Electronically Scanned Short-Range Radar Front End for S-Band Applications

Abstract

The final year project is a research-oriented work. The principal objective is to design electrically scanned short range front-end for S-band applications. The front end consists of two modules; antenna and novel phase-shifting network. These modules are designed at 3.5 GHZ. The antenna structure consists of a 4x4 planar array. HFSS and CST is used for the design of an antenna.FR4 material is used for fabrication. The measured gain of antenna 10dB at design frequency. The results are measured in a chamber. The S11 of each patch is below 10 and this phase shifter gives a range of phases from 0 to 320 degrees. Silicon hyper-abrupt varactor diodes are used. Beam steering using Phase Shifter is done using a phase matrix which is comprised of progressive phases given 16 elements in an array antenna. These phase shift are fed by a Wilkinson power divider having one input port and sixteen output ports. The S11 for this power divider is below 10dB and insertion loss is below 16dB.The beam of the antenna is steering up to 28 degrees from its central axis. Hence, this research accomplished the task of steering the main beam of the antenna with the help of software codes, phase shifters network, and microstrip antennas for conical beam radars.