Planar integrated substrate integrated waveguide circularly polarized filtering antenna

A new design of substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) circularly‐polarized (CP) filtering antenna is presented, which is based on dual‐mode (TE₁₀₂ and TE₂₀₁) cavities. The satisfying filtering performance of the antenna is realized by a coupled‐resonator circuit of two dual‐mode SIW cavities. And the radiating element of the antenna is a cavity‐backed CP slot antenna which is formed by a nonuniform ring slot integrated with the back cavity. To demonstrate the idea, a prototype antenna operating at X band is designed, fabricated, and measured. Measured results show that the 10‐dB impedance bandwidth is 4.2% (from 11.6 to 12.1 GHz), the 3‐dB axial‐ratio (AR) bandwidth is 4%, and the gain is 5.6 dBi at the center frequency of 11.8 GHz.     

A dual‐band and wideband omnidirectional circularly polarized antenna based on VO2

In this article, a dual‐band and wideband omnidirectional circularly polarized (CP) antenna based on the vanadium dioxide (VO₂) is investigated. The operating bandwidth of such an antenna can be regulated by altering the outside temperature (T), which is attained by the insulator‐metal transition of VO₂. The omnidirectional CP antenna is based on a loop antenna‐dipole model, which is composed of four tilted metal and VO₂ resonant units that are loaded around a cuboid and a feeding network for broadening bandwidth. The simulated results show that when T = 50°C (State I), the 10‐dB impedance bandwidth is 45.7% (1.67‐2.66 GHz), and the 3‐dB axial ratio (AR) bandwidth is 40% (1.9‐2.85 GHz). When T = 80°C (State II), the 10‐dB impedance bandwidth is 13.8% (1.62‐1.86 GHz), and the 3‐dB AR bandwidth is 21.8% (1.68‐2.09 GHz). In order to further characterize the concept of the proposed antenna, the related parameters of such an antenna are studied using simulation software HFSS.     

Millimeter‐wave wideband circularly polarized monopulse antenna using the sequential rotation feeding technique

This article presents the design and implementation of a single‐layer wideband millimeter‐wave circularly polarized (CP) monopulse cavity‐backed antenna based on substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) technology. The antenna consists of a 2× 8 array of CP cavity‐backed antenna elements, a 90° 3‐dB coupler, power dividers, and phase shifters. In order to enhance the operating bandwidths, the sequential rotation feeding technology is adopted in the design of the monopulse antenna. To validate the proposed concept, a prototype operating at 42 GHz was fabricated and measured. The measured 3‐dB axial ratio (AR) bandwidth for the sum beam can cover a frequency range from 37 to 46 GHz. The measured gain for the sum beam at the center frequency of 42 GHz is 17.5 dBiC, while the null‐depth of the difference beam is measured to be ?36.8 dB. The proposed monopulse antenna has advantages of low‐cost, easy‐fabrication, and easy integration with planar circuits.     

An SIW antenna utilizing odd‐mode spoof surface plasmon polaritons for broadside radiation

In this article, a substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) antenna utilizing odd‐mode spoof surface plasmon polariton (SSPP) for broadside radiation is proposed. Double gratings are etched on the top surface of SIW and the SSPP odd‐mode is excited on this hybrid SIW‐SSPP structure. The proposed SIW antenna has open‐circuit termination and can realize broadside radiation. A prototype of the SIW‐based odd‐mode antenna is fabricated. Reasonable accordance is achieved between measured results and simulated results. The antenna impedance bandwidth is about 5.5% (12.4~13.1 GHz) with |S₁₁| < ?10 dB. Stable broadside radiation is also realized within the operating band of 12.3~13.3 GHz and the measured gain varies from 5.66 to 6.34 dB in the frequency band. The proposed broadside radiation antenna is suitable for wireless communication systems due to its compact structure and good radiation performances.     

