Analysis of beam scanning and data rate transmission performance of a coupled oscillator phased array

The technique of feeding arrays with coupled oscillators and achieving beam scan by oscillator detuning was investigated for planar arrays of waveguide-fed slot elements at W-band frequencies. One-dimensional arrays were simulated to evaluate beam scan performance and suitability of the technique to support transmission of phase-shift-keyed modulated waveforms. An antenna element was developed that needed no auxiliary resistive coupling network to achieve coherent beam formation and scan and it was found that a few tens of Mbps is probably the upper limit of practical data rates due to the inherent bandwidth limitations of this approach. Two-dimensional arrays were also simulated with beam scan being limited to approximately ±15 degrees in the cardinal plane and ±8 degrees in the inter-cardinal plane with an efficiency degradation of up to 2 dB. A resistive coupling network was necessary, however, to achieve beam scan for the two-dimensional arrays. Further work is warranted to develop new coupling networks that can mitigate beam scan limitations caused by the row-to-row coupling phase behavior in two-dimensional arrays