Beam-scanning antennas based on metamaterial planar lens antennas

The beam-scanning antenna is an essential part for the in-vehicle information system used in the intelligent transportation system. The millimeter-wave beam-scanning antenna has the unique advantage in such an application due to the high gain and high resolution. In this paper, we propose and design the millimeter-wave beam-scanning antenna based on the metamaterial planar lens. It has been shown that a planar lens which possesses gradient index of refraction can transform the cylindrical waves (or spherical waves) emitted from a line source (or a point source) into plane waves, or can focus the incoming plane waves to a point, and hence the planar lens can be designed as a high-gain antenna. When the line source (or point source) moves along the focal plane, the radiation beam of the antenna will scan within a designed angle, generating the beam-scanning lens antenna. Full-wave simulation results have verified the high performance of the millimeter-wave beam-scanning antenna made of gradient-index metamaterials.