Near-Field Meta-Steering – A Low-Profile Method for Steering the Beam of Any Antenna

In the history of Antenna Engineering, there has been only one universal method to steer the beam of any fixed-beam antenna. That’s physically tilting the antenna. This method has been implemented in many commercial antenna systems using motorised mechanical tilting and rotating systems. Now there is another way: Near-Field Meta-Steering, in which two planar phase-gradient metasurfaces (MS) are placed very close to the fixed-beam antenna, in its near field, and are rotated independently. This way, the beam of the antenna can be steered over a large range of zenith angles and complete azimuth range of 3600, without tilting or rotating the antenna. In fact, no part of the system is <a href="http://tilted.

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A Meta-Steering antenna system is only slightly taller than the antenna itself. Lack of tilting means it is much shorter than conventional tilting antennas. In the future, one electronically reconfigurable near-field metasurface may provide 2D beam steering without any mechanical <a href="http://rotation.

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Since this method was introduced in the seminal paper in 2017, together with the Near-Field Phase Transformation concept, it has been applied by many industry and academic researchers across the globe to develop novel antenna systems, and to steer the beam of all types of fixed-beam antennas, e.g. Fabry-Perot/resonant cavity antennas, reflector (dish) antennas, metasurface antennas, slot arrays, holographic antennas, and even some end-fire antennas, to name a few. Several different types of metasurfaces have been developed, e.g. standard printed-circuit-board type, all dielectric, all metal, hybrid and 3D-printed, and some research outcomes have led to national prizes and awards. This distinguished lecture will review the research conducted by the speaker’s team as well as others in this modern and growing <a href="http://area.

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Bldg: ICT 424C, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada