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A Compact Beamsteering Metasurface Lens
Array Antenna with Low-cost Phased Array
Ruolei Xu, Student Member, IEEE, Zhi Ning Chen, Fellow, IEEE
 power consumption, high cost, and immense hardware
Abstract— A metasurface (MTS) lens array (MLA) fed by
a phased array with less phase shifters (PSs) is proposed for
compact low-cost beamsteering applications. By dividing a
single-large-aperture lens into N small-aperture lens
elements with the focus-to-diameter ratio of a lens antenna
unchanged, the overall thickness of the proposed antenna is
reduced by N times. The beamsteering is achieved in two
steps. First, the main beam direction of MLA antenna is
switched over a large angular step by shifting the feeding
antennas beneath each lens element. Then, the switched
beams are fine steered by a low-cost N-element phased
array. Theoretical analysis using array theory is performed
to work out a general design method with discussion on the
taper and spillover effect of feed-power pattern on the lens
array. Based on the proposed method, a three-lens linear
MLA fed by a phased array is designed to operate at 10
GHz. The proposed antenna achieves a 3-dB beamwidth
coverage range of ±30° with a beam crossing-level higher
than −3 dB and a gain tolerance of 1.6 dB with a maximum
gain of 19.1 dBi. The presented antenna can be used to
achieve volumetric beamsteering performance directly.
The proposed design features the merits of higher gain,
lower cost, simpler feeding network, less phase shifters, and
lower profile compared with conventional full phased
arrays and single-aperture lens antennas.
Index Terms—Metasurface (MTS), lens antenna, antenna
array, antenna subarray, beamsteering, phased array.
I. INTRODUCTION
B EAM steering and multibeam techniques largely facilitate
the design of beam-directional high-gain antennas and
hence are of enormous interest in the fifth-generation (5G)
wireless communication systems [1]–[3], [25]. Conventional
phased array antennas (PAAs) achieve beamforming and agile
beam scanning through the manipulation of excitation
amplitude and the progressive phase difference among element
antennas based on the array theory [4]. Due to the properties of
high gain, spatial selectivity, and wide-beam coverage, PAAs
have been extensively adopted in wireless communication and
radar systems [5]–[7]. However, the heavy implementation of
phase shifters (PSs) in the phased array architecture incurs high
The authors are with the Department of Electrical and Computer
Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117583 (e-mail:
xu_ruolei@u.nus.edu; eleczn@nus.edu.sg)
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complexity to the system, especially for a large antenna array
[8]–[10]. To alleviate the demands in PSs, phased array
consisting of subarrays has been proposed [11], [12]. The
concept is to divide a phased array into several either uniformly
or non-uniformly grouped subarrays, each connecting to only
one PS. Consequently, the element spacing of the array
becomes usually larger than one free-space wavelength which
inevitably causes grating lobes in the visible region [13]. This
results in a narrow beam scanning range (BSR) and a poor
scanning performance [14].
Additionally, the implementation of electromagnetic (EM)
lens to achieve beamforming and beamsteering has recently
attracted much attention [15]–[31]. An EM lens is designed to
focus the beam coming out from the feeding antennas and steer
the beam based on ray-tracing theory [18]. Various approaches
to integrate the EM lens with feeding antennas have been
studied. There are three typical architectures to realize this
integration based on different feeding mechanisms, namely,
phased array-fed lens antennas, multi-feed multibeam lens
antennas, and phased lens antenna arrays.
Phased array fed lens antenna is formed by directly
illuminating an EM lens with a PAA, which results in enhanced
gain and scanning properties. Consequently, less PSs and array
elements are required in the system compared to a conventional
PAA for realizing high gain. In [19], a five-layer circular
biconvex dielectric Luneburg lens, with a diameter of 7.13λ0,
fed by a planar phased array is proposed to achieve ± 30° BSR
with a maximum gain of 25.7 dBi and an overall thickness of
6λ0. Despite the bulky figure of dielectric lens, a planar phased
transmitarray antenna with a diameter of 8λ0 and a thickness of
3.3λ0 is recently proposed for one-dimensional (1D) beam
scanning with a peak gain of 25.6 dBi and a BSR of ± 30° [20].
The multi-feed multibeam lens antennas incorporate feeding
antennas at the focal arc or focal plane of an EM lens to achieve
beamsteering or multibeam through mechanical movement or
multiple feedings without any PSs [1]. The EM lenses with
gradient index distribution, typically Luneburg lenses, in spite
of the inhomogeneous full-dielectric and bulky features, has
been extensively studied at microwave bands [21]–[23]. The
complicated manufacturing process and the non-planar feature
of a typical Luneburg lens are relieved through employing the
method of transformation optics to compress a sphere into a
cylinder [24]. Moreover, planar metasurface (MTS) lens
antennas endorsing abrupt and discretized phase shifts along
the discrete aperture with deliberately designed phase-shifting
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or time-delay unit cells have been broadly explored [25]–[28],
[33]. The designed MTS lens antennas are generally compact,
lightweight, low cost and easy to integrate with other circuits
[25]. Although the feeding network is significantly simplified
without any PSs, the focal length of multi-feed multibeam lens
