Figure 1: Number of papers
published on IEEE Xplore with keywords “antenna” AND “beam” AND
“steering” (Data till March 2024).
Several electronic beam-steering antennas are described in the
literature using different innovative techniques such as phase-shifting,
multi-feed, frequency selective surfaces, and metasurfaces. Different
review studies have been conducted by different groups focusing on a
single category such as reconfigurable leaky-wave antennas, phased
arrays, and metasurfaces for beam-steering.
For ease of understanding and to establish a better comparison between
different technologies, in this article, we have classified all the
electronic beam-steering antenna techniques into four main categories,
namely, (i) phased array antennas, (ii) quasi-optical systems, (iii)
leaky-wave antennas, and (iv) metasurfaces, see Figure 2. This article
gives an overview of the working principle of technology followed by
state-of-the-art examples from the literature. Finally, we compare the
capabilities and limitations of four different technologies based on
real-life applications within beyond-5G networks.