A low‐profile circularly polarized transmitarray antenna using rotated cross dipole elements

A low profile circularly polarized (CP) transmitrarray using double‐layer cross dipole elements is presented in this letter. The proposed element exhibits an overall thickness of only 0.22λ₀, which offers the advantages of light weight, easy fabrication, and low cost compared to conventional transmitarray elements. The transmission coefficient of the element is analyzed by Ansys HFSS, and the results show that the element manifests a high transmission rate and good CP performance. Then, by using angular rotation technique, transmitarray with this type of element is designed, fabricated, and tested. The size of the transmitarray is 6.6 × 6.6λ₀ at the center frequency of 10 GHz. The measured peak gain is 22.5 dB at 9.5 GHz, resulting in an aperture efficiency of 36%. The measured 1‐dB gain and 3‐dB axial ratio bandwidths are 10.2% and 12%, respectively.     

A dual‐patch polarization rotation reflective surface and its application to wideband wide‐beam low‐profile circularly polarized patch antennas

This study investigates the use of a polarization rotation reflective surface (PRRS) to construct a wideband, wide‐beam, low‐profile circularly polarized (CP) patch antenna. The device is composed of a feeding monopole antenna and a novel PRRS‐based dual‐patch artificial magnetic conductor (AMC) cell structure. The PRRS has two polarization rotation (PR) frequency points, generated by properly adjusting the width between square and L‐shaped metallic patches. A large PR band of 35.5% (5.1‐7.3 GHz) was achieved by combining two adjacent PR frequency points. The PRRS‐based patch antenna impedance bandwidth was measured to be 28.6% (5.1‐6.35 GHz), with a 3 dB axial ratio (AR) bandwidth of 21.8% (4.8‐6.4 GHz) and a profile of 0.045λ₀. Additionally, the proposed antenna exhibited the largest AR beamwidth (to our knowledge) of 175° and 128° in the xoz and yoz planes, respectively. It also produced a high broadside gain of 6.7 dBic within the operational bandwidth.     

Wideband and low profile polarization conversion meatasurface‐based circularly polarized slot antenna

The purpose of this study is to investigate the application of a polarization conversion meatasurface for constructing a low profile, wideband circularly polarized slot antenna, which consists of a new Polarization conversion metasurface (PCM)‐based square‐corner‐cut artificial magnetic conductor cell structure and a feeding slot antenna. PCM possesses two frequency points of polarization rotation (PR), produced by appropriately adjusting width between the two triangular metallic patches. A 39.3% (4.7‐7 GHz) of big PR band was realized through the combination of two neighboring PR frequency points. The impedance bandwidth of PCM based patch antenna was measured to be 43.5% (4.5‐7 GHz), with 17.2% (5.3‐6.3 GHz) of 3 dB axial ratio (AR) bandwidth and 0.045λ₀ of profile. It also generated 7.3 dBic of high broadside gain in operational bandwidth.     

Single‐layer low‐profile wideband circularly polarized patch antenna surrounded by periodic metallic plates

This article presents a simple design of circularly polarized (CP) antenna with low profile and wideband operation characteristics. To achieve these desirable features, a truncated corner squared patch is chosen as primary radiating source and surrounded by periodic metallic plates for bandwidth enhancement. Notably, all the radiating elements are designed on a single layer of substrate using printed circuit techniques, which significantly reduces the design complexity. The final prototype with overall size of 0.60λ_o × 0.60λ_o × 0.05λ_o (λ_o is free‐space wavelength at the center operating frequency) was fabricated and tested. Measured results show that the proposed antenna has wide operation bandwidth of 19.7% (5.1‐6.2 GHz). Additionally, broadside gain ranging from 5.0 to 6.9 dBic is also attained within the operating band. In comparison with the other reported antennas in literature, the proposed one has the simplest design architecture with competitive operating bandwidth.     

