Hindawi

International Journal of Antennas and Propagation

Volume 2019, Article ID 8293624, 7 pages
https://doi.org/10.1155/2019/8293624

Research Article
Investigation on SIW Slot Antenna Array with Beam
Scanning Ability

1,2
Yanfei Li and Yang Li1
1
State Key Laboratory of Millimeter Waves, Southeast University, Nanjing 210096, China
2
Information Engineering School, Communication University of China, Beijing 100024, China

Correspondence should be addressed to Yanfei Li; liyanfei@cuc.edu.cn

Received 22 July 2018; Revised 10 September 2018; Accepted 3 October 2018; Published 6 January 2019

Academic Editor: Yu Jian Cheng

Copyright © 2019 Yanfei Li and Yang Li. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution
License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is
properly cited.

A sparse substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) slot antenna array and its application on phase scanning are studied in this paper.
The genetic algorithm is used to optimize the best arrangement for 8-element and 7-element sparse arrays over an aperture of
4 5λ0 . Antenna arrays with feeding networks, for steering the main beam pointing to 0° and −15°, are demonstrated with the
SIW technology. The comparison between the sparse array and the conventional uniformly spaced array with the same
aperture are presented, which suggest that the same beam width can be obtained with the gain decreased by 0.5 or 1 dBi and
the number of element reduced by 2 or 3, respectively. The sparse antenna array with beam scanning ability presented in this
paper shows that, while the beam scanning in the range of ±15°, the gain fluctuation is less than 0.3 dBi and the side lobe level
is lower than −10 dB.

1. Introduction algorithms are employed to large scale sparse array opti-

Phased array antenna has been widely used in modern wire-
less communication systems for the high gain and agile beam
scan [1]. The active phased array has transmitting/receiving
(T/R) module with each element, which can improve the per-
formance but will increase the cost of the whole array.
Besides, in order to obtain a narrow main beam, a large radi-
ation aperture is needed; the element number of the tradi-
tional uniformly distributed phased array will increase. The
cost introduced by control components, T/R modules, and
power dividers will limit the use of phased arrays. In some
applications with the requirement of narrow beam width
and high gain, the phased array with reduced number of cells
attracts more attention.
Sparse array was studied with fewer elements arranged
over the same aperture compared to conventional full feed-
ing uniformly spaced array since the 1960s [2]. Theoretically,
the low side lobe level (SLL) can be obtained by optimizing
the feeding current and position of each element. Some
mizations, such as genetic algorithm (GA) [3], particle
swarm optimization [4], and Harmony Search Algorithm
[5]. Among the optimization methods, genetic algorithm is
one of the most popular optimization techniques used for
side lobe level reduction [6–9], since GAs [10] are well suited
for sparse and thinning array optimization. GA is a global
and random search algorithm that simulates natural selec-
tion and evolution. It searches through the total solution
space and can find the optimal global solution in a domain.
Although GA was applied for optimizing sparse array widely,
few sparse arrays with phased scanning have been reported
with demonstration and measurement results.
In this paper, the genetic algorithm is applied for
optimizing the position of each element in an equal ampli-
tude feeding sparse array with an aperture of 4 5λ0 , where
λ0 is the free space wavelength at the center frequency
14 GHz. The sparse arrays with antenna element number
of 7 and 8 are investigated separately, which SLLs are
lower than −10 dB at both broadside and −15° direction.
2 International Journal of Antennas and Propagation

Table 1: The arrangement of two sparse arrays.

Start
Element 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Initialize population Position (λ0 ) 0 0.55 1.23 1.85 2.51 3.11 3.66 4.5
Position (λ0 ) 0 1.45 2.06 2.71 3.34 3.85 4.5 —
Calculate fitness function

Radiation Phase shifters 1-to-8 parallel power

slots divider
i > 500? Yes
No
Output best
Select
individual

Preprocess End

Crossover
50ohm-
GCPW-
Mutate to-SIW
transition

Reprocess

Figure 1: GA flow chart.

