An Endfire/Backfire Reconfigurable Leaky Wave Antenna by Radiating Different Space Harmonics

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Abstract
A novel technique is proposed for the design of an endfire/backfire reconfigurable leaky wave antenna by radiating different space harmonics. The antenna with a period of about a quarter wavelength can produce a unidirectional endfire beam through the radiation from the fundamental space harmonic. If the period is doubled, the antenna produces a unidirectional backfire beam through the main radiation from the n = −1 space harmonic, with negligible radiation from the fundamental space harmonic and with other space harmonics far away from radiation region. Using PIN diodes to tune the period in the antenna, the desired fundamental / n = −1 radiating space harmonic can be obtained, and then the endfire/backfire radiation can be reconfigured. Besides, to reduce the performance differences between the forward and backward radiation and to enhance the gain, the antenna is designed with a symmetric structure and fed at the center, in which the left-half and right-half apertures are operated in backfire and endfire states for forward radiation and vice versa. A prototype of the antenna is designed at 5.2 GHz, which reaches peak gains of 9.94 dBi and 9.89 dBi with bandwidths of 23.7% and 25.6% in the forward and backward states, respectively.
Funding Information
  • Natural Science Foundation of China (62171480)
  • Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation of Guangdong Province (2020B1515020053)

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