A wideband circularly polarized crossed magneto‐electric dipole

A novel wideband crossed magneto‐electric (ME) dipole for circularly polarized (CP) radiation is proposed in this paper. The proposed antenna consists of a crossed dipole, four parasitic elements, and two pairs of folding metal plates (magnetic dipole). The parasitic elements and magnetic dipole are employed to enhance the axial ratio bandwