CN-116417792-B - Antenna array element and array antenna

Abstract

The application provides an antenna array element and an array antenna. The antenna array element adopts a scheme of matching a phase shifter with a dielectric block capable of changing the dielectric constant to accurately adjust the excitation phase of each antenna array element. The scheme can be applied to any low-sidelobe array antenna, thereby improving the signal-to-noise ratio and reducing the influence of external clutter signals of a main beam, effectively improving the anti-interference capability of the array antenna adopting the antenna array elements, and being beneficial to the realization of space division multiplexing technology of the array antenna. In addition, the antenna array element saves cost besides being capable of accurately adjusting the excitation phase, and the insertion loss is low because a low-precision phase shifter can be adopted.

Inventors

• CAI YUANMING
• ZHAI HUIQING
• LI JINKAI
• WANG YANI
• WANG TIANPENG
• CHEN TEYAN
• ZOU KELI

Assignees

• 华为技术有限公司

Dates

Publication Date

20260508

Application Date

20211231

Claims (10)

1. 1. An antenna element, comprising: a dielectric plate including a first face and a second face opposite to each other; a radiation unit provided on the first surface; a feeding balun provided on the second surface; A phase shifter electrically connected to the feed balun, and A dielectric block located on one side of the dielectric plate, the dielectric block being in contact with and completely covering the feed balun, the dielectric block having a controllably adjustable dielectric constant, The dielectric constant of the dielectric block is regulated and controlled within a range (1, epsilon r2max ), and the upper limit value epsilon r2max of the regulated and controlled range meets the following conditions: Wherein epsilon r1 is the dielectric constant of the dielectric layer of the dielectric plate, lambda is the wavelength of the signal of the microstrip line feeding the balun, L is the extension length of the microstrip line feeding the balun, N is the number of bits of the phase shifter, and q 1 and q 2 are predetermined variable values.
2. 2. The antenna element of claim 1, wherein N is equal to or less than 4.
3. 3. An antenna element according to claim 1 or 2, characterized in that the dielectric block has a solid structure, the dielectric block comprising ferroelectric material and/or liquid crystal material.
4. 4. An antenna element according to claim 3, characterized in that the ferroelectric material is barium strontium titanate or polyvinylidene fluoride-trifluoroethylene copolymer.
5. 5. An antenna element according to claim 1 or 2, characterized in that the dielectric block comprises a hollow housing and a liquid medium filled in the housing.
6. 6. The antenna element of claim 5, wherein the housing has a rectangular parallelepiped shape, a height direction of the housing is identical to a height direction of the antenna element, a dielectric constant ε r of the entire dielectric block satisfies the following relation, The wall thickness of the shell is D, the height of a hollow area in the shell is H, the height of the liquid medium is D1, the dielectric constant of the material of the shell is epsilon r1 , and the dielectric constant of the liquid medium is epsilon r2 .
7. 7. The antenna element of claim 5, wherein the liquid medium is water or ethanol.
8. 8. An array antenna, characterized in that it comprises a plurality of antenna elements according to any of claims 1 to 7.
9. 9. The array antenna of claim 8, wherein a plurality of the antenna elements are arranged in a line at equal intervals.
10. 10. The array antenna according to claim 8 or 9, wherein the array antenna is a dipole array antenna.

Description

Antenna array element and array antenna Technical Field The present application relates to the field of antennas, and in particular to an antenna array element and an array antenna comprising a plurality of such antenna array elements. Background In recent years, low-sidelobe array antennas are widely used in high-performance communication systems because they can improve anti-interference performance and can realize space division multiplexing technology. The related technology of the low-sidelobe array antenna is intensively studied by the technicians in the field, and based on the research conclusion, the requirements of the low-sidelobe array antenna are required to be realized, the amplitude-phase (amplitude and phase) distribution of the antenna array elements meeting engineering requirements is iterated by adopting an optimization algorithm, and then the corresponding feed system is designed to excite each antenna array element. In one implementation of the prior art feed system, the feed system in the form of a passive power divider provides the excitation of the array antenna, and the total port energy (amplitude and phase) can be provided to the ports of the individual antenna elements in a certain proportion by designing the specific dimensions and parameters of the power divider. However, for a low-sidelobe array antenna, the excitation amplitude and phase of each antenna element are often different, and multiple power dividers with different amplitudes and phases are required to be designed to effectively excite ports of each element. For a multi-port passive power divider with different amplitude and phase, the design difficulty is generally relatively large and the cost is relatively high. Moreover, since the power distribution ratio of the power divider is related to the load matching state, after the passive power divider is connected with the antenna array, a certain deviation exists between the amplitude and the phase of the energy actually input by each antenna array element and the design value, so that the performance of the low-side lobe array antenna based on the passive power divider is degraded. In another implementation of the prior art feed system, the receive/transmit components of the individual antenna elements of the array antenna are amplitude and phase adjusted in a digitally controlled manner. The amplitude and phase of each receiving/transmitting component can be directly controlled by a digital circuit, so that the feeding of each antenna array element of the array antenna is completed. The high-precision phase shifter of the high-precision receiving/transmitting assembly of the present stage can realize accurate phase control, for example, a 6-bit phase shifter can realize 5.625 DEG phase stepping, and an 8-bit phase shifter can realize 1.4 DEG phase stepping. But the accuracy of phase modulation of the receive/transmit components is generally related to cost and insertion loss, the higher the accuracy, the higher the cost and the greater the insertion loss. Therefore, the low-side lobe array antenna using the high-precision phase shifter has high cost and high insertion loss. In summary, in the above technical solution for implementing the feeding system of the array antenna, the passive power divider has high cost and is easy to deviate in the phase modulation process, while the high-precision phase shifter can implement precise phase control, but has high cost and high insertion loss. Disclosure of Invention In view of this, a novel antenna array element is provided, which can realize accurate phase control and low insertion loss at the same time of cost, and an array antenna including the antenna array element is also provided. Therefore, the application adopts the following technical scheme. In a first aspect, an embodiment of the present application provides an antenna element, including: a dielectric plate including a first face and a second face opposite to each other; a radiation unit provided on the first surface; a feeding balun provided on the second surface; A phase shifter electrically connected to the feed balun, and And the dielectric block is positioned on one side of the dielectric plate, is in contact with the feed balun and completely covers the feed balun, and the dielectric constant of the dielectric block can be controlled and adjusted. By adopting the technical scheme, the excitation phase of the feed balun is adjusted by using the phase shifter and the dielectric block, so that the excitation phase close to the expected ideal excitation phase can be obtained, and the side lobe level of the antenna formed by the antenna array elements is reduced. Moreover, on the basis of adjusting the excitation phase of the feed balun by using the dielectric block, the phase shifter can be a low-precision phase shifter, so that the cost of the antenna array element is reduced and the insertion loss caused by the adoption of the high-precision phase shifter is r