Analysis and design of a planar leaky-wave antenna for mobile satellite communications based on a strongly truncated periodic structure

We describe the design of a planar leaky-wave antenna, operating at 2.17-2.20 GHz and measuring 5.5 mm in height only. Leaky-wave antennas are, indeed, well known in literature since several decades, but usually they are electrically large, e.g., about 20 wavelengths. The antenna presented here is based on a two-dimensional, periodically structured surface that is strongly truncated, i.e., it measures 190.5 mm ~ 1.38 wavelengths in diameter. In addition to the propagation constant along the structure, which is associated with its dispersion characteristic, the size of the structure can be considered another degree of freedom.