antennas can hardly be reduced considering the phase error
introduced by the intrinsic error of an EM lens [29], [30].
To alleviate the hardware complexity of a PAA architecture,
phased lens antenna array is brought up in [31] aiming to reduce
the number of PSs implemented in the system which performs a
3-dB beamwidth coverage range (3-dB-BCR) of ±37.5° by
forming a phased array with four full-dielectric lens antenna
elements and scanning the switched-beams for continuous
beam coverage. The designed antenna also shows potential to
achieve a low profile by selecting a smaller lens element
diameter. However, the sidelobe levels (SLLs) of the bulky and
thick dielectric lens array undesirably increase up to −3 dB in
the visible region when the beam is scanned to the 35°.
In this paper, a compact MTS lens array (MLA) based
architecture fed by a phased array is proposed and investigated
for low-cost, volumetric beamsteering applications. By
dividing a single-large-aperture lens into three lens elements,
the overall thickness of the proposed antenna is reduced to D/6
(where D is the overall aperture size of the lens) while only
three PSs are implemented across an aperture size of 7.2λ0.
Compared to the full-dielectric lens based implementation in
[31], the proposed antenna is planar, lightweight and compact
with much lower SLLs when the beams scan.
The paper is organized as follow. In Section II, the general
design considerations of a linear MLA antenna architecture are
discussed with taper and spillover effect analysis for the design
guideline. In Section III, a three-lens linear MLA is then
designed at 10 GHz using five-layer low-pass unit cells with
suspended plate antennas (SPAs) as the feeding elements. The
measurement results are provided in Section IV to validate the
design, following by the conclusion in Section V.
II. ARCHITECTURE AND GENERAL DESIGN CONSIDERATION
A. Mechanism of Beamsteering MTS Lens Array
Fig. 1 illustrates the configuration of the proposed linear
MLA consisting of three identical MTS lens elements placed
side-by-side along the x-axis. Each lens element has the same
two-dimensional (2-D) phase correcting characteristic. It
transfers the spherical wave front from feeding antennas to a
plane wave in the space and enables beamsteering by virtue of
the intrinsic scanning property of a focusing lens [25].
The focal-to-diameter ratio (f/De), or FDRe in short, of each
lens element is set to be 0.5 with the trade-off between high
aperture efficiency and volume of the lens. The five feeding
antennas at the focal plane of each lens element are connected
through a switching network to excite one of the five feedings
at a time for beam switching. Alternatively, the beam switching
can be achieved by mechanically altering the position of the
feeding antenna without a switching network. Subsequently, an
MLA is formed with three MTS lens elements, each connected
to a PS. To keep the element factor of the MLA identical, the
feeding antennas with the same switch labels are excited
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Fig. 1. Side view of the proposed three-lens elements MLA fed by a low-cost
phased array with the radiated beams.
simultaneously to generate three identical switched beams
pointing to the same direction. In this setup, there are five
statuses of switched beams indicated by the corresponding
labels. Based on the array theory, the switched beams are
individually steered with high gain by tuning the phase
difference among elements using the PSs. Each of the switched
beams is only steered in a fine angular range to concern the
SLLs caused by grating lobes. Nonetheless, a wide and
continuous 3-dB-BCR can be obtained through dedicatedly
locating the feeding antennas with required phase differences.
Generally, the beamsteering performance of a linear MLA
antenna is governed by four key parameters: 1) D − overall
MLA size; 2) De − lens element size; 3) N − lens element
number; 4) M – required feeding antennas number under each
lens element. The overall MLA size mainly determines the
beamwidth performance of the MLA antenna in the x-z plane
and relates to the element lens size and number by D = De×N.
The parameter M is then subjected to the required 3-dB-BCR
and the maximum tolerable SLL in the visible region. Here, this
work aims to design an MLA with ±30° 3-dB-BCR and a
maximum SLL less than −10 dB.
B. Analysis of MTS Lens Array Based on Array Theory
Considering each lens element as a space-fed antenna array
with the unit cells on the MTS lens acting as Huygens’
secondary sources, the MLA can be analyzed in a way similar
to the conventional phased arrays consisting of subarrays. Yet,
the proposed architecture has two major advantages over
phased array using subarrays: first, the main beam of each lens
element can be primarily switched and steered to further
increase the BSR; and second, the elements on the MTS lens
can be placed closely with a spacing less than 0.5λ0 regardless
of the mutual coupling effect between the elements.
To evaluate an analytical expression for the radiation pattern
of MTS lens element, there are four assumptions: 1) each unit
cell on the MTS lens acts as a secondary scalar feed and
radiates spherical wave field, regardless of polarization and
mutual coupling; 2) the amplitude of radiated wave from each
unit cell can be determined by geometrical optics under point
source illumination, regardless of any loss; 3) the wave radiated
from the unit cells has a uniform phase distribution for a
broadside radiation while a progressive phase difference for
scanned beams, regardless of phase error; and 4) the spillover
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0 0
TABLE I
-10 -10 PARAMETERS OF THE PROPOSED MTS LENS ARRAY
dB

