End-switched CRLH leaky-wave antenna with enhanced electronic full-space beam steering performance

This work presents an end-switched composite right/left-handed (CRLH) leaky-wave antenna (LWA) capable of full-space angular coverage with only half-space electronic beam-scanning. The CRLH LWA, which uses reverse-biased varactors for electronic scanning, is connected to a single-pole double-throw switch which routes the input signal to either end of the two-port CRLH LWA. In this manner, each input-fed end provides half-space scanning. Compared to full-space scanning CRLH LWAs, the scheme presented here relaxes many of the design constraints, including utilizing smaller capacitance and voltage tuning ranges, while also improving the antenna performance by lowering the varactor losses.