H-Band Substrate-Integrated Discrete-Lens Antenna for High Data Rate Communication Systems

A substrate-integrated discrete-lens antenna manufactured in standard printed-circuit-board (PCB) technology is demonstrated in H-band (225-325 GHz). The arrays composed of phase-shifting unit cells and a waveguide-fed planar focal source are designed on a single PCB stack with five metal layers and multiple low-loss dielectric substrates in a monolithic module of 20× 20×4.52 mm3. The linearly polarized unit cells are based on arc-shaped resonators placed between two perpendicular polarizing grids. They achieve eight transmission phase states with less than 1 dB average insertion loss and 27% 1 dB bandwidth. Two antenna prototypes with radiating apertures of 6.6×6.6 mm2 and 10.56×10.56 mm2 are designed, fabricated, and measured. They demonstrate linearly polarized pencil-beam radiation patterns with low sidelobes, low cross-polarization, an experimental gain of 20.6/23.1 dBi at 327/332 GHz, and 3 dB gain bandwidth of 26.3%/17.2%. The impact of manufacturing tolerances is detailed both at unit-cell level and antenna level.