dB
-20 -20 us 0° −12° −24°
us ua EF
-30 -30 −10 dB BW 35.8° 36.9° 39.9°
-45 0 45 -45 0 45
Theta (degree) Theta (degree) u0 −3° −9° −15° −21° −27°
(a) (b)
0 0 βx 51.2° 129.2° −130.6° −56° 37.6°
E
h SLL −11.1 dB −11.1 dB −11.1 dB −11.2 dB −11.3 dB
-10 -10
HPBW 7° 7.1° 7.2° 7.5° 7.9°
dB

dB
-20 -20
De = 72 mm (2.4 λ0), N = 3, D = 216 mm (7.2λ0). BW: beamwidth, and HPBW: half-power
-30
u0 = us
-30
u0 = umax beamwidth.
-45 0 45 -45 0 45
Theta (degree) Theta (degree)
(c) (d) -27 -21 -15 -9 -3
0

Radiation Pattern (dB)

Fig. 2. (a) Element factor of a switched beam, (b) array factor, (c) non-scan total
pattern, (d) scan total pattern of the switched beam, when N = 3 and De = 2.4λ0.

40 13 15 -10
3dB-BCR
Element Number
Theta (degree)
Theta (degree)

30 M 10
10
20 7
5 3dB-BCR -20
10 4 BSR
-40 -30 -20 -10 0 10
Theta (degree)
0 1 0
1 2 3 4 5 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 Fig. 4. Normalized calculated scanned beams pattern.
De/ N
(a) (b)
Fig. 3. Theoretical study of (a) 3-dB beam coverage range of E(θ, ϕ) over De inevitable in the visible region of AF(θ, ϕ) for an element
and the number of required feeding elements (M) for covering ± 30° when N = spacing larger than λ0. This is illustrated in Fig. 2 for steering
3, us = 0°. (b) BSR and 3-dB-BCR over N when De = 2.4λ0, us = 0°. the switched-beam in the x-z plane, when N = 3 and De = 2.4λ0.
The main lobes’ elevation angles of the switched element factor
field and edge diffraction effect are neglected. Based on these
and the array factor are us and ua, respectively, as shown in Figs.
assumptions, the normalized radiation pattern of lens element,
2(a)–(b). When βx is set to let ua = us, E(θ, ϕ) has its main beam
EF(θ, ϕ), can be expressed using the array theory as [32]
at u0 = us = ua and the grating lobes are suppressed by the
1 outline of the element factor, as shown in Fig. 2(c). Further
𝐸𝐹 𝜃, 𝜙 𝐼𝑒 1 tuning βx leads to beamsteering of the E(θ, ϕ) having u0 = ua ±
𝑛
δu, where δu is a modifying factor to correct the required βx.
where dix, diy are the center-to-center distances of the ith unit cell Meanwhile, the SLL becomes closer to –10 dB when the 1st
to the corner cell, k is the propagation constant in free space, us grating lobe of the array factor approaches the −10 dB BW of
is the elevation angle at the main beam direction of EF(θ, ϕ) in the element factor, as presented in Fig. 2(d). The maximum
the x-z plane, Ii is the excitation amplitude with Σ Ii = n to steering angle with SLL < −10 dB is denoted as u0 = umax. Thus,
normalize the pattern, n = (De/p)2 is the element number on the the BSR of the switched beam is 2(umax − us), and the
MTS lens, p is the unit cell size. With the assumptions, the 3-dB-BCR is 2(umax − us + θh), whereas θh is the half-power
calculated pattern using (1) may only be valid in an angular beam width (HPBW) of E(θ, ϕ). To be mentioned, the
range close to the main beam. maximum SLL of lens element pattern should be less than −10
The array factor of the linear MLA is given by
dB for the derivation to be valid, otherwise the SLL of E(θ, ϕ)
𝑁 may be larger than −10 dB even before scanning.
sin 𝑘 𝐷 sin 𝜃 cos 𝜙 𝛽
2 The −10 dB BW of element factor with different us changes
𝐴𝐹 𝜃, 𝜙 2 slightly comparing to broadside element factor (us = 0°),
1
sin 𝑘 𝐷 sin 𝜃 cos 𝜙 𝛽 owning to a cos θ loss (0.6 dB for a 30° scan angle) accounting
2
for the decrease in projected aperture area of the lens.
where De is the adjacent lens element spacing in terms of the Consequently, the BSR and 3-dB-BCR of different switched
phase center, N is the number of lens elements and βx is the beams also slightly vary. For simplification below, the BSR and
progressive phase difference between adjacent lens elements in 3-dB-BCRs for the case us = 0° is examined, with which the
the array direction to point the maximum value to ua in the x-z required feeding antennas number can be simply solved as M =
plane which can be calculated as 30°/(umax − us + θh), which is rounded up to the next integer.
The theoretical analysis is first performed in case of uniform
𝛽 𝑘𝐷 sin 𝑢 3
amplitude distribution (Ii = 1, for i = 1, 2, 3 …) and equal phase
Based on the pattern multiplication rule, the overall radiation on the lens, with which EF(θ, ϕ) possesses the narrowest
pattern of the MLA, E(θ, ϕ), is calculated as broadside BW performance to have the widest BSR. This result
𝐸 𝜃, 𝜙 𝐸𝐹 𝜃, 𝜙 𝐴𝐹 𝜃, 𝜙 4 can serve as the design limitation where minimum required M
can be found for different setups with varying De and N. Fig.
Both AF(θ, ϕ) and EF(θ, ϕ) are periodic functions of θ which 3(a) shows the 3-dB-BCR over De when N = 3, us = 0°. It is
causes high SLLs in E(θ, ϕ) pattern when scanning due to the shown that the 3-dB-BCR decreases as De increases while more
grating lobes of the array factor. The grating lobe is feeding elements M are needed under each lens element. Fig.

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Broadside Amplitude Distribution -3 Scan Amplitude Distribution

30 0 dB 30 0 dB
15

y (mm)
y (mm)
M 13
0

Element Number
0

Theta (degree)
12 3-dB-BCR 11
BSR -30 -10 dB -30 -10 dB
9 9 Broadside Phase Distribution -3 Scan Phase Distribution
30 60° 30 60°
6 7

y (mm)

y (mm)
3 5 0 0° 0 0°

-30 -60° -30 -60°

0 3 -100 -50 0 50 100 -100 -50 0 50 100
38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 x (mm) x (mm)
-10 dB BW of element factor (degree) (a)
(a) (b) 0 0 0

Max. SLL (dB)

−3 scan

Amplitude (dB)
Amplitude (dB)
L2 L2
L1 L1 -5 Broadside
Fig. 5. (a) Lens antenna element; (b) BSR, 3-dB-BCR and M versus −10 dB -10 -10
-10
BW of broadside element factor pattern with us = 0, N = 3, De = 2.4λ0.
-20 -20 -15
0 2 4 6
m
-30 -30
3(b) shows the BSR and the 3-dB-BCR with the increasing of N -45 0
Theta (degree)
45 -45 0
Theta (degree)
45 0 -3 -6
Edge Power Level (dB)
-9

