dimensional constrained lenses

Abstract

A new design for a beamforming lens is presented. Both faces are planar arrays of radiating elements interconnected by transmission lines whose length varies as a function of radius. While the front face elements are regularly spaced, the back face elements are displaced radially from their corresponding front face elements, the amount of displacement also being a function of radius. We show that such a lens is capable of forming low sidelobe beams over an angular sector 36 beamwidths across in all planes of <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">\phi</tex> by switching between clusters of only seven feed elements. Because both faces are planar, construction of lightweight lenses for multibeam antennas should be feasible.