Independent control of the leakage rate and pointing angle of a novel planar leaky-wave antenna

A novel planar leaky-wave antenna (LWA) based on a microstrip line loaded with metallic posts showing flexible radiation properties, is presented in this paper. For the authors´ knowledge, it is the first time that the simultaneous control of both the phase constant β and the leakage rate α is achieved for a planar LWA. The control over β is mainly performed by means of the width W of the line, whereas the leakage rate α is controlled by the periodicity P of the posts. As it is well known, the phase constant is responsible for the scanned pointing angle θ_RAD of the radiated main beam, while the leakage rate controls the beamwidth Δθ. Therefore, tailored radiation patterns can be synthesized with this original low-cost, low-profile and easily integrated planar LWA. Several practical designs at 15 GHz have been simulated using commercial full-wave software with the purpose of validating the results of the proposed antenna.