Compact bilayer substrate integrated waveguide leaky wave antenna with dumbbell‐shaped slot based on the TE20 mode

In this article, a compact dual layer leaky wave antenna array is simulated and constructed using the substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) based on the TE₂₀ mode at the X‐ and Ku‐bands. The proposed antenna is designed by creating dumbbell‐shaped slots on the upper layer of the SIW. These slots have increased the antenna bandwidth so that the proposed antenna has a bandwidth of 9.5 to 13.7 GHz and a fractional bandwidth of 36%. In addition, to excite the TE₂₀ mode, an SIW power divider is used in the feeding network of the antenna located in the bottom layer. Moreover, the gain and directivity are other advantages of the proposed antenna so that at 12.5 GHz the antenna peak gain reaches to 15.7 dB. Antenna beam scanning angle is from 5° to 81°. This antenna is simulated and analyzed by the CST Microwave Studio software. The obtained results from the antenna test lab confirm the simulation results.     

Circularly polarized planar monopole antenna for ultrawideband applications

A broadband circularly polarized (CP) planar monopole antenna is proposed here for ultrawideband (UWB) communication. The antenna is composed of a modified annular ring patch fed by a tapered microstrip line and a rectangular semiground plane on the opposite side of the substrate. Capability of generating wide axial ratio bandwidth (ARBW) is another feature of the proposed antenna. Wide ARBW is achieved by introducing a rectangular slot and a stub in the ground plane. The CP antenna has an impressive ARBW of 5.52 GHz (81.42%, 4.02‐9.54 GHz) within the UWB frequency range (3.1‐10.6 GHz). Measured 10‐dB return loss bandwidth of the proposed antenna is 120.86% centered at 7.48 GHz (2.96‐12 GHz). The proposed antenna is well used for wireless local area network (5.2 and 5.8 GHz), Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (5.5 GHz), and other wireless systems in C band as well as CP‐UWB antenna communication.     

A low‐profile antenna with circularly polarized reconfigurable and omnidirectional radiation patterns

A low profile circularly polarized (CP) antenna with reconfigurable polarization is designed and presented, which can radiate omnidirectional patterns that can be switched between left‐hand circularly polarized (LHCP) and right‐hand circularly polarized (RHCP). A pair of arc‐shaped complementary dipoles is acted as reconfigurable elements by bridging four pin diodes at the dipole arced arms. A meander phase shift line is employed to connected the arc dipole arms and plate cavity to adjust the phase relationship of two sources. The proposed antenna exhibits the omnidirectional radiation pattern by combining six identical elements placed in a circular array configuration. 24 p‐i‐n diodes are exploited to six elements, by manipulating the dc bias voltage across the diodes, the polarization state of the antenna can be switched. The patterns of the antenna are similar to that of a dipole, but its size is only about Φ0.87 × 0.029λ₀ at 5.8 GHz. The overlapped bandwidth of measured 3‐dB axial ratio (AR) and 10‐dB return loss is 5.724‐5.87 and 5.738‐5.91 GHz for two polarization states, which are right on the target of ISM band. It can be well adapted to medical diagnosis systems.     

Wideband omnidirectional circularly polarized antenna with offsetting slots and vertical strips

A wideband omnidirectional circularly polarized (CP) antenna is proposed in this paper. The antenna is comprised of two slotted square patches which are connected by four vertical metal strips at the edges and a simple feeding probe in the centre. Loop currents can be yielded on the patches when rotation‐symmetrically offsetting slots are cut. By combining the two orthogonal fields radiating from the loop and the feeding probe, omnidirectional circular polarization is obtained in the azimuth plane. One group of slots are cut to verify the CP performance and two groups of slots are cut to further broaden the operating bandwidth. Measured results show that the proposed antenna with a small size of 40 × 40 × 10 mm³ obtains an effective bandwidth of 22% (2.1–2.62 GHz) for |S₁₁| < ?10 dB and axial ratio < 3dB. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE 25:675–680, 2015.     