A new broadband circularly polarized antenna with a single‐layer metasurface

In this article, a new low‐profile broadband circularly polarized antenna with a single‐layer metasurface is designed. The metasurface is composed of 4 × 4 rotated rectangle‐loops. Compared to single rotated rectangle, introducing inner‐cut rectangle slot can increase the design flexibilities by changing this slot size for wider circularly polarized operating bandwidth and reduce the size of the antenna in same frequency. The proposed antenna has the advantages of a wide 3‐dB axial ratio bandwidth from 5.4 to 6.05 GHz and an excellent 10‐dB impedance bandwidth from 5 to 6.05 GHz.     

A WiMAX circularly polarized antenna array using slot‐coupling feeding technique

In this letter, we present a circular polarization antenna array using the novel slot‐coupling feeding technique. This antenna includes eight elements which are installed in line, each array element is fed by means of two microstrip lines with equal amplitude and phase rotation of 90°. The feeding microstrip lines are coupled to a square patch through a square‐ring slot realized in the feeding network ground plane. With the presence of the slots, this antenna array is able to cover the range of frequency of 3 GHz to 4 GHz. The size of the proposed antenna array is 7λ × 1.8λ × 0.4λ. The measured gain is 15.2 dBi and the bandwidth of S11< ?10 dB is 1 GHz (3–4 GHz, 28%). The antenna array is suited for the WiMAX applications. With the use of slot‐coupling feeding technique, the measured bandwidth for axial ratio < 3 dB is about 24% in the WiMAX frequency band (3.3–3.8GHz). The measured HPBW of the y–z planes is larger than 62°. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE 26:567–574, 2016.     

Ultrawideband circularly polarized antenna with dual band‐notched characteristics

This article presents an ultrawideband (UWB) crossed dipole antenna with circularly polarized (CP) and dual band‐notched characteristics. The proposed design is based on two orthogonal tapered dipoles for UWB CP operation and a square‐shaped cavity for high broadside gain over the entire operating bandwidth (BW). To generate dual band‐notched characteristics, two separated slots are inserted into each dipole's arm. This antenna yields measured impedance BW of 100% (3.2‐9.6 GHz) with dual‐band rejection centered at 5.2 and 5.8 GHz. Correspondingly, dual rejected bands are also observed in the original UWB CP band, which ranges from 3.2 to 8.2 GHz. Additionally, the proposed antenna exhibits high broadside gains better than 6.2 dBic and radiation efficiency greater than 82%.     

A wideband circularly polarized antenna array with sequential rotation feed

A novel wideband circularly polarized (CP) antenna array is designed, which consists of a horizontally placed wideband phase shifting feed network and four vertically placed linearly polarized dipole antenna elements, and the circular polarization is realized based on sequential rotation feeding technology. By placing two parasitic strips and two grounding strips on the top and side of each T‐shaped dipole antenna element, the impedance bandwidth and circular polarization performance of the antenna can be further improved. The simulation results show that the 10‐dB impedance bandwidth of the antenna is 93% (1.56‐4.27 GHz) and the 3‐dB AR bandwidth is 80.7% (1.7‐4.0 GHz). The measured results are in good agreement with the simulation results. Due to the use of orthogonally placed wideband feed network and wideband array elements, the proposed antenna array has a wider circular polarization bandwidth than the similar antenna arrays reported.     

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.     

Bandwidth enhancement of a circularly polarized tapered crossed slot antenna with corner parasitic directors

This paper presents a single‐feed wideband circularly polarized (CP) antenna with tapered crossed slots and corner directors. According to the multi‐mode resonance concept, the antenna uses two identical cross placed Vivaldi‐like tapered slots as the wideband radiating elements, and four rectangular parasitic patch directors are connected on each corner of the ground for further enhancing the bandwidth. A simple second‐order stepped microstrip line with a via on the other side of the substrate is used to feed the antenna. Two pairs of capacitors and inductors are placed on each slot to realize a 90° phase difference for CP operation. The proposed antenna is designed, fabricated and measured. Simulation results are in good agreement with the measured results that demonstrate a 10 dB impedance bandwidth (IMBW) from 1.98 to 5.71 GHz (3.73 GHz, 97.01%) and a 3 dB axial ratio bandwidth (ARBW) from 2.13 to 3.91 GHz (1.78 GHz, 58.94%). The antenna outperforms most of the reported cross slot antennas for its wide IMBW and ARBW.     

