An Ultrawideband Compact Magneto-Electric Dipole Antenna and Its Coupled Array

A novel magneto-electric dipole antenna with compact structure and unidirectional radiation is proposed. The electrical connection between the U-shaped floor and the electric dipole (E-dipole) was cutoff to reduce the profile height, and the straight-line edges of the original dipoles were replaced with an arc-shaped one to stabilize the voltage standing wave ratio (VSWR). Furthermore, when the antenna element is employed as the coupled array unit, the altering of the element number and the way the array is assembled has no significant impact on the radiation performance, which is almost the same as that of a single antenna. The modified prototype of a 2 × 2 array with the dimension of 0.33
λ
_L
× 0.28
λ
_L
× 0.10
λ
_L
is fabricated and measured. Results indicate that the antenna array exhibits a band ratio of 30.9 with VSWR ≤ 2.3 in 98 MHz–3.03 GHz, realized gain of 4.1–14.9 dBi and unidirectional pattern with SLL < −10 dB from 98 to 700 MHz.