60 GHz Compact Larger Beam Scanning Range PCB Leaky-Wave Antenna Using HMSIW for Millimeter-Wave Applications

A half-mode substrate integrated waveguide (HMSIW), based on printed circuit hoard (PCB) technology, is employed to construct a novel V-band leaky-wave antenna incorporating composite right-/left-handed (CRLH) media. Including modified half-sinusoidally varied interdigital capacitive slots on the radiating edge of the HMSIW enables the feature of effective CRLH media to produce adequate radiation coverage and bandwidth with improved sidelobe level (SLL) and higher gain. Unit cell characteristics and space harmonic analysis were thoroughly investigated through dispersion and Bloch impedance analysis. By appropriately tuning the physical parameters of the design, the balanced condition was obtained at a broadside frequency of 60 GHz. The highly directed radiated fan beam covered a scanning range of 120 degrees with beam steering from -72 degrees to 48 degrees of the visible space. The proposed antenna operated over 55-65 GHz with a maximum realized gain of 14.5 dBi, maximum beamwidth of 9.15 degrees, better than 15 dB SLL and 20 dB cross-polar radiation. All simulated responses showed reasonably good accordance with experimental data thereby validating the novel design of the proposed leaky-wave structure for millimeter-wave wireless applications.