Practical Design Considerations for Compact Array-Fed Huygens' Dielectric Lens Antennas

Area of Science:

• Electromagnetics and Optics
• Antenna Theory and Design

Background:

• Conventional dielectric lens design methods face limitations, particularly concerning resonant effects at short distances from feed antennas.
• Huygens' principle (HP) based lenses rely on precise phase shifting, which can be compromised by undesired dielectric resonances.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose a practical design consideration for dielectric lenses based on Huygens' principle (HP) at a short distance (λ₀/2) from feed antennas.
• To overcome limitations of conventional design methods by accounting for resonant effects and actual phase distributions.
• To enhance antenna gain through a novel HP-based lens design approach.

Main Methods:

• Developing an HP-based design method that captures phase distributions at a specific distance from the feed array.
• Analyzing phase distributions for 2 × 2 and 1 × 4 array antennas.
• Designing lens topology to compensate for phase distributions and mitigate resonant effects.
• Considering undesired dielectric resonant phenomenology in the design process.

Main Results:

• The proposed HP-based design method achieves significant gain enhancement.
• A case study demonstrated a gain enhancement of up to 5.34 dB compared to conventional dielectric lenses.
• The effectiveness of the gain enhancement depends on the feed array arrangement and resulting phase distribution shapes (circular or elliptic).

Conclusions:

• The proposed Huygens' principle-based dielectric lens design offers a practical approach to overcome conventional limitations.
• Accounting for actual phase information and resonant effects is crucial for effective lens design and gain enhancement.
• This method provides a pathway to significantly improve antenna performance through optimized dielectric lens design.