A Wideband Array Antenna with Elliptical Slots on Substrate Integrated Waveguide Technology

In this work, we propose a broad bandwidth antenna array with 72 elliptical slots on substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) technology. The Y-power divider feeding network has been a suitably designed for feeding four rows of slots such that the two left-hand rows and two right-hand rows of slots have a 90-degree phase difference to generate a circularly-polarized radiation pattern at the frequency of the operation 30 GHz. To evaluate and validate the effectiveness and superior performance of the proposed slot array antenna over other available related work, we have reported both simulation and experimental results. The slot array antenna has demonstrated a wide bandwidth of more than 18%, a high level gain of 16 dB, and very low values of return loss. Furthermore, the axial ratio bandwidth of its circularly-polarized radiation pattern is more than 14%.

I. Introduction

The need for compact size and minimization in antennas has widely increased in the applications of modern microwave and millimeter-wave radars and communication systems, in addition to high efficiency and frequency bandwidth.