Extreme Beam-forming with Metagrating-assisted Planar Antennas

Abstract: We present a highly efficient metagrating-assisted antenna (MGA) architecture with a simple integrated feed. Power from a localized line source is distributed throughout the arbitrarily large antenna aperture with the help of a passive and lossless electromagnetic metagrating (MG). With appropriately designed meta-wire loading, the omnidirectional source field can be efficiently transformed into directive radiation. To aid the design process, a 2-dimensional volume-surface integral equation framework which accurately predicts the radiation pattern of the MGA is developed. Through constrained optimization, the directivity of the MGA in the desired direction is maximized. In this way, extreme-angle beam steering is demonstrated.