A 2 Bit Reconfigurable Beam-Steering Antenna Array Using Phase Compensation

—A 2 bit reconfigurable beam-steering antenna array using phase compensation is proposed, which consists of a 1 bit reconfigurable antenna and 90^◦ digital phase shifter. The p-i-n diodes are soldered in the 2 bit element to realize 2 bit phase shift. Due to the 2 bit phase quantization error, a fixed compensation phase is added to each array element to reduce sidelobe level. A 2 bit reconfigurable antenna array with 1 × 8 elements shows that the sidelobe levels of the scanning-beams are less than −6.2 dB. At the same time, simulated results also show that the antenna can steer beam direction from −48^◦ to 50^◦, and the beam gain fluctuation is less than 2.2 dB. A prototype is fabricated and tested. The proposed antenna can provide a novel idea to design a 2 bit reconfigurable beam-steering antenna array with a better beam-scanning performance in various applications.