A wideband polarization reconfigurable isosceles trapezoidal monopole antenna

In this article, a polarization reconfigurable isosceles trapezoidal monopole antenna for the circular polarization (CP) is presented. A trapezoidal monopole and the ground plane are on the same side of the dielectric substrate. The monopole is excited by a reconfigurable T‐shaped 50 Ω microstrip feed line and reconfigurable vertical slots are incorporated in the ground plane to realize switchable wideband CP. For the different switching states of the p‐i‐n diodes, linear polarization, left‐handed and right handed CP can be achieved in the boresight direction (+z direction). The antenna prototype is fabricated and tested. The measured reflection coefficient bandwidth (|S11| < ?10 dB) is 31.2% (2.13 ‐ 2.91 GHz) and axial ratio bandwidth (axial ratio < 3 dB) is 22% (2.18 ‐ 2.72 GHz) for the CP. The measured reflection coefficient bandwidth is 18.56% (2.15 ‐ 2.59 GHz) for linear polarization.     

Design of a tunable omnidirectional circularly polarized antenna based on VO2

In this article, a VO₂‐based tunable omnidirectional circularly polarized (CP) antenna is designed. The proposed antenna combines copper and metamaterial VO₂. By utilizing the characteristics of insulator‐metal phase transition of VO₂, we can change the length of the resonant branches to achieve tunable working bandwidth. The proposed antenna is composed of a modified floor loaded with VO₂ and copper resonant branches, a top patch with slits, and 14 shorting vias connecting the top path and bottom floor. Different from the traditional electric controlled antennas, antennas based on metamaterial VO₂ do not need to design complicated circuit structures and can be easily tailored by the external temperature (T). The simulated results illustrate that when T ≥ 68°C (state I), the proposed antenna has a 10‐dB impedance bandwidth of 15.9% (2.09‐2.45 GHz), and a 3‐dB axial ratio (AR) bandwidth of 23.4% (2.04‐2.58 GHz). When T < 68°C (state II), it has a bandwidth of 6.5% (2.38‐2.54 GHz) with S₁₁ below ?10 dB, and a bandwidth of 19.9% (2.39‐2.92 GHz) with AR below 3 dB.     

A polarization reconfigurable omnidirectional antenna realized by the gravity field tailored

In this article, a polarization reconfigurable omnidirectional antenna realized by the gravity field tailored is proposed, which is composed of the liquid metal Hg. The antenna is composed of four horizontal glass containers for omnidirectional horizontally polarized (HP) operating state (State I) and four tilted glass containers for omnidirectional circularly polarized (CP) working state (State II). By rotating the antenna, the position of Hg can be changed due to the effect of the gravity field, and different resonant structures can be formed to realize the regulation of polarization states between HP and CP working states. A reflector based on electromagnetic band gap (EBG) structure also is introduced, which can increase the gain and widen axial ratio (AR) bandwidth. The simulated results show that when the antenna is not rotated (State I), the 10‐dB impedance bandwidth is 21.2% (2.83~3.5 GHz). When the antenna is rotated (State II), the 10‐dB impedance bandwidth is 37.7% (2.35~3.44 GHz), and the 3‐dB AR bandwidth is 28.5% (2.35~3.13 GHz). After introducing the reflector, the max gain is increased to 2.1 dBic in State I and 2.2 dBic in State II, respectively. To further characterize the concept of the proposed antenna, a parametric study is carried out using HFSS.     

Millimeter‐wave planar high gain SIW antenna using half elliptic radiation slots

This article reports a high gain millimeter‐wave substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) antenna using low cost printed circuit board technology. The half elliptic slots which can provide small shunt admittance, low cross polarization level and low mutual coupling are etched on the board surface of SIW as radiation slots for large array application. Design procedure for analyzing the characteristics of proposed radiation slot, the beam‐forming structure and the array antenna are presented. As examples, an 8 × 8 and a 32 × 32 SIW slot array antennas are designed and verified by experiments. Good agreements between simulation and measured results are achieved, which shows the 8 × 8 SIW slot array antenna has a gain of 20.8 dBi at 42.5 GHz, the maximum sidelobe level of 42.5 GHz E‐plane and H‐plane radiation patterns are 22.3 dB and 22.1 dB, respectively. The 32 × 32 SIW slot array antenna has a maximum measured gain of 30.05 dBi at 42.5 GHz. At 42.3 GHz, the measured antenna has a gain of 29.6 dBi and a maximum sidelobe level of 19.89 dB and 15.0 dB for the E‐plane and H‐plane radiation patterns. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE 25:709–718, 2015.     

