Experimental demonstration of peripherally-excited antenna arrays

Emerging technologies such as 5G communication systems, autonomous vehicles and satellite Internet have led to a renewed interest in 2D antennas that are capable of generating fixed/scannable pencil beams. Although traditional active phased arrays are technologically suitable for these applications, there are cases where other alternatives are more attractive, especially if they are simpler and less costly to design and fabricate. Recently, the concept of the Peripherally-Excited (PEX) antenna array has been proposed, promising a sizable reduction in the active-element count, especially when compared with traditional phased arrays. Albeit at the price of exhibiting some constraints on the possible beam-pointing directions. Here, we demonstrate the first practical implementation of the PEX antenna concept, and the proposed design is capable of generating single or multiple independently scannable pencil beams at broadside and tilted radiation directions, from a shared radiating aperture. The proposed structure is also easily scalable to higher millimeter-wave frequencies, and can be particularly useful in MIMO and duplex antenna applications, commonly encountered in automotive radars, among others. Two-dimensional antennas that can create and steer narrow beams are of interest for modern communication systems. Here, the authors demonstrate a scalable antenna array design that performs these functions with fewer elements than standard approaches and excited only with peripheral sources.