Abstract
This article is devoted to the design, analysis and fabrication of conventional and MTM (MTM) leaky wave antennas. The effects of utilizing composite right/left handed structure on bandwidth, gain and beam steering are reflected. The structures with MTM cells conduct wider bandwidth of operation. Three different configurations of MTM unit cell structures are used. The mushroom ground structure is addressed as a cell which provides MTM features on Rogers 5880, traditional square patches and two reconfigurable rows sandwiched between the ground and the radiated arrays. The conventional antenna dimensions are (50 × 70) mms, and is implemented using Rogers RT 5880 substrate, with a relative dielectric constant (2.2), thickness (3.18) mm and loss tangent of (0.002). The overall dimensions of the MTM antenna outlines the same dimensions of the conventional antenna, but its thickness is varying. The antennas are simulated by the CST microwave studio, fabricated on Roger 5880 and measured using the network analyser (Rohde & Schwarz ZVB20). The antenna conducts a gain of (9.8 dB) and a bandwidth between 7.2 GHz and 18.4 GHz. The structure adopted in this paper achieves a novelty of applying different reconfigurable structures of MTM unit cells. This type of antenna can be used a radar sensor control in industrial production lines, or those with high gain could be used for target detection. There is a good agreement between the measured and simulated results.