Evaluation of RCS Reduction Strategies for Planar Printed C Band Tapered Slot Antennas

This paper presents the analytical design and radar cross-section (RCS) reduction of linear, tapered slot antenna for C band applications. The antenna was designed on an FR-4 substrate. The complete characterization of the antenna was carried out in terms of reflection coefficient, radiation pattern, antenna gain and RCS. The antenna operates over C band microwave frequencies and the centre frequency of operation is 6.7 GHz. It has been observed from the simulation that different types of metallic reduction strategies viz. rectangular cut, trapezoidal cut, cutout stripes, and semicircular cut, implemented on the reference antenna were able to provide RCS reduction. It was found that the cutout stripes technique has a minimum frequency shift of 200 MHz from the centre frequency of the reference antenna, better RCS reduction of 12dB at 6.7 GHz and preserves the radiation pattern to a large extent.