when De = 2.4λ0. Although the BSR increases for a larger N, the
3-dB-BCR slightly decreases. The two curves converge as
increasing N since the HPBW of E(θ, ϕ) becomes narrower for
a larger overall aperture size. The required M = 5 is unchanged
since the 3-dB-BCRs with varying N till 18 stay above 12°.
Generally, the minimum required M can be found with a given
De (or D) and N. For the case N = 3 and De = 2.4λ0, minimum M
= 5 feeding antennas under each lens element are required to
achieve the objective of ± 30° 3-dB-BCR with u0 = ±3°, ±9°,
±15°, ±21°, and ±27°.
To visualize this beamsteering, Fig. 4 illustrates the steered
beams calculated by MATLAB with the beam crossing-level
higher than −3 dB and the SLLs < −10 dB. Since the proposed
architecture is symmetric along x-axis, only the beamsteering
performance at the half space (ϕ = 180°) is examined. The
detailed parameters to achieve the objective are summarized in
Table I for reference.
C. Taper Amplitude Distribution Effect on Lens Element
With a tapered amplitude on each lens element, the −10 dB
BW of EF(θ, ϕ) increases comparing to a uniform amplitude
distribution [4]. As aforementioned, the −10 dB BW of the
element factor is critical to the BSR of a single switched beam.
The switched beam can barely be scanned with SLLs < −10 dB
if its −10 dB BW exceed the span between the main lobe and 1st
grating lobe of the array factor. Hence, the effect of the taper
amplitude distribution on lens element (or the −10 dB BW of
element factor pattern) on the performance of an MTS lens
antenna array is to be examined.
To tackle this issue, the feed-power pattern of lens element
for broadside radiation pattern is assumed to take the form [4]
𝐺 𝜃, 𝜙 cos 𝜃
where m represents a positive real number and θ stands for the
elevation angle ranging from –π/2 to π/2. The pattern of electric
field then has the form of 𝐺 𝜃, 𝜙 , which is adopted to solve
the electric field amplitude distribution on the lens element with
D = 2.4λ0 and FDRe = 0.5, as shown in Fig. 5(a). The edge
tapered power level is defined as 10log10(cosm θe) to measure
the normalized feed-power level captured by the lens element.
Using (1) and (5), the element factor patterns with distinct
beamwidth performance can be solved with varying m to alter
the tapered amplitude distribution on the lens element.
Fig. 5(b) shows that both the BSR and 3-dB-BCR decrease
monotonously with the increase of element factor’s −10 dB BW,
(b) (c) (d)
Fig. 6. (a) Total amplitude (above) and phase (below) distribution on the MLA
for broadside (left) and −3° scan (right) patterns, when m = 6.64. The radiation
patterns of MLA calculated directly (L2) and by using array factor (L1) for (b)
broadside radiation, (c) −3° scan, when m = 2. (d) Maximum SLL for broadside
and −3° scan pattern over m (or the edge tapered power level).
whereas the vertical distance between two curves indicates the
HPBW of corresponding scanned E(θ, ϕ) pattern. The required
M is also presented. It can be seen that when the −10 dB BW of
element factor exceeds 46.4° (m = 7), the pattern cannot be
scanned since the SLL of the broadside pattern caused by the
grating lobe is already beyond −10 dB. Moreover, it can be
observed that the optimal −10 dB BW of element factor is
below 40° (m = 2), corresponding to an edge tapered power
level of −3 dB, to have a minimum required M of five.
D. Spillover Effect on MTS Lens Array
Since the MLA is spaced-fed, the wave coming out from
feeds under each lens element is also illuminating the other lens
elements, which incurring additional magnitude and phase
distributions on the lens array. The interference was ignored
when solving E(θ, ϕ) using the array theory since lens elements
were treated as the element factor without considering the
interference among them. Apparently, this interference effect is
mainly determined by the spillover power level of each lens
antenna element when both FDRe and De are fixed.
To identify the interference effect, the total field on the lens
array is calculated by implementing geometric optics together
with the feed-power pattern in (5). Fig. 6(a) illustrates the
calculated interfered amplitude and phase distributions on the
MLA when m = 6.64, with which the radiation pattern of the
MLA can be solved directly using (1). Figs. 6(b)–(c) compare
5 the broadside and the −3° scan pattern calculated directly using
(1) to the ones calculated using array factor, whereas the phase
differences among elements for both methods are the same. As
can be seen, the patterns calculated using different methods
coincide with each other, especially in the angular range near
the main beam, while the SLLs calculated using (1) are slightly
higher than the ones calculated using array factor. Therefore,
the interference among lens antenna elements mainly affects
SLLs of the MLA radiation pattern.
The maximum SLLs for both the broadside and −3° scan
pattern of MLA with varying m and the corresponding edge
tapered power level are presented in Fig. 6(d). To be mentioned,
the SLLs calculated here using the total field on the lens array
actually account for both the interference among lens elements

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1.0 100

0.9 0

Mag. of Trans. Coeff.

Trans. Phase (degree)

0.8 -100

0.7 220 at 10 GHz -200

0.6 -300

0.5 (solid line) Mag. -400

(dash line) Phase
0.4 -500
Fig. 7. Perspective view of proposed (a) five-layer square patch unit cell and 9.0 9.5 10.0 10.5 11.0
(b) substrate through-hole unit cell, where p = 6, h0 = 1.524, d = 5, a1 = 3, a2 = Frequency (GHz)
a1 – 0.3, a3 = a1 + 0.8, all dimensions are in mm. Fig. 8. Transmission response of patch unit cell and substrate through-hole
unit cell with varying size of a1 (red curves), from 3 mm to 4.7 mm (solid),
and d (blue curves), from 4 mm to 5 mm (solid), respectively. The black line
and the tapered amplitude distribution effect discussed before. indicates the case when there is no patch or hole on the substrates.
As can be seen, the maximum SLL has a minimum value 1.0 100
around m = 2 (edge tapered power level = −3 dB) for both
0.9 0
broadside (−12.7 dB) and −3° scan pattern (−8.8 dB), which

Trans. Phase (degree)

Mag. of Trans. Coeff.
corresponding to an optimal HPBW of 90° for feeding antenna. 0.8 -100

