A coplanar waveguide tapered slot antenna with beam switching capabilities

A wideband tapered slot antenna (TSA) with three radiating elements for beam switching purpose is presented in this paper. The integrated radiating taper slots in assistance with metal strips acting as switches provided the proposed design with the capability of switching its beam into three different directions while maintaining the antenna performance stable. To verify the accuracy of the presented design, the prototype was fabricated and measurements were conducted in terms of scattering parameter (S11), radiation pattern and realized gain towards the three different operating modes. By sequentially, activating the switches, the antenna main beam rotated 90º in the XY coordinates. A realized gain ranging from 4.3 to 6.4 dBi and a wide operating bandwidth ((S11) ≤-10 dB) from 3.3GHz to 5GHz were observed throughout the antenna performance in simulation as well as in experiment. With the covered bands, the proposed antenna is suitable for sub-6GHz communications systems.