Steered coupled-cavity-backed Hertzian dipole array

This paper presents the operating characteristics of a coupled-cavity-backe d Hertzian dipole resonator array excited with mutually injection-locked vo ltage-controlled oscillators (VCO's). It is demonstrated that microwave spa tial power-combined inter-injection locking through mutual coupling of indi vidual antenna oscillators can be obtained with an auxiliary coupling netwo rk formed by a cavity iris configuration introduced within a reduced-height waveguide arrangement, As a result, strong mutual-coupling control can be realized and exploited in conjunction with self-injection-locked oscillator s in order to achieve direct phase modulation of the locked oscillators. Be am scanning up to 10 degrees off the broadside through locked VCO phase mod ification has been demonstrated in a three-element array occupying a space of only 0.6 lambda(o) x 0.027 lambda(o) at 998 MHz.