E. General Design Consideration and Summary 0.7 -200

In the above discussions, we have theoretically studied the
design methodology to design a linear MLA with the objective
to achieve ±30° 3-dB-BCR with a maximum SLL less than −10
dB. For De = 2.4λ0 and N = 3, at least five feeding antennas (M =
5) are required under each lens element, whereas the optimal
HPBW of feeding antenna is 90° considering both the taper and
spillover effect of the feed-power pattern on the lens array.
Based on the analysis, the overall thickness of the proposed
MLA array, with a FDRD (f/D) of 1/6, can be reduced to 1/3 that
of a traditional single aperture MTS lens antenna. Besides, only
three PSs (N = 3) are required to perform the beamsteering
instead of 12 which are needed for a 0.6λ0-element-spacing
serial-fed phased array with the same aperture size.
More generally, for a given aperture size D, an MLA is
formed by dividing the aperture into N small-aperture lens
elements which allows trade-off between the overall thickness
and required number of PSs. Then, with the objective of desired
3-dB-BCR and maximum SLL less than –10 dB, the minimum
required M for any specific setups can be determined as the
design limitation. By exerting a taper and spillover effect
analysis, the optimal feed-power pattern can also be found to
guide for the actual design.
III. MTS LENS ANTENNA ARRAY DESIGN
A. Unit Cells
The multi-layered patch cell and the substrate through-hole
cell are concurrently selected as the unit cells of the planar
MTS lens. The multi-layered patch unit cell has the merit of
wideband low-pass characteristic, compact, linear transmission
phase response and has been widely used in designing the MTS
lens [20], [33]. The concurrent adoption of through-hole unit
cell and patch unit cell helps to increase the transmission phase
range [20], [27].
Considering the small aperture size of 2.4λ0 × 2.4λ0, the unit
cell of lens element should be small to ensure adequate phase
sampling and small periodicity variation across the aperture
[33]. Fig. 7 shows the geometrical model of the proposed unit
cells. In Fig. 7(a), a five-layer square patch unit cell is
0.6 Mag. Phase -300
Patch : Normal Incidence
0.5
Patch : TE for 45
-400
Patch : TM for 45
Through-hole: Normal Incidence
0.4 Through-hole: TE for 45 -500
Through-hole: TM for 45
0.3 -600
6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
Frequency (GHz)
Fig. 9. Transmission response of patch unit cell (a1 = 4 mm) and substrate
through-hole unit cell (d = 4 mm) versus frequency for oblique incidence with
TE and TM waves.
presented with a period of p = 6 mm (0.2λ0). All patches are
printed onto four pieces of Rogers 4003C substrate without air
gaps. Each substrate stab has a thickness of h0 = 1.524 mm and
relative dielectric constant of εr = 3.55. The overall thickness of
the unit cell is then 4h0 (≈ 0.2λ0). The size of patches is
determined by a2 = a1 – 0.3mm, a3 = a1 + 0.8mm for high
transmission magnitude and sufficient transmission phase shift
range simultaneously. The unit cell is symmetric along the EM
wave propagating direction. The resonant frequency of this
low-pass unit cell shifts by varying a1, thus leading to phase
shift in the frequency band of interest.
To further increase the transmission phase range, substrate
through-hole unit cell shown in Fig. 7(b) is implemented. The
effective permittivity of the substrates changes with the hole
diameter (d), which results in a varying transmission response.
The overall dimension of this unit cell is the same as the
above-mentioned patch unit cell.
All the simulations are carried out with the commercial
software CST Microwave Studio. Unit cell boundary condition
is adopted to simulate the transmission response of unit cell
under plane wave illumination with different incident angles.
Fig. 8 illustrates the transmission magnitude and phase shift of
both unit cells against frequency for a normal incidence. The
transmission responses of the two types of unit cells coincide at
a specific case when there is no patch nor hole on the substrates.
The substrate through-hole unit cell provides additional 36°
phase shifts and thus a total transmission phase range of 220° at
the center frequency of 10 GHz is obtained with a transmission
magnitude larger than 0.9. The acquired transmission phase
shift range is sufficient for this compact MTS lens.

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TABLE II
PERFORMANCE OF SIMULATED LENS ELEMENT AND MTS LENS ARRAY PATTERN
us 0° −11.7° −21.8°
EF
−10 dB BW 36.2° 35.5° 39.9°
u0 −3° −9° −15° −21° −27°
βx 51.2° 135.8° −129.2° −54.3° 32.2°
E
SLL −8.7 dB −10.1 dB −9.4 dB −10.3 dB −8.8 dB
HPBW 7° 7° 7.2° 7.6° 7.8°

25
Fig. 10. Configuration of the suspended plate antenna, where wd = 5, wp = 5, ld =
9.2, lp = 7.7, h0 = 0.508, h1 = 1.524, sx = 0.3, sy = 0.6, w0 = 1.12, all dimensions 20

Realized Gain (dBi)

are in mm. 15
10 0 10
E-plane Simulated
Realized Gain (dBi)

5 H-plane Calculated 5 Lens array

Lens element
Amplitude (dB)

0 -10 0
Feeding antenna
-5 -5
8.0 8.5 9.0 9.5 10.0 10.5 11.0 11.5 12.0
-10 -20 Frequency (GHz)
(a)
-15 0
9.2 GHz 10 GHz 11.5 GHz
-20 -30
-180 -120 -60 0 60 120 180 -90 -45 0 45 90 H-plane H-plane H-plane
Theta (degree) Theta (degree) E-plane E-plane E-plane

Amplitude (dB)
(a) (b) -10
0 0
Simulated Simulated
Calculated Calculated
-20
Amplitude (dB)

Amplitude (dB)

