Wide-Angle Scanning Phased Array Antennas Using Metasurface Slabs

In this paper, a phased array antenna with an integrated metasurface is designed to achieve wideband and wide-angle scanning. Generally, the coupling between adjacent elements changes significantly as the scanning angle increases, resulting in limited scanning coverage. Two mutually perpendicular metasurface slabs are designed to achieve wide-angle scanning. The mutual coupling is reduced by properly tuning the dimension of the metasurface. Two perpendicular linear arrays were fabricated to verify the design. The measured 3-dB beamwidth of the active element pattern (AEP, in the array environment) with the integrated metasurface is about 150° in the E-plane and 109° in the H-plane, which is suitable for wide-angle scanning. The simulated and measured results indicate that the beam can scan from -78° to 78° with a 3-dB gain fluctuation in the E-plane array and a wide frequency range from 10 GHz to 12.5 GHz (22.2%). In the H-plane array, the scan angle ranges from -69° to 69° with a 3-dB gain fluctuation and a relative bandwidth of 11%.