The present invention relates to a
beam steering system. The
system includes an array of a plurality of antenna elements, each
antenna element being electrically and mechanically controlled for steering a beam in a specific direction, and a
millimeter wave subsystem quasi-optically integrated with a 3-dimensional
beam steering device and an MMIC-type active circuit. The
antenna element is controlled in real time by an electrical driving method so as to be moved in 2-dimensional space. That is, in the 3-dimensional
system of the present invention, the beam is electrically controlled by a phase shifter, and each
antenna element is physically moved by a mechanical driving mechanism. The 3-dimensional
beam steering antenna and the associated devices are monolithically integrated on a substrate using MEMS technology, and the active circuit elements such as a mixer, a power
amplifier (PA), a
low noise amplifier (LNA), a VCO, etc. are integrated in an MMIC
active array. The 3-dimensional beam steering device and the active MMIC circuit are integrated into one system by being interconnected using the quasi-optical technique. According to the present invention, shortcomings of the
millimeter wave in that the SNR is low due to the low device output and
high transmission loss in the
free space can be overcome using the new
RF transmission technique of 3-dimensional beam steering, and by introducing a micro antenna structure which is electrically and mechanically controlled such that
wideband RF communication and 3-dimensional imaging is allowed in a Pico
cell environment.