-10 -10

-20 -20 -30

-30
-90 -45 0 45
Theta (degree)
(c) (d)
Fig. 11. (a) Simulated feeding antenna radiation pattern. (b)–(d) Comparison of
the normalized simulated lens element patterns with different xi, and the
corresponding calculated patterns with varying us.
Fig. 9 shows the transmission response of both unit cells for
TE and TM waves with a 45° oblique incident angle comparing
to that for the normal incidence. It can be observed that the
transmission phase responses are slightly affected where a
maximum variation of 23° exists for a patch unit cell at 10 GHz.
Besides, the magnitude of the transmission coefficient sustains
above 0.8 for both the TE and TM waves at an oblique incident
angle up to 45°.
B. Lens Design
Many planar lenses at microwave bands have been designed
based on the Fermat’s principle [25]–[28], [34]. The planar lens
provides the required phase shifts for transferring a spherical
wave coming from the feeding antenna to a plane wave.
Conventionally, the discretized unit cell of the lens is designed
based on the phase compensation of the center feeding antenna.
However, the gain drops, and the SLLs increase when offset
feeding antennas are used for beamsteering applications, which
partially because of the incurred phase error. A bifocal method
is often used in the design of a reflectarray and transmitarray to
reduce the phase error for the offset feed to enhance the BSR
[35]–[38]. A bifocal lens antenna using a weighting function
was proposed in [38], which achieve a 40° scanning range with
low scanning loss and reduced SLLs.
Similarly, it can be used in multifocal lens design. The phase
correction for a single focal can be calculated as
𝜑 𝑥, 𝑦 𝑘 𝑥 sin 𝛼
-90 -60 -30 0 30 60 90
Theta (degree)
(b)
-30
90 -90 -45 0 45 90 Fig. 12. (a) Simulated maximum realized gain for feeding antenna, lens element
Theta (degree) and lens array with broadside pattern. (b) Normalized simulated H-plane (solid)
and E-plane (dash) radiation pattern of the MLA at different frequencies.
where k0 = 2π/λ0 is the wavenumber in free space at 10 GHz, αi
denotes the main-beam direction in x-z plane of the ith feeding
antenna placing at (xi, 0, –f ), ranging from –π/2 to π/2. In a
passive design, a single unit cell cannot possess two different
transmission phases. The multifocal phase correction can be
expressed as a simple weighted average value [38]
𝛷 𝑐𝜑 𝑐 7
where ci is the weight coefficient. In this design, M = 5, ci = 1
for offset feeds and c1 = 2 for the center feed to consider more
about the broadside pattern of lens element. Moreover, x1 = 0
mm, x2 = −x4 = 11 mm, x3 = −x5 = 23.5 mm, α1 = 0°, α2 = −α4 =
12°, and α3 = −α5 = 24°.
In a symmetrical system, the terms 𝑥 sin 𝛼 in (6) and (7) are
cancelled out due to the symmetry and Φfinal is simplified as the
weighted average of the propagation phase compensation of all
feeding antennas. In the actual design of lens element, the
propagation phase distribution is directly extracted from the
designed feeding antenna instead of using the point source
approximation since the size of feeding antenna cannot be
ignored with such a small focal length [33].
C. Feeding Antenna Design and Lens Antenna Element
The suspended plate antenna (SPA) is selected as the feeding
source of each lens element for its relatively wider bandwidth
comparing to a conventional single-patch antenna [39], [40].
Fig. 10 illustrates the detailed configuration of proposed
feeding antenna, where the upper and lower patch are the
𝑥 𝑥 𝑦 𝑓 6 suspended and the main patch, respectively. Two slots are

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TABLE III
PARAMETERS OF FEEDING STRUCTURES (UNIT: MM)
Feeding Feeding Feeding Feeding Feeding
Array 1 Array 2 Array 3 Array 4 Array 5
cx 0 11 11 23.5 23.5
ps1 9.8 7.52 5.35 3.1 10.2
ps2 3.1 5.33 7.49 9.9 2.81
Fig. 13. Top view of the feeding structure with a 1-to-3 power divider. le = 72, lx
= 236, ly = 112, w0 = 1.12, w1 = 2.5, tl = 3.6, v1 = 1.3, v2 = 0.6. All dimensions are
in mm.
symmetrically cut on the main patch for impedance matching to
input 50-Ω transmission line. The substrates used for the upper
and lower layers are Rogers RO4003C with a thickness of
0.508 mm, a dielectric constant of 3.55, and a dissipation factor
of 0.0027 at 10 GHz. The air gap between layers is 1.524 mm.
Fig. 11(a) shows the simulated radiation pattern of designed
SPA with a maximum realized gain of 8.15 dBi and HPBW of
86° in H-plane, which coincides with the optimal condition
(90°) stated in Section II-D. The simulated H-plane radiation
patterns of the lens elements antenna with xi = 0 mm, 11 mm,
23.5 mm and the calculated patterns using (1) with us = 0°, 12°,
and 24°, are shown in Figs. 11(b)–(d). The corresponding
amplitude distribution for calculation is based on the optimal
feed-power pattern of cos2 θ. As can be seen, the simulated
patterns coincide with the calculated ones at the angular angles
near the main beam which validates the calculation and the
assumptions made in Section II-B. The detailed parameters of
the simulated lens element pattern are listed in Table II.
According to Fig. 12(a), the maximum simulated realized gain
of the lens element at 10 GHz reaches 17.3 dBi with an aperture
efficiency of 74.2%. The 3-dB gain bandwidths of the feeding
antenna and lens element are 2.3 GHz (9.2 GHz – 11.5 GHz).
D. Phased MTS Lens Antenna Array
By positioning three identical lens elements side-by-side
along its H-plane direction (x-axis), an MLA is formed, as
shown in Fig. 1. To examine the performance of the lens array,
each lens element is fed by a waveguide port with adequate
phase differences βx. When xi = 0 and βx = 0, the MLA has a
broadside radiation pattern with a maximum simulated gain of
21.5 dBi (an aperture efficiency of 65%) at 10GHz, as shown in
Fig 12(a). The 3-dB gain bandwidth of the lens array coincides
with that of the feeding antenna and lens element as illustrated
in the highlighted frequency range. The radiation pattern is well
preserved within the 3-dB gain bandwidth as presented in Fig
12(b), while the SLLs slightly increase or decrease for lower or
higher frequency, respectively, due to the varying of element
spacing in terms of wavelength. By varying xi and βx
accordingly, the pattern of MLA can be steered to desired
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7
Fig. 14. Photograph of, (a) the proposed MTS lens array and feeding arrays, (b)
the proposed antenna.
directions, whereas the detailed parameters are listed in Table II.
The SLLs increase comparing to the ideal case in Table I
mainly due to the interference among lens elements, as detailly
discussed in Section II-D. The required phase shifts for oblique
element factor patterns slightly deviate from the ones in Table I
due to the varying of modification factor δu, which directly
related to the outline of element factor pattern.
Ideally, a switching network is required to excite the five
feeding antennas placed under each lens element individually
for beam switching, and three PSs are demanded to provide the
required phase difference for steering the switched-beams. Fig.
13 illustrates the simplified feeding structure adopted in this
paper. Instead of employing a switching network, a single SPA
is located beneath each lens element with necessary offset (xi)
to the center of the corresponding lens to achieve beam
switching. Three feeding antennas are exited together through
an in-plane 1-to-3 power divider. The inter-element spacing in
the feeding array, le, is constant (= 2.4λ0) since the feeding
antennas with the same switch labels are to be excited
simultaneously, as elaborated in Section II. Consequently, three
identical beams generated by the lens elements are concurrently
switched by simply altering the feeding port location, cx.
Meanwhile, the required phase shifts among elements are
realized by modifying the transmission line lengths without any
PSs. Choosing the center SPA as a reference, the phase
differences among the feeding antennas are determined by the
length of the extruding transmission line, ps1 and ps2. Therefore,
five feeding boards with different values of cx, ps1 and ps2 are
needed to provide the desired phase shifts and switched-beams
in the experimental verification. The detailed parameters are
listed in Table III for fabrication process. To be mentioned, the
designed microstrip transmission-line phase shifter is sensitive
to the operation frequency which may result in a narrow
operation bandwidth of the MLA antenna.
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0
Meas. (w/ lens) 0
Simu. (w/ lens)
-10
Simu. (w/o lens)

