Metamaterial-Based Transmitarray for Multi-Beam Antenna Array Assemblies

• US 20170062945A1
• Filed: 04/21/2016
• Published: 03/02/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 08/25/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. (Huawei Investment & Holding Co., Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. (Huawei Investment & Holding Co., Ltd.)
• Inventors: Foo, Senglee
• Granted Patent: US 9,812,786 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H01Q 15/0026 said selective devices having a stacked geometry or having multiple layers
• CPC Class Codes: H01Q 15/10 comprising three-dimensional array of impedance discontinuities, e.g. holes in conductive surfaces or conductive discs forming artificial dielectric
• CPC Class Codes: H01Q 21/065 Patch antenna array
• CPC Class Codes: H01Q 25/00 Antennas or antenna systems providing at least two radiating patterns arrangements for changing or varying the orientation or the shape of the directional pattern H01Q3/00
• CPC Class Codes: H01Q 25/008 lens fed multibeam arrays

Abstract

A transmitarray, or radio frequency lens, can provide a large variation of time-delay. The transmitarray comprises a number of time-delay unit (TDU) cells that each have a capacitive patch and a rectangular wire loop separated by dielectric material. The rectangular wire loop allows current continuity to be maintained between adjacent TDU cells, even when different sized TDUs are included in the transmitarray.

Claims

1. A metamaterial lens for a radio frequency (RF) antenna comprising a plurality of adjacent time-delay unit (TDU) cells, each TDU cell comprising:

a dielectric material;

an inductive rectangular wire loop on a first side of the dielectric material arranged about a perimeter of the TDU cell; and

a capacitive patch on a second side of the dielectric material and positioned within the perimeter of the TDU cell.

2. The metamaterial lens of claim 1, wherein the plurality of TDU cells comprise a plurality of subsets of TDU cells, wherein the TDU cells of different subsets are of different sizes and the TDU cells within the same subset are of the same size.

3. The metamaterial lens of claim 1, wherein a plurality of subsets of the plurality of different-sized TDU cells are arranged into a plurality of zones grouping together subsets of TDU cells of the same size with a smallest TDU cell located at an interior first zone with increasingly sized TDU cells surrounding zones of smaller sized TDU cells.

4. The metamaterial lens of claim 3, wherein TDU cells within the same subset of TDU cells have different sizes of capacitive patches.

5. The metamaterial lens of claim 1, wherein the inductive rectangular wire loops of the plurality of TDU cells are in contact with the inductive rectangular wire loops of adjacent TDU cells.

6. The metamaterial lens of claim 1, wherein at least one of the plurality of TDU cells includes an inductive wire cross within the inductive wire loop.

7. The metamaterial lens of claim 1, wherein the capacitive patches of at least a subset of the TDU cells have different patch sizes.

8. The metamaterial lens of claim 1, wherein one or more of the capacitive patches of the plurality of TDU cells have an inductive cut-out.

9. The metamaterial lens of claim 1, wherein each of the plurality of TDU cells comprises one or more additional layers of inductive rectangular wire loops located along the perimeter of the TDU cell.

10. The metamaterial lens of claim 1, wherein each of the plurality of TDU cells comprises a plurality of layers of capacitive patches.

11. The metamaterial lens of claim 1, wherein each of the TDU cells comprises a plurality of layers of inductive rectangular wire loops located along a perimeter of the TDU cell and a plurality of layers of capacitive patches, each of the layers separated by a dielectric material.

12. An antenna array assembly comprising:

a transmitarray having a focal distance, the transmitarray having a plurality of adjacent time-delay unit (TDU) cells, each TDU cell having an inductive rectangular wire loop located along a perimeter of the TDU cell, a capacitive patch, and a dielectric material separating the inductive rectangular wire loop and the capacitive patch; and

a plurality of radiating elements arranged at a focal plane located the focal distance from the transmit array.

13. The antenna array assembly of claim 12, wherein the plurality of TDU cells comprise a plurality of subsets of TDU cells with the TDU cells of different subsets are of different sizes, while TDU cells within the same subset are of the same size.

14. The antenna array assembly of claim 13, wherein the subsets of the plurality of different-sized TDU cells are arranged into a plurality of zones grouping together subsets of TDU cells of the same size with a smallest TDU cell located at an interior first zone with increasingly sized TDU cells surrounding zones of smaller sized TDU cells.

15. The antenna array assembly of claim 14, wherein TDU cells within respective ones of the plurality of zones have different sizes of capacitive patches.

16. The antenna array assembly of claim 12, wherein the inductive rectangular wire loops of the plurality of TDU cells are in contact with the inductive rectangular wire loops of adjacent TDU cells.

17. The antenna array assembly of claim 12, wherein the plurality of TDU cells provide a down-tilt angle for radio frequency (RF) beams from the radiating elements.

18. The antenna array assembly of claim 17, wherein the antenna array assembly is an orthogonal-beam-space (OBS) massive multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) array assembly.