Communication Compact Microstrip Leaky-Wave Antenna for Wide-Angle Beam Scanning With Circular Polarization

In this communication, a meandered microstrip line leaky-wave antenna (LWA) is proposed with circular polarization (CP), high radiation gain, and wide beam scanning range. The utilization of periodical meander technology in the microstrip line format not only leads to structure compactness, but also generates a higher space harmonic for beam scanning characteristics. The leakage rate and CP generation are controlled by the titled angle and width ratio of the meandered line, respectively. In addition, two shunt grounded stubs and one isolation wall between inclined arms are employed in each period to suppress the open stopband (OSB) effect and improve the radiation performance through a wide beam steering range. Compared with other similar designs, the proposed antenna shows advantageous characteristics of extremely simple structure (single-layer), compact size (<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$0.23\lambda _{0} \times 6.0\lambda _{0} \times 0.04\lambda _{0}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>, <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\lambda _{0}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> is the free space wavelength at the broadside frequency, i.e., 13.1 GHz), wide functional beam scanning range with CP (43.5%) and high radiation gain (15.5 dBic), which satisfies the increasing demand for the miniaturization and integration of frequency-dependent devices.