Routing and layout for an antenna are described. In one embodiment, the antenna comprises an aperture having a plurality of radio-frequency (RF) radiating antenna elements, wherein each antenna element of the plurality of RF radiating antenna elements comprises an iris slot opening and an electrode over the iris slot opening; a plurality of drive transistors coupled to the plurality of antenna elements; and a plurality of storage capacitors, each storage capacitor coupled to the electrode of one antenna element of the plurality of antenna elements. The aperture also comprises at least one of: the drive transistor for the one antenna element is located under the electrode of the antenna element, the storage capacitor for the one antenna element is located under the electrode of the antenna element, and the metal routing to the one antenna element for a first voltage overlaps, in an overlap region, a common voltage routing that routes the common voltage to the one antenna element to form a storage capacitance.

The present invention discloses a bi-directional flat plate foldable unit, including a first row of antenna plates and a second row of antenna plates distributed along a first direction; the first row of antenna plates and the second row of antenna plates both include three antenna plates distributed in a second direction perpendicular to the first direction, three antenna plates in the first row of antenna plates and three antenna plates in the second row of antenna plates are set opposite to each other and hinged to form a first rotating pair; any two antenna plates adjacent to each other in the same row of antenna plates are hinged to form a second rotating pair; three antenna plates in the first row of antenna plates and three antenna plates in the second row of antenna plates are connected by a vertical support mechanism, and the first row of antenna plates are connected to the second row of antenna plates by a lateral support mechanism. The bi-directional flat plate foldable antenna mechanism includes at least two bi-directional flat plate foldable units mentioned above. The present invention facilitates the folding and unfolding of planar antennas with larger physical diameter and high rigidity.

An antenna element and related apparatus are provided. The antenna element includes a radiating structure configured to radiate a radio frequency (RF) signal in a defined polarization (e.g., linear polarization or circular polarization). The radiating structure is conductively coupled to a first pair of feed ports and a second pair of feed ports. In examples discussed herein, at least one selected pair of feed ports among the first pair of feed ports and the second pair of feed ports can be dynamically configured to receive a differential signal(s). By applying the differential signal(s) to the selected pair of feed ports with a proper polarity and/or a relative phase differential, it may be possible to cause the radiating structure to radiate in the defined polarization without requiring additional circuitries (e.g., switching circuit), thus helping to reduce power consumption, heat dissipation, and/or footprint in an apparatus employing the antenna element.

A method and apparatus for testing an antenna are described. In on embodiment, the antenna comprises: a memory; an antenna aperture with a plurality of electronically controlled radio frequency (RF) radiating antenna elements; a pattern generator, including one or more processors, to generate a plurality of patterns to apply to the antenna aperture during testing to cause the antenna to generate a beam in response to each pattern of the plurality of patterns while pointing at a satellite; a receiver to receive satellite signals from the satellite in response to generating beams with the aperture; a metric provider, including one or more processors, to generate one or more satellite signal metrics for the received satellite signals; and antenna parameter selector to select one or more parameters associated with beamforming based on the satellite signal metrics indicating antenna performance reached a predetermined level, wherein selection of the one or more parameters is for storage in the memory and used to generate a beam with the antenna aperture when performing data communication.

A lens elements array comprises at least two lens elements aligned along an alignment axis. Each lens element includes a spherical lens and a feed element. The feed elements are tilted such that the RF signals generated by the feed elements have major axes form an angle (preferably between 5° and 30°) other than a perpendicular angle with respect to the alignment axis. The combined RF signals produced collectively by these feed elements have amplitude that has minimal dips across the array. The feed elements that are farther away from the center of the array have higher levels of tilts than the feed elements that are closer to the center of the array.

A dual-band shared-aperture antenna array based on a dual-mode parallel waveguide is applicable to the field of wireless communications technologies. The dual-band shared-aperture antenna array includes: a waveguide-substrate integrated waveguide transition structure, a multi-stage cascaded power splitter, a transverse coupling slot, a longitudinal coupling slot, a matching through-hole, a shared-aperture dual-mode parallel waveguide, and a shared-aperture parallel slot array. The entire structure includes two dielectric substrates. A signal is input to the multi-stage cascaded power splitter through the waveguide-substrate integrated waveguide transition structure located on a bottom-layer substrate. The foregoing dual-band shared-aperture antenna array based on a dual-mode parallel waveguide can separately implement a low-band fixed-beam slot array antenna, a high-band multi-beam long slot leaky-wave antenna, or a fixed-beam slot array antenna. It has a simple structure, multiple functions, high integration, a small size and light weight.

The present invention relates to an antenna assembly for a beamforming antenna, comprising a reflector and an antenna array that includes a plurality of first radiating elements that are arranged as a first vertically extending array, the first radiating elements extending forwardly from the reflector; and a plurality of second radiating elements that are arranged as a second vertically extending array, the second radiating elements extending forwardly from the reflector. Two adjacent first radiating elements are spaced apart from one another by a first distance, and a first radiating element and an adjacent second radiating element are spaced apart from one another by a second distance. The first distance is substantially equal to the second distance. The antenna assembly further comprises a plurality of parasitic elements that are placed along sides of the first and second of the vertically extending arrays.

An apparatus for exchanging liquid crystal (LC) between two areas of an antenna array and method for using the same are disclosed. In one embodiment, the antenna comprises an antenna element array having a plurality of radiating radio-frequency (RF) antenna elements formed using portions of first and second substrates with a liquid crystal (LC) therebetween, and a structure between the first and second substrates and outside the area of the RF antenna elements to collect LC from an area between the first and second substrates forming the RF antenna elements due to LC expansion.

Disclosed in the present application is a multi-beam lens antenna and an active lens antenna system; the multi-beam lens antenna includes a columnar lens, N layers of first radiation unit groups and M layers of second radiation unit groups both distributed in a height direction of an outer side surface of the columnar lens; each layer of first radiation unit group includes P first radiation units, and each layer second radiation unit group includes K second radiation units; each layer of first radiation unit radiates P narrow beams with different directions as service beams through the columnar lens, and each layer of second radiation unit radiates F wide beams with different directions as broadcast beams through the columnar lens; and a sector covered by the F broadcast beams of each layer matches a sector covered by the P service beams of each layer.

The present disclosure relates to a radiation assembly, a waveguide antenna sub-arrays, and a waveguide array antenna. The radiation assembly for the waveguide array antenna comprises: a first radiation layer having a plurality of first radiation windows, each of the plurality of first radiation windows has a metal grid that divides the corresponding first radiation window into two radiation holes; and a second radiation layer having a plurality of second radiation windows, the plurality of second radiation windows has a one-to-one correspondence with the plurality of first radiation windows, and the plurality of second radiation windows of the second radiation layer do not have a metal grid. The thickness of the second radiation layer is greater than the thickness of the first radiation layer, and the first radiation layer and the second radiation layer are manufactured independently of each other.