Low-Profile Substrate-Integrated Lens Antenna Using Metamaterials

A low-profile substrate-integrated lens antenna is designed using planar metamaterials for a broadband operation. The lens antenna is based on embedding a Vivaldi antenna source inside a parallel-plate waveguide to illuminate a half Maxwell fish-eye (HMFE) lens operating in X-band. The focusing condition of the lens, requiring a gradient refractive index is achieved through the use of complementary nonresonant metamaterial structures. Numerical simulations are performed to determine the suitable unit cells geometry with respect to the wave launcher inserted into the parallel-plate waveguide. The electric field distribution inside the antenna system has also been explored numerically. Far-field radiation patterns have been measured on a fabricated prototype in an anechoic chamber. It has been shown from both near- and far-field plots that the proposed planar antenna presents good focusing properties.