LTE low-cost vertical sectorization through a leaky-wave antenna

We present an original leaky-wave antenna which exhibits the interesting property of hosting two quasi-orthogonal leaky modes which can be simultaneously tuned. In this way, two independent radiation beams transporting a channel each one, can be synthesized from a single antenna. Each channel can be thus shaped to a different defined angular position and with a specified controlled beamwidth, providing effective low-cost vertical sectorization. The working principles are illustrated with a practical design operating at 2GHz with 10MHz bandwidth, for increased transmission rate applications in 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE).