Tightly coupled Ka-band phased array antenna with integrated MEMS phase shifters

Summary form only given. High-data-rate, beam-agile, low-profile, compact, and low-power transceiver systems are required to address the air-to-air and satellite communications (SATCOM) connectivity requirements of unmanned assets in the battlefield. To this end, the Ka-band offers a key advantage for smaller size and lower profile antennas over the traditional Xand Ku-band antennas and phased arrays. More importantly, unprecedented continuous bandwidth coverage of tightly-coupled arrays (e.g. J.P. Doane, K. Sertel, and J.L. Volakis, “A wideband, wide scanning tightly coupled dipole array with integrated balun”, IEEE TAP, vol. 61, no. 9, Sept. 2013) that have only recently been demonstrated for RF frequency bands can enable truly disruptive transceivers with continuous coverage of Xthrough Ka-band using a single aperture. Nonetheless, for UWB beam-agile phased-array operation, equally wideband phase-shifters are needed. In this work, we employ the micro electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) phaseshifter technology to develop switched phased-shifters that can be seamlesslyintegrated with the tightly-coupled dipole array elements. A tightly coupled Kaband (25~28 GHz) dipole array antenna with integrated MEMS phase-shifters from XCOM Wireless is presented. In particular, the dipole elements and the feed lines are printed on low-loss alumina (Al2O3) substrate and the phase shifters and the control circuitry are packaged directly into the array unit element, resulting in a compact and low-cost implementation. Each array element requires two phase shifters, in form of differential feed, however, both phase-shifters can be packaged into a single enclosure. To achieve optimum inter-element spacing and element dimensions, full-wave simulations were performed on the array unit cell and the phased-array performance is evaluated using finite array simulations with the integrated phase-shifters. Design and implementation details, as well as the integration approach and array performance will be presented.