Design of dedicated seven-port star dividers for sectored circular antenna array feeding

In order to mitigate the multipath propagation problems for high rate WLANS such as Hiperlan (5 GHz), we study an approach based on electronic beam steering over 360° in azimuth with the help of circular arrays of monopoles. Design simplicity and size constraints intended for potential low-cost applications on the terminals has led us to favor a beam switching topology, using a single feeding-port. Two competing configurations of the microstrip feeding circuit are presented and their principle of operation is experimentally validated through passive circuit configurations. The power distribution is achieved in the first one with the help of a pseudo-divider based on a modified 7-branch star junction, whose specific advantage is its very small size. Unfortunately, this design does not preserve the circular permutation invariance of the radiation patterns. The second circuit bypasses this problem in achieving a power distribution through a virtual point junction, at the cost of an appreciable increase in the circuit size.