(a)

Each sparse array consists of antenna elements, phased Radiation 1-to-7 parallel power
Phase shifters
shifters, and power dividers based on substrate integrated slots divider
waveguide (SIW).
The paper is organized as follows. The design process
of the sparse phased array is presented in Section 2. Measure-
ment results and analysis are given in Section 3, and the 50ohm-
conclusion is drawn in Section 4. GCPW-to-
SIW
transition
2. Design of the Sparse Array
2.1. Genetic Algorithm (GA). A linear sparse array is studied
in this section. The array factor with equal feeding amplitude
can be given in [11] by

cos θ
AF = 〠e jkdn ,  n = 1, 2, N, 1

where d n is the distance between the element n and the ele-

ment 1. N is the number of the elements of the array. The
program in MATLAB GA toolbox is used to optimize the (b)
best arrangement of the linear sparse array. The GA flow-
chart is shown in Figure 1. dn is set as optimization variable,
and SLL is chosen as fitness function, which is expressed as
p2 dy

AF u wslot
f itness d = max , 2 lslot
AFmax ds dx

where AFmax is the peak main lobe level. pl

For the 8-element case, the position of the first element is
0 and the 8th element is 4 5λ0 . The 8-number vector is coded
into a population with 400 randomly generated individuals.
In order to avoid the dead loop, as well as considering the
speed of the optimization convergence, after 500 iterations,
(c)
Figure 2: The structure of (a) 8-element and (b) 7-element sparse
arrays and (c) detail of SIW radiation slots.
International Journal of Antennas and Propagation 3

Table 2: Parameters of the slot antenna array unit (mm).

p1 p2 lslot wslot dx dy ds dxi

1 0.9 7.6 1 0.4 8.4 2.5
dxi

0
dai a
−5 dyi

a
−10
|S11| (dB)

−15

−20 Figure 4: Y-type-equal power divider.

−25
13.4 13.6 13.8 14.0 14.2 14.4 14.6 14.8 15.0 15.2 Table 3: Phase shifts of phase shifters for two sparse arrays to steer
Frequency (GHz) main beam pointing to −15°.
(a) S11
Phase shifter 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
0 °
10 Phase shift 1 ( ) 0 52.9 118.6 177.5 240.5 299.1 351.7 72
330 30
Phase shift 2 (°) 0 139.5 198.6 260.3 321.0 9.2 72 —
0

−10 300 60
waveguide- (GCPW-) to-SIW transitions. The SIW metallic
−20 pins are with the radius of 0.25 mm and the distance of 1 mm.
−30
The two radiation slots in each SIW path are antenna
arrays, that is, the substrate integrated waveguide slot
Gain (dB)

−40 270 90 antenna unit; the detail of the slot array antenna unit is
shown in Figure 2(c); the substrate of the SIW is with the
−30
thickness of 1.524 mm and with the relative permittivity of
−20 3.5. All the dimensions of the slot antenna array unit are
240 120 listed in Table 2. The S11 and radiation of the slot array
−10 antenna unit are shown in Figure 3. The −10 dB impedance
0 bandwidth is from 13.4 to 15.2 GHz (relative bandwidth is
12%), with a gain of 7.86 dB at 14 GHz. The beam width is
210 150
10 140° in the E-plane, which indicates that it can be used as a
180
unit antenna for a wide-angle coverage phased array.
H-plane
E-plane
2.3. Feeding Network. The feeding networks with phase
(b) Radiation pattern at 14 GHz
shifters are designed to steer main beam pointing to 0° and
Figure 3: Simulation results of substrate integrated waveguide slot −15° for each sparse array. The structure of Y-type-equal
antenna unit. SIW power divider is shown in Figure 4. The distance
between the two output ports of each power divider dai is dif-
ferent from each other. A metallic pin is placed in the center
a set of element arrangement will be generated. When the line to equally deliver the input power to two ports. The dis-
number of element is 7, the situation is the same as the tances dyi and dxi can be optimized to reduce the reflection
8-element case except the population is coded by 7-number from the SIW branches and bends [12]. And the width of
vectors. The optimized arrangements for both cases are SIW a is 7.3 mm to support the TE10 mode in the whole
shown in Table 1. operating frequency band.
The phase of each output port of the parallel power
2.2. SIW Slot Antenna. By using the optimized position of the divider is different because of the ununiformly distributed
sparse arrays, we construct the 8-element and 7-element sparse array. In the cases of the main beam steering to 0°,
sparse antenna arrays which are shown in Figure 2. They the phase shifters are required for in-phase feeding. For
are both composed of SIW radiation slots, phase shifters, the cases of beam steering to −15°, the phase shifts of the
parallel power dividers, and 50-ohm grounded coplanar SIW phase shifters are shown in Table 3. The required
4 International Journal of Antennas and Propagation

