Compact microstrip rotman lens using chebyshev impedance transformers

Abstract

A compact microstrip Rotman lens is proposed in this paper. The microstrip Rotman lens consists of a lens body and Chebyshev impedance transformers. The Chebyshev impedance transformers are used as beam ports, array ports and dummy ports. Compared to the traditional linear tapered transition, the Chebyshev impedance transformer is shorter, which leads to the size reduction and insertion loss improvement for the Rotman lens. An X-band 4 × 7 Rotman lens using Chebyshev impedance transformers is designed and fabricated. Compared to a traditional Rotman lens, the proposed Rotman lens shows a size reduction of about 56% and an insertion loss improvement at 10GHz. The measured results demonstrate that better than 15 dB return loss throughout the bandwidth from 8 to 12GHz is obtained.