A new dual C‐shaped rectangular dielectric resonator based antenna for wideband circularly polarized radiation

This article presents a new dual C‐shaped rectangular dielectric resonator (DR) based antenna for generation of wideband circularly polarized (CP) radiation. The proposed antenna comprises of a pair of C‐shaped rectangular dielectric DR and a metal strip with a coaxial probe. By utilization of a metal strip at the side surface of C‐shaped rectangular DR, the wideband CP radiation is achieved from the proposed dielectric resonator antenna (DRA). Fundamental orthogonal modes (TE^x_δ11 and TE^y_1δ1) are excited using the rectangular DRA with a metal strip for the generation of CP fields. The proposed antenna with dual C‐shaped rectangular CP DRA provides the measured ?10 dB reflection coefficient bandwidth of 30.07% (3.22 GHz‐4.36 GHz) with measured 3‐dB axial ratio bandwidth of 14.81% (3.25 GHz‐3.77 GHz) at the boresight. The proposed antenna covers the useful Wi‐MAX band.     

Low‐profile omnidirectional circularly polarized antenna based on substrate integrated waveguide technology

A substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) circularly polarized (CP) antenna with omnidirectional radiation in the azimuthal plane is proposed. The antenna consists of five identical end‐fire CP antenna elements in a pentagonal array configuration, which is loaded on a circular substrate. Each element contains an H‐plane horn antenna in SIW structure and a printed dipole antenna. Five parasitic curve elements are introduced to improve the omnidirectional property of the antenna. Combined with complementary dipoles theory and SIW technology, prototype antenna is designed, fabricated and measured. With a low profile of 0.024λ₀, the antenna has a 10‐dB return‐loss impedance bandwidth of 4.08% (2.4～2.5 GHz) and a 3‐dB axial‐ratio (AR) bandwidth of 5.76% (2.36～2.50 GHz). The antenna works well in the 2.45 GHz ISM band, with good cross‐polarization and excellent omnidirectional property.     

A metasurface‐based slit‐loaded wideband circularly polarized crossed dipole antenna

A metasurface‐based low‐profile crossed dipole antenna with wide circularly polarized bandwidth for 2.45 GHz ISM band wireless communications is proposed and fabricated in this article. Consisting of four slit‐loaded rectangular patches, the double‐sided printing crossed dipoles are fed by a pair of vacant‐quarter printed rings which circularly polarized (CP) radiation could be generated. With slits loaded, by properly combining the fundamental mode of the two inverted L‐shaped dipole, the slot mode and extra resonance generated by the AMC surface, a wideband circularly polarized operation can be obtained. After optimization, the final design with an overall size of 0.44λ₀ × 0.44λ₀ × 0.1448λ₀ at 2.4 GHz had measured a 31.6% (2–2.75 GHz) impedance bandwidth and 3 dB axial ratio bandwidths of measured were 23.2% (2.1–2.65 GHz), respectively. In addition, the antenna performed a small gain variation (7.0–7.5 dBic) and a front‐to‐back ratio (FBR) of over 25 dB across the whole CP region.     

A compact wideband circularly polarized antenna with two pairs of driven patch arrays

In this article, a new wideband circularly polarized (CP) antenna is presented. The antenna is composed of a circular‐loop feeding structure which provides sequential phase (SP), four primary‐parasitic crown patches and four secondary‐parasitic crown patches. The circular‐loop SP structure is used to feed the two pairs of crown patches by a capacitively coupled way. The presented antenna features a wide 10‐dB impedance bandwidth (IBW) of 23% (6 GHz, 5.31‐6.69 GHz), and a wide 3‐dB axial ratio bandwidth (ARBW) of 11.1% (5.875 GHz, 5.55‐6.2 GHz). The proposed antenna features compact structure and broad 3 dB‐ARBW, which could include the WLAN (5.725‐5.85 GHz), ITS (5.8 GHz), and WIFI (5.85‐5.925 GHz) band.     

