Evaluation of slot patch unit cell for discrete lens antenna applications

A performance evaluation and comparison of three different types of slot patch unit cell elements for discrete lens antenna applications is presented in this paper. Different design configurations of slot loaded patches and ground plane at 4.2 GHz is simulated and analyzed. The unit cell designs are realized by using two aperture-coupled back-to-back printed patches with slotted common ground plane. The transmission phase and transmission loss performance of each unit cell are thoroughly examined. The simulated results demonstrate that E-shaped patch unit cell element achieves the highest phase shift range of 340^o with less than 2.5 dB of deviation in the transmission loss level and sufficiently low transmission loss of 2.2 dB. The proposed unit cell offers simple technique and realization for transmission phase control.