Design and Simulation of a Power Efficient Waveguide Rotman Lens

TL;DR

This paper presents the design and simulation of a waveguide-based Rotman lens operating between 8 and 12 GHz, aiming to improve power efficiency and reduce losses compared to traditional microstrip structures.

Contribution

It introduces a novel waveguide Rotman lens design that offers lower power loss and higher capacity, with simulation results demonstrating satisfactory phase error and efficiency.

Findings

Lower intrinsic power loss compared to microstrip lenses

Effective operation across 8-12 GHz frequency range

Satisfactory phase error and power efficiency in simulations

Abstract

Rotman lens is a true-time-delay beam forming network with parallel plate structure. Owing to its frequency- independency and wide-band operation, it has gained vast applications as feeding element of linear array antennas. However, the lens suffers from high intrinsic power loss and the problem worsens in microstrip structures by their inevitable dielectric loss. On the other hand, waveguides experience extremely lower loss and also have higher power capacity. Thus, waveguides can be advantageously utilized in Rotman lens structure. Here, a waveguide Rotman lens for the frequency range of 8 to 12 GHz is designed and simulated in CST Microwave Studio. Phase error and power efficiency of the proposed structure are satisfactory.