Low profile circularly polarized antenna based on printed monopole

A low profile circularly polarized (CP) antenna based on printed monopole and sequential rotation feed network is presented. As the monopole placed on the edge of the limited floor produces an axial radiation, CP radiation will be obtained when the sequential rotation technique is introduced to enclose the 6 monopoles into a hexagon. By folding the top of the monopole elements to the center, the profile of the antenna is reduced greatly. Measurement results show that the proposed antenna has a good CP performance and a small size. The antenna operates at 1.575 GHz with profile of 7 mm and 3 dB beamwidth of 140°.     

Circularly polarized stacked patch antenna array with enhanced bandwidth for S‐band applications

In this article, a circularly polarized coupled slot 1 × 4 stacked patch antenna array with enhanced bandwidth is proposed for S‐band applications. Initially, a patch antenna radiating at 2.79 GHz is designed and maximum energy from feedline to patch element is coupled using two rectangular slots. Whereas, a parallel feedline structure is designed to provide polarization flexibility by creating 0, 90 , and 180^o phase differences. Then, a truncated patch element is vertically stacked in the design to achieve broader bandwidth of 600 MHz over frequency range from 2.4 to 3.0 GHz. Finally, a coupled slot 1 × 4 array stacked antenna array having feedline line structure to provide 90^o phase difference for circular polarization is designed and fabricated for measurements. It is observed that the final design achieved target specification having impedance matching (|S₁₁ | (dB) < ?10 dB over 2.4 to 3.0 GHz, broad band circular polarization, and 11.5 dBic total gain. Overall, a good agreement between simulated and measurement results is observed.     

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.     

Broadband circularly polarized patch antenna with gap‐coupled feed and resistor loading

A broadband circularly polarized patch antenna with suspended structure is proposed. The suspended patch has a bow‐tie structure and a gap‐coupled feed. By connecting a resistor load to another gap‐coupled feed port at the opposite position, a wide impedance and axial ratio (AR) bandwidths are obtained. The proposed design has a very simple antenna structure with an impedance bandwidth of 44.5% and a 3‐dB AR bandwidth of 33.8%, respectively. The results show that the bandwidth of the patch antenna is successfully broadened using the suspended configuration, gap‐coupled feed, and resistor loading. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE 24:587–593, 2014.     

A dual‐polarized low‐profile microstrip patch antenna with U‐ or M‐shaped feed network

In this article, a dual‐polarized low‐profile microstrip patch antenna with U‐ or M‐shaped feed network is presented. The U‐ or M‐shaped feed network is printed on the same layer, which can achieve dual bands (5.3 and 5.8 GHz) and low profile (0.06 λ_g). Dual polarizations and high isolation are realized by making use of a quasi‐cross‐shaped slot feeding. Moreover, the port isolation is better than 25 dB, and the antenna gain is above 8.4 dBi for the two ports. And the cross‐polarization levels in both E and H planes are better than ‐30 dB for the two polarization ports, respectively. The design is suitable for array application in MIMO system. Details of the proposed design and experimental results are presented and well agreed.     

Novel single‐fed broadband circularly polarized antenna for GNSS applications

This letter presents the design of a broadband microstrip CP antenna using single‐fed technique. The feeding network is integrated within the coupling feed patch to simplify the structure. The proposed antenna is designed for Global Navigation satellite System (GNSS) operating at 1575.42 ± 10.23 MHz (GPS: L1 band), 1559～1592 MHz (Galileo: E2‐L1‐E1 band), 1602 ± 5.625 MHz (GLONASS: L1 band) and 1559.052～1591.788 MHz & 1610～1626.5 MHz (BeiDou Navigation Satellite System B1 and L band). Another advantage of this antenna is the much wider bandwidth in both VSWR and 3 dB axial‐ratio compared with traditional single‐fed CP antennas. Details of design, simulated and experimental results of this CP antenna are presented and discussed. The measured results confirm the validity of this design which meet the requirement of GNSS applications.