A Novel Phased Array Antenna that Uses Ferroelectrics and Bulk Phase Shifting

摘要

A new concept for phased arrays is proposed using avoltage controlled ferroelectric lens. The ferroelectric lens conceptuniquely incorporates bulk phase shifting; the array does notcontain individual phase shifters but rather uses ferroelectricmaterial. This will reduce the number of phase shifters from (n Xm) to (n+m), where n is the number of columns and m is thenumber of rows in a phased array. The number of phase shifterdrivers and phase shifter controls is also significantly reduced byusing row-column beam steering. Thus, the ferroelectric lensconcept can potentially lead to low-cost phased arrays. This paperpresents the ferroelectric lens concept, theoretical analysis anddesign, and experimental results. Latest results obtained for C band(4-8 GHz) lens are included. A brief description of ferroelectricmaterials used for this work is also included.