This paper presents a 60 GHz connected slots linear-phased array feeding a high-gain semi-symmetric lens antenna. This design provides high gain, broadband, and beam-steering capabilities for gigabit rate access and backhaul communications. The connected slots antenna array (CSAA) is excited at 16× equidistant points which not only yields spatial power combining but also allows the progressive phase changes to steer the beam in ±45° in azimuth plane. To characterize the CSAA-fed lens antenna, four different power splitters are fabricated which steer the main beam in 0, 15, 30, and 45°. The lens is designed in a way to overcome the scan loss and get comparatively higher gain when beam is steered away from the broadside. The measured results show 25.4 dBi maximum gain with 3 dB gain bandwidth covering the full band 57–66 GHz whereas 3 dB beam-steering range is ±45° for all frequencies. Besides, the half power beamwidth is 6 and 10° in elevation (E-plane) and azimuth plane (H-plane), respectively.

A modified ant lion optimization (MALO) algorithm is proposed in this article, for the synthesis of Chebyshev-based arrays by optimizing amplitudes and phases of excitations, and element spacings. Modification in ant lion optimization is achieved by hybridizing it with chaotic particle swarm optimization. The optimization process is employed to obtain an array pattern with the least possible sidelobe level. Close-in sidelobe level minimization for optimum pattern synthesis is suggested. Instead of only steering the main beam towards the desired direction presented by some popular optimization methods, the beam steering along with null positioning in other specified direction is also achieved employing MALO. Considering the arrays with the same design parameters and the results of other optimization algorithms, the performance of MALO is evaluated. The results show that MALO provides considerable improvements in an array pattern compared to the arrays optimized using other optimization algorithms and the uniform array.

Multiple antennas and multiple radio frequency (RF) chains in both the transmitter and receiver are required in conventional radio systems employing the multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) method. This paper presents an experimental investigation of a beam-steering time-modulated MIMO receiver with a single RF chain. Implementation of the receiver is based on a time-modulated antenna array (TMAA) and a software-defined radio. The sidebands generated inherently by the TMAA are utilized as virtual spatial channels with the beam-steering functionality. Performance of the system is investigated experimentally. The bit error rate and condition number of the channel matrix are examined for different radiation patterns in order to determine favorable configurations in a given multipath environment. Obtained results show a considerable impact of the beam-steering on the performance of MIMO transmission.

In this paper, a triple-band 1 × 2 and 1 × 4 microstrip patch antenna array for next-generation wireless and satellite-based applications are presented. The targeted frequency bands are 3.6, 5.2 and 6.7 GHz, respectively. Simple design procedures and optimization techniques are discussed to achieve better antenna performance. The antenna is designed and simulated using Agilent ADS Momentum using FR4 substrate (εr = 4.2 and h = 1.66 mm). The main patch of the antenna is designed for 3.6 GHz operation. A hybrid feed technique is used for antenna arrays with quarter-wave transformer-based network to match the impedance from the feed-point to the antenna to 50 Ω. The antenna is optimized to resonate at triple-bands by using two symmetrical slits. The single-element triple-band antenna is fabricated and characterized, and a comparison between the simulated and measured antenna is presented. The achieved simulated impedance bandwidths/gains for the 1 × 2 array are 1.67%/7.75, 1.06%/7.7, and 1.65%/9.4 dBi and for 1 × 4 array are 1.67%/10.2, 1.45%/8.2, and 1.05%/10 dBi for 3.6, 5.2, and 6.7 GHz bands, respectively, which are very practical. These antenna arrays can also be used for advanced antenna beam-steering systems.