Design of a compact wideband CP metasurface antenna

In this article, a new compact metasurface circularly polarized (CP) antenna is presented, where the rotating 45° periodic ellipse patch is used to achieve polarization conversion from linearly polarized to CP. The meta‐surface is composed of 4 × 4 ellipse patches with 45° rotation, which are etched on the top layer of upper substrate. A slot ground plane and a coplanar waveguide structure are printed on both sides of bottom substrate, and the bottom substrate is directly connected to the upper substrate, which can make the antenna profile lower. As demonstrated in this article, the presented antennas have good characteristics of excellent 3‐dB axial ratio bandwidth of 17.4% (5.25‐6.25 GHz), and wide 10‐dB impedance bandwidth of 20.6% (5.0‐6.15 GHz).     

A tunable wideband omnidirectional circularly polarized antenna regulated by the gravity field

In this article, a tunable wideband omnidirectional circularly polarized (CP) antenna regulated by the gravity field based on the liquid metal Hg is investigated. Under the action of the gravity field, Hg flows in the upper and lower parts by rotating such an antenna, which can constitute dissimilar resonant units to achieve the dynamic regulation of the operating bandwidths. The proposed antenna consists of four tilted glass containers that are filled with Hg in the upper or lower parts, and a feeding structure for power distribution and impedance matching. To verify concept of the design, equivalent prototypes have been fabricated and measured. The measured results are roughly consistent with simulated results within a reasonable error range. The antenna has a 10‐dB impedance bandwidth of 44.3% (2.37‐3.72 GHz), and a 3‐dB axial ratio (AR) bandwidth of 18.9% (2.83‐3.42 GHz) when the proposed antenna is not rotated (state I). When such an antenna is rotated (state II), it has a bandwidth of 40.7% (2.35‐3.55 GHz) with S₁₁ below ?10 dB, and a bandwidth of 22.9% (2.40‐3.02 GHz) with AR below 3 dB. Therefore, the operating band of the antenna can be altered between two wide bands. The proposed antenna has the advantages of tunable bandwidth, novel efficient regulation mechanism, and simple structure.     

Novel wide‐beam cross‐dipole CP antenna for GNSS applications

A wide‐beam circularly polarized (CP) cross‐dipole antenna for GNSS applications is proposed in this article. This cross‐dipole antenna is fed by a coaxial cable, on which the slots is added to optimize the impedance matching. These two pairs of dipole arms are designed with different lengths to obtain the circularly polarized radiation. Enhanced wide‐beam CP radiation characteristics can be achieved by curving the dipole arms and adjusting the distance between the arms and the metallic ground plane. The study of proposed antenna performance with different geometric parameters has been conducted. The final antenna exhibits a good impedance bandwidth (IBW) of ～13.1% (1.50‐1.71 GHz), and the 3‐dB axial‐ratio bandwidth is over 7% (1.52‐1.64 GHz). Broad pattern coverage of more than 140°, pure CP radiation at all designed bands and a wide 3 dB axial‐ratio beamwidth (ARBW) of nearly 150° makes this antenna an excellent candidate for satellite communications and navigation systems.     

Quasi‐corrugated substrate integrated waveguide H‐plane horn antenna with wideband and low‐profile characteristics

A wideband H‐plane horn antenna based on quasi‐corrugated substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) technology with a very low profile is presented in this article. Open‐circuited microstrip stubs are applied to create electric sidewalls of the quasi‐corrugated SIW structure. The quasi‐corrugated SIW H‐plane horn antenna shows high performance and simple structure. A specify‐shaped horn aperture is utilized, so that the poor impedance matching owing to the structure restriction can be smoothened. The structure is simulated by ANSYS HFSS and a prototype is fabricated. The measured results match well with the simulated ones. An enhanced impedance bandwidth ranging from 5.3 GHz to 19 GHz (VSWR < 2.5) is achieved. The presented antenna also brings out stable radiation beam over the same frequency band.     