0
−5
−10
−15
c b w −20
g
−25

S11 (dB)
−30
−35
−40
(a) −45
0 −50
−55
−5 −60
−65
−10 13.6 13.8 14.0 14.2 14.4 14.6 14.8 15.0 15.2 15.4 15.6 15.8 16.0
Frequency (dB)
−15 8-element array 7-element array
pointing to 0 degree pointing to 0 degree
−20 8-element array 7-element array
pointing to 15 degree pointing to 15 degree
−25
Figure 6: S11 measurement results of the sparse antenna arrays
−30 with SIW feed network.

−35
13.4 13.6 13.8 14.0 14.2 14.4 14.6 14.8 15.0 15.2
Freq (GHz)
S11 S21
S12 S22
(b)

Figure 5: (a) GCPW-to-SIW transition and (b) the simulated S

parameter: w = 2 25 mm; g = 0 4 mm; b = 6 2 mm; c = 5 85 mm.

phase shifts are realized by adjusting the widths and lengths

of the phase shifters, which changes the propagation con-
stant and characteristic impedance of the SIW [13]. In the
case of phase shift larger than 180°, the radiation slots can (a) 8-element sparse array
be mirrored along the center line of the SIW to provide
180° phase shift in addition. The scanning performance of
the array is studied by feeding each element with equal
amplitude and gradual phase shifts.
The structure of 50-ohm GCPW-to-SIW transition is
shown in Figure 5(a). It is used to transform low impedance
SIW to 50 ohm for testing purpose. The metallic pins near
GCPW are with the radius of 0.15 mm and distance of
0.6 mm. The 50-ohm GCPW has a width of w and a gap of
g. The simulated S parameters are shown in Figure 5(b),
which indicate a low reflection coefficient among operation
frequency band.
(b) 7-element sparse array
After combining the antenna array and feeding network
together, four SIW antennas including 8-element and Figure 7: Photography of the fabricated sparse arrays, for (a) and
7-element sparse arrays pointing to 0° and −15° are simulated (b), left: top layer, right: bottom layer, top: pointing to 0°, under:
and fabricated. The measurement results of S11 of the whole pointing to 15°.
sparse array with feeding networks are shown in Figure 6.

3. Measurement and Analysis (PCB) process, which are shown in Figure 7, each sparse
array is composed of top layer and bottom layer. The
Four sparse array antennas with feeding networks are dem- substrate is with a dielectric permittivity of 3.5, dielectric
onstrated by low-cost single-layer printed circuit board loss tangent of 0.0018, which thickness is 1.524 mm with
International Journal of Antennas and Propagation 5

0 0
−5 −5
−10 −10
Radiation pattern (dB)

Radiation pattern (dB)

−15 −15
−20 −20
−25 −25
−30 −30
−35 −35
−40 −40
−45 −45
−180
−150
−120
−90
−60
−30
0
30
60
90
120
150
180

−180
−150
−120
−90
−60
−30
0
30
60
90
120
150
180
Angle (deg) Angle (deg)
Co-pol measured Co-pol measured
X-pol measured X-pol measured
Co-pol simulated Co-pol simulated
(a) (b)
0 0
−5 −5
−10 −10
Radiation pattern (dB)

Radiation pattern (dB)