|S11| (dB)
-20
-10

Amplitude (dB)
-30

-40
(a) -20
0
Meas. (w/ lens)
Simu. (w/ lens)
-10
Simu. (w/o lens)
|S11| (dB)

-20 -30

-30

-40 -40
(b) -90 -60 -30 0 30 60 90
0
Meas. (w/ lens) Theta (degree)
Simu. (w/ lens)
-10 Simu. (w/o lens)
Fig. 16. Measured scanned beams of the phased MTS lens array at 10 GHz.
|S11| (dB)

-20

-30 21

Realized Gain (dBi)

-40
(c)
0 18

-10
|S11| (dB)

15
-20

-30 Meas. (w/ lens) Meas.

Simu. (w/ lens) 12 Simu.
Simu. (w/o lens)
-40
(d)
0 -27 -21 -15 -9 -3
Meas. (w/ lens)
Simu. (w/ lens)
Scanning Angle (degree)
-10 Simu. (w/o lens) Fig. 17. Measured and simulated maximum realized gain at 10 GHz with
|S11| (dB)

-20 varying scanning angles.

-30

-40 matching is slightly changed when the proposed MTS lens is

8.0 8.5 9.0 9.5 10.0 10.5 11.0
Frequency (GHz)
(e)
Fig. 15. Measured and simulated impedance matching for different feeding
boards with and without the proposed lens array. (a) Feeding array 1, (b)
Feeding array 2, (c) Feeding array 3, (d) Feeding array 4, (e) Feeding array 5.
IV. SIMULATION AND EXPERIMENT RESULTS
To verify the proposed antenna, prototypes of the feeding
structures and MLA are fabricated using standard printed
circuit board (PCB) process, as shown in Fig. 14. The aperture
size of the MLA is 216 mm × 72 mm and the focal length is 36
mm. The MLA prototype consists of four pieces of substrate
layers fixed with screws on the edges which are extended by 10
mm and 20 mm in H- and E-planes, respectively. Metal rings
are printed around the holes on the lens to ensure that the lens is
not deformed when assembled. The simulation shows that the
frame structure, especially the edges along the E-plane, affects
the realized gain of the antenna by 0.8 dB with a relatively
wider E-plane beamwidth while it has slight influence on the
H-plane beamsteering patterns.
Fig. 14(a) illustrates the aforementioned five feeding arrays,
each possessing different center offsets and progressive phase
differences with varying transmission line length.
Fig. 15 shows the measured and simulated impedance
matching of different feeding arrays integrated with the MTS
lens array. The measured impedance bandwidths of |S11| < −10
dB for the five boards are 2.46 GHz, 2.3 GHz, 2.4 GHz, 1.9
GHz, 2 GHz respectively, agreeing well with the simulation.
The simulated results without the proposed lens are also
presented for comparison. As can be seen, the impedance
11.5 12.0
integrated. It suggests that the effect of the directly reflected
wave from the MTS lens to the feeding antenna is ignorable.
The measured radiation patterns for the phased MTS lens
array with different feeding arrays are presented in Fig. 16,
which are normalized to the maximum gain of −3° scan pattern.
The main beams of the array point to −3°, −9°, −15°, −21° and
−27° at 10 GHz with the HPBMs ranging from 7° to 8.5° and a
beam crossing-level higher than −3 dB. Since the architecture is
symmetrical, the radiation patterns for steering angles locate at
ϕ = 0° are the same as the ones at ϕ = 180°. Finally, a 60° (±30°)
3-dB full spatial beam coverage with ten beams is achievable.
Fig. 17 shows the measured and simulated realized gains.
The maximum measured gain is 19.1 dBi and the gain variance
is less than 1.6 dB when beam scanning over the range from −3o
to −27o. The calculated aperture efficiency from the measured
gain is Gλ2/(4πA) = 37.4%, where A is the physical area of the
MTS lens array. The 1~2 dB difference between the simulated
and measured realized gain may be caused by the setup of
antenna under test as well as fabrication and assembly error. To
evaluate the effects of the supporting frame and the designed
power divider on the realized gain, the structures without the
frame and the power divider are also simulated. It shows that
the frame affects the realized gain by about 0.8 dB and an
additional 0.4 dB is affected by the power divider since the
excitation magnitude of the center feeding is higher than the
other two by around 0.76 dB ~ 1.33 dB due to the varying
transmission line length.
Fig. 18(a) illustrates the measured and simulated gain of the
proposed antenna with Feeding array 1. The measured 3-dB
gain bandwidth of the antenna is 1.1 GHz, which is adherent to

