Beam-steering antenna based on parasitic layer

A beam-steering antenna based on a parasitic layer operating at around 5.6 GHz is presented. It is capable of steering its beam into three directions (θm = -30°, 0°, 30°). The structure consists of a driven microstrip-fed patch element and a parasitic layer located on top of the driven patch. The upper surface of the parasitic layer has a grid of 5 × 5 electrically-small rectangular-shaped metallic pixels, which can be connected/disconnected by means of switching, thus the parasitic pixel surface geometry is changed. The electromagnetic mutual coupling between the driven patch and the parasitic pixel surface is responsible for achieving the desired beam-steering. Prototypes of the designed antennas have been fabricated showing ~8 dB realised-gain in all steered beam directions.