−15 −15
−20 −20
−25 −25
−30 −30
−35 −35
−40 −40
−45 −45
−180
−150
−120
−90
−60
−30
0
30
60
90
120
150
180

−180
−150
−120
−90
−60
−30
0
30
60
90
120
150
180
Angle (deg) Angle (deg)
Co-pol measured Co-pol measured
X-pol measured X-pol measured
Co-pol simulated Co-pol simulated
(c) (d)

Figure 8: Radiation patterns (simulation results are at 14 GHz, measured at 13.9 GHz). (a) 8-element array pointing to 0°; (b) 8-element array
pointing to −15°; (c) 7-element array pointing to 0°; (d) 7-element array pointing to −15°.

a dimension of 12.4 × 14.7 cm2. The simulated and mea- 18.0

sured radiation patterns of the sparse array antennas are
shown in Figure 8. The measured results agree well with 17.5
the simulated ones, and the SLLs lower than −10 dB and cross
polarization lower than −20 dB for all arrays pointing to 17.0
Gain (dB)

different angles.
16.5
Furthermore, the comparison between the sparse array
and conventional half-wavelength spaced array with 10 ele- 16.0
ments as well as the phase scanning performance of the
sparse array is shown in Figures 9 and 10, respectively. Both 15.5
the sparse array and the uniform 10-element array are with
the same radiation slot array antenna unit. It suggests that 15.0
the sparse array can generate the same beam width as the 13.6 14.0 14.4 14.8 15.2
fully arranged array while the gain decreased by 0.5 or 1 dBi Freq (GHz)
when the element number reduced by 2 or 3, respectively. 7-element
8-element
Both sparse arrays show a good performance during the full conventional
scanning range of ±15° with the gain fluctuation less than
0.3 dBi and SLL lower than −10 dB. Figure 9: The broadside gain of the sparse and conventional arrays.
6 International Journal of Antennas and Propagation

20 the phase scanning performance of two sparse arrays is stud-

ied. The designs are demonstrated and tested, which indi-
10 cates a good sparse array which also has the beam scanning
property when the proper phase is given.
0
Data Availability
Gain (dB)

−10
The data used to support the findings of this study are
−20 included within the article.

−30 Conflicts of Interest

−40 The authors declare that there is no conflict of interests
regarding the publication of this paper.
−180

−150

−120

−90

−60

−30

30

60

90

120

150

180
Angle (GHz)
Acknowledgments
−15 −5
15 5 This work was supported in part by the National Key
−10 0
Technology Support Program (2015BAK05B01 and
10
2015BAK05B01-01).
(a)
20
Supplementary Materials
10 The simulation and measurement data used to support the
findings of this study are included within the supplementary
0 information file. (Supplementary Materials)
Gain (dB)

−10 References
[1] R. C. Hansen, Phased Array Antennas, John Wiley & Sons,
−20
Hoboken, NJ, USA, 2nd edition, 2009.
[2] H. Unz, “Linear arrays with arbitrarily distributed elements,”
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pp. 222-223, 1960.
−40 [3] K. S. Chen, Z.-S. He, and C. L. Han, “Modified GA optimiza-
−180

−150

−120

−90

−60

−30

30

60

90

120

150

180

tion of linear sparse array,” Journal of Electronic Science and

Angle (GHz)
−15
15
−10
10
(b)
Figure 10: Phase scanning performance for (a) 8-element and (b)
7-element sparse arrays.
4. Conclusion
In this paper, the sparse SIW slot antenna arrays with beam
scanning ability are studied. GA is used to optimize the loca-
tions of the elements to make SLL lower than −10 dB. The
8-element and 7-element sparse arrays are designed by using
the optimized arrangement, and SIW technology is used in
the feeding network. In order to verify the beam scanning
ability of the sparse arrays, the arrays pointing to −15° are
realized by using the designed feeding network. Although
the broadside gain of sparse arrays is decayed, the same beam
width can be obtained with a reduced element number. After
being fed with the equal amplitude and gradual phase shift,
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International Journal of Antennas and Propagation 7

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