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0 0
21 Co-polarization
(a) Meas.
Cross-polarization
-10 Simu.
18 -10

Amplitude (dB)
-20

dB
Gain (dB)

15
-20
-30
12
Simu. -40
Meas. -30
9 0
(b) Meas.
6 -40 -10 Simu.
9.0 9.5 10.0 10.5 11.0 -180 -120 -60 0 60 120 180
Frequency (GHz) Theta (degree) -20

dB
(a) (b)
0 0 -30
Co-polarization Co-polarization
Cross-polarization Cross-polarization
-40
-10 -10 0
Amplitude (dB)

Amplitude (dB) (c) Meas.

-20 -20
-10 Simu.
-20

dB
-30 -30
-30

-40 -40 -40

-180 -120 -60 0 60 120 180 -180 -120 -60 0 60 120 180 0
Theta (degree) Theta (degree)
(c) (d) (d) Meas.
-10 Simu.
Fig. 18. (a) Measured and simulated gain for Feeding array 1. Measured
co-polarization and cross-polarization pattern for Feeding array 1 in the -20

dB
H-plane at (b) 9.9 GHz, (c) 10 GHz, (d) 10.2 GHz. -30

-40
TABLE IV 0
PERFORMANCE COMPARISON OF THE PROPOSED PHASED MTS LENS ARRAY (e) Meas.
-10 Simu.
Aperture / Total Max. Scan Max. 3-dB No.
Ref. Array Size Thickness Gain Loss SLL BCR of Remarks -20

dB
(λ0×λ0) (λ0) (dBi) (dB) (dB) (deg.) PSs
-30
[13] Γ = 15 < 0.1 10 dB ~2 < −15 ~ ±14 12 PAA consisting
[14] ~ 6.83×3 < 0.1 ~ 20 -- < −19 ~ ±18.5 4 of subarrays -40
-180 -120 -60 0 60 120 180
[20] Φ=8 3.3 25.6 3.13 ~ −15 ~ ±30 8 PAA fed lens Theta (degree)
[24] 3.3×3.3 1.49 16.35 3 −6.9 ~ ±35 -- Lens antennas / Fig. 19. Measured and simulated radiation patterns of the MLA in the H-plane
[25] 9.45×9.45 5 24.2 3.7 ~ −10 ~ ±27 -- transmitarray at 10 GHz with, (a) Feeding array 1, (b) Feeding array 2, (c) Feeding array 3, (d)
[31] 10.13×0.63 3.3 15.7 2.6 ~ −3 ±37.5 4
Feeding array 4, (e) Feeding array 5.
Lens array
This Work 7.2×2.4 1.4 19.1 1.6 −9.2 ±30 3 antenna

Γ is the length of a linear 1-D array. Φ is the diameter of a circular array.

V. CONCLUSION
the simulated one. Figs. 18(b)−(d) illustrate the corresponding A compact planar metasurface lens antenna array with less
measured cross-polarization and co-polarization patterns in the phase shifters has been proposed for beamsteering applications.
H-plane at different frequencies. The measured SLLs are −10 Theoretical analysis using the array theory has been performed
dB, −9.3 dB, −8 dB at 9.9 GHz, 10 GHz and 10.2 GHz, to guide the design. A linear metasurface lens array consisting
respectively. This relatively narrow operation bandwidth is due of three small-aperture lens elements has been designed,
to the narrowband feeding structures with both the phase shifts fabricated and measured to validate the proposed architecture.
and the amplitudes at the output ports sensitive to frequency. The designed antenna has achieved ±30° 3-dB-BCR with a
Nevertheless, the beamsteering property of proposed antenna beam crossing-level higher than −3 dB and a gain tolerance of
can still be perceived from the measured results, which validate merely 1.6 dB. Comparing to a typical single large-aperture
our design. The cross-polarization levels of the antenna are less metasurface lens antenna, the proposed antenna has shown
than −20 dB due to symmetry of the designed MLA. advantage of compactness with the focal length reduced to 1/3,
Fig. 19 shows the comparison between measured and while only three phase shifters are implemented across an
simulated radiation patterns of the phased MTS lens array at 10 aperture size of 7.2λ0. Therefore, the metasurface lens array
GHz. The simulated results agree well with the measured ones architecture can be used to reduce the thickness of a lens
with the maximum SLL less than –9.2 dB. antenna while the lens antenna can be used to simplify the
TABLE IV benchmarks this work against the recent works implementation and reduce the number of phase shifters of a
by others. It can be observed that the proposed antenna has a phased array based beamsteering antenna. It is also clear that
much smaller overall thickness with respect to the aperture size this type of lens antenna has the potential to perform volumetric
comparing to other lens antennas. The proposed antenna also 3-dimensional beamforming by extending the linear array in its
features less implemented PSs and wider beam coverage range E-plane direction for more wireless communications and radar
than the PAA consisting of subarrays considering used PSs per systems.
wavelength. Moreover, referred to the full-dielectric lens
antenna array in [31], the proposed antenna features compact, REFERENCES
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0018-926X (c) 2020 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission. See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
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