Design and investigation of a novel beam-steering cylindrical dielectric resonator antenna

A novel beam-steering cylindrical dielectric resonator antenna (DRA) is presented in this paper. The proposed DRA consists of a cylindrical dielectric resonator with dielectric constant of 80 and two symmetrical microstrip transmission line feeding ports. It is fabricated and mounted on a grounded FR-4 microwave dielectric material. The proposed DRA is analyzed using the high frequency simulation software. The radiation pattern of the beam-steering DRA can be controlled by tuning the phase differences of the two feeding ports. When the phase difference is zero degree, the radiation pattern is directional. On the contrast, the radiation pattern is quasi omnidirectional with the phase difference of 180 degree. The resonant frequency of the DRA is about 5.5GHz, which can be tuned to 5.8GHz easily through adding a metal screw on the back of the dielectric resonator for dedicated short-range communication (DSRC).