A Concept for a Lens Configuration for 360° Scanning

A concept is presented for a lens configuration that produces scanned beams over the full azimuth angular domain of 360 degrees. Conventional microwave lenses produce scanned beams over limited angular range that is less than +/-90 degrees. A number of beam ports transmit signals to illuminate a number of receive ports with an aperture amplitude and phase tapers. The receive ports are in turn connected to a radiating aperture with transmission lines of prescribed lengths. This concept uses the beam ports and the receive ports in an interleaving sequence such that adjacent ports alternate beam and receive functions. The result is a lens that produces scanned beams on opposite sides of the structure, resulting in a 360 degrees scanning range. The structure can use multiple opposing facets or continuous circular port and radiating element contours. The multiple opposing facets make the radiating structure in the form of a polygon, while the circular contour will produce a circular array structure. The concept may be extended to three-dimensional conformal arrays with three-dimensional scanning.