Pattern-Reconfigurable Dielectric Resonator Antenna with Endfire Beam-Scanning Feature

A novel pattern-reconfigurable dielectric resonator antenna (DRA) with endfire beam-scanning feature is proposed in this letter. The proposed antenna consists of a dielectric resonator (DR), a switchable director with 10 p-i-n diodes, and a differential feeding structure. The differential-fed DR operating in TE01 mode can provide a primary endfire pattern with wide beam. Based on this, a large-coverage beam scanning performance can be obtained by introducing a switchable director placed in front of the DR. A prototype is fabricated and measured to verify the proposed design. By switching the p-i-n diodes of the switchable director, the proposed antenna enables a near-continuous beam scanning from -48 to +48 in the azimuth plane with a gain fluctuation of less than 0.5 dB. Besides, the 3-dB scanning coverage is up to 164 (from -82 to +82), which shows good beam-scanning performance.