Compact four‐element MIMO SIW cavity backed slot antenna with high front‐to‐back ratio

In this article, a novel design of single layer, compact, multiple input multiple output (MIMO) half‐mode substrate integrated waveguide (HMSIW) cavity backed quad element slot antenna with high front‐to‐back ratio (FTBR) is proposed. The proposed antenna consists of four rectangular SIW cavities with semi‐taper radiating slots. The antenna elements are placed in a fashion to achieve high isolation. This antenna is designed for WLAN vehicular communication system to cover the frequency range of 5.84 GHz to 5.96 GHz. It has high front to back ratio (FTBR) of more than 25 dB without using any external metallic reflector. It has more than 37 dB isolation in between orthogonal elements and more than 24 dB in between parallel elements. The envelop correlation coefficient (ECC) and diversity gain are 0.003 and 9.99 dB respectively in between all the elements. Moreover, the antenna has high gain and efficiency of more than 8 dB and 94%, respectively, in 10 dB impedance bandwidth. It can be tuned in a wide range of frequency.     

A new broadband circularly polarized square‐slot antenna with low axial ratios

A new broadband circularly polarized (CP) square‐slot antenna with low axial ratios is proposed in this article. The antenna is comprised of an L‐shaped microstrip line with tapered section and a square‐slot ground plane with some stubs and slots, which are utilized as perturbations for the desirable antenna performance. By loading stubs and slots in the square‐slot ground plane, the 2‐dB axial ratio bandwidth (ARBW) and 10‐dB return loss bandwidth for the presented antenna can be markedly improved. The measured results show that its 2‐dB ARBW is 4.2 GHz (54.2% from 5.65 GHz to 9.85 GHz) and its 10‐dB return loss bandwidth is about 8.9 GHz (92.7% from 5.15 GHz to 14.05 GHz). The proposed antenna features compact structure and broad 2‐AR bandwidth which could completely cover the WLAN (5.725‐5.85 GHz) band. Therefore, the proposed antenna is suitable for circular polarization applications in C band.     

Epsilon‐shaped circularly polarized strip and slot‐loaded ultra‐wideband antenna for Ku‐band and K‐band

A compact epsilon‐shaped (ε) ultra‐wideband (UWB) antenna for dual‐wideband circularly polarized (CP) applications has been investigated in this article. It consists of a stepped stub loaded modified annular ring‐shaped radiator and modified CPW ground plane. The ground plane is loaded with two semicircular notches and a spiral‐shaped slot. The impedance bandwidth (IBW) is 97.02% (10.4‐30 GHz) along with an overall footprint of 20 × 20 mm². The fractional axial ratio bandwidth (3‐dB ARBW) for two wide bands is 38.50% (13.30‐19.64 GHz) and 6.45% (26.25‐28.00 GHz), respectively. The proposed antenna is left‐hand circularly polarized with a peak gain of about 5.09 and 5.14 dB in both 3‐dB ARBW bands. The proposed antenna is dominating other reported CP antenna structures in terms of number of CP bands, 3‐dB ARBW, IBW, peak gain, and dimensions.     

High gain substrate integrated waveguide beam scanning antenna with sub‐array elements

A method to enhance the gain of substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) beam scanning antenna is proposed in this article. 2 × 2 SIW cavity‐backed sub‐arrays are employed in array design. The antenna is constructed on two layers. The top layer places four SIW cavity‐backed sub‐arrays as radiating elements and the bottom layer is an SIW transmission line to feed the sub‐arrays. Beam scanning feature can be obtained due to the frequency dispersion. Moreover, through separating radiators to the other layer and using 2 × 2 SIW cavity‐backed sub‐arrays as radiating parts, the antenna gain is improved significantly. For a linear array, 4.1 to 6.8 dB gain enhancement is achieved compared to a conventional SIW beam scanning antenna with the same length. Then, the linear array is expanded to form a planar array for further gain improvement. A 64‐element planar beam scanning array is designed, fabricated, and tested. Experimental results show that the proposed planar array has a bandwidth from 18.5 GHz to 21. 5 GHz with beam scanning angle from ?5° to 11.5° and gain in the range of 20.5 to 21.8 dBi. The proposed high gain beam scanning antennas have potential applications in radar detection and imaging.