Study on development of high performance thin dielectric lens for next generation millimeter wave antenna using high permittivity materials

2021 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 19K04383
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Review Section: Basic Section 21020:Communication and network engineering-related
• Research Institution: Akita National College of Technology
• Principal Investigator: ITOH Keiichi 秋田工業高等専門学校, その他部局等, 教授 (20290702)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): 佐々木 友之 長岡技術科学大学, 工学研究科, 准教授 (90553090)
• Project Period (FY): 2019-04-01 – 2022-03-31
• Keywords: トポロジー最適化 / 誘電体レンズ / ミリ波アンテナ / FDTD法

Outline of Final Research Achievements

The objective of this study is to establish a new design method for thin lens antennas with convergence performance superior to that of conventional lens antennas by combining high dielectric constant materials and topology optimization. We develop a dielectric lens that is both thin and highly convergent, which can be used as a cover for next-generation millimeter-wave sensors.
The FDTD (Finite-Difference Time-Domain) method and topology optimization are used to analyze and design the mechanism of the convergence effect of thin lenses. In this study, topology optimization using the normalized Gaussian network (NGnet) is used to design the spatial distribution of high dielectric materials with high precision. With the proposed method, we clarified that the convergence effect can be achieved even with a lens that is about 1/4 the thickness of conventional lenses.

Free Research Field

アンテナ工学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

NGnetを用いた構造設計はガウス関数を局所的に用いるため微細な形状も表現可能であり，一般的な密度法と比較しても局所解に陥ることはない。本研究成果により，NGnetを用いた設計能力の高さを示すことができただけでなく，既存の光学的なアプローチ以外でも誘電体レンズの形状設計ができることを示した。
ミリ波デバイスは今後ますます高周波化が進むことが予想されるが，提案手法を応用することにより誘電体レンズのみならず誘電体線路や分岐などの微細な設計にも適用可能であり，極めて汎用性の高い設計法を提案することができた。