Electronically Scanning Antennas using CTS Technology and Ferroelectric Materials

University Of Utah, Salt Lake City UT

Investigators

Abstract

0003335 Iskander With this proposal the PI's respectfully request the NSF funding of this SGER grant to carry out fundamental research towards the design and development of a low-cost antenna array with full 2D beam steering capability. The proposed technology is based on the use of the Continuous Transverse Stub (CTS) array design with the steering capability provided through the use of Ferroelectric material. With the development of the fund understanding that will lead to the reduced losses and increased gain in this low cost CTS technology, the proposed design is expected to have significant impact on wireless communications (Satellite and terrestrial) and in both the commercial and military application sectors. Initial development of this technology which combines the CTS antenna array design and the use of Ferroelectric materials to provide the beam steering capability, is presently being funded in collaboration with Ferroelectric materials research group in the Army Research Office. The intended application in this case is for the low cost, light weight antennas for helmets in the PM Soldier Program. In this case, manufacturability issues are being addressed through participation by the Raytheon Systems Company. The presently funded one-year study is simply intended to demonstrate proof of concept, and conduct simulations that will provide evidence for the possible utilization at frequencies of specific interest to the PM Soldier Program. The requested support, however, is intended to address some fundamental research issues related to understanding the full capability of this technology and its potential utilization in the next generation, broadband, and adaptive wireless communications systems. One of the fundamental limitations of present designs is the high conductor losses and the inability to improve the gain to help increase the range while saving the battery power. Preliminary simulations by our group showed that through the use of multilayer Ferroelectric materials (also produced by ARL), it may be possible to reduce the conductor losses. It is postulated that with multilayer Ferroelectric materials, and with the proper selection of the type and dimensions of the various materials, it may be possible to propagate surface waves near the dielectric interfaces and away from the transmission line conductors feeding and connecting the array elements in the CTS array. This clearly may lead to reducing the losses and hence increasing the antenna gain and realizing the associated benefits in range and battery life. This preliminary observation will be further studied to identify types of propagating modes in the proposed multi-layer CTS design, and the dependence of the characteristics of these modes on the types and dimensions of the Feffoelectric materials in the multiplayer structure. The successful development of this effort and the implementation of its results is expected to have significant impact on antenna array designs for future wireless communications systems. Other research issues that they intend to investigate as part of this SGER grant are related to the use of the coaxial configuration of the CTS technology (invented at the University of Utah) for multiband (frequency hop) communications systems. The new coaxial CTS design is shown to provide significant broadband and improved impedance matching characteristics, and hence its potential use for multi-band wireless communications systems is considered revolutionary. The proposed work thus combines two research components, one in the development of low-loss and multilayer Ferroelectric materials, and the other which involves the full development of the CTS distributed antenna array architecture with a beam steering capability. This effort is expected, therefore, to lead to significant breakthroughs in the traditional and often bulky phased antenna array designs and will have significant impact on the design of low-cost antenna arrays for the next generation wireless communications systems.