Extended hemispherical integrated lens antenna with feeds on a spherical surface

An integrated lens antenna design for beam-steering with small scan loss is presented. The lens is based on a well known extended hemispherical lens. By placing the feed elements on a spherical bottom surface of the lens, instead of a conventional planar one, all of the feed antennas are oriented towards the collimating part of the lens. The presented lens design enables beam-steering with low side-lobes and nearly identical beam shape for all beams. Measurement results show good beam shape and low scan loss up to 30° beam-steering angles with a low permittivity Teflon lens. Feasibility of the proposed design using different lens permittivities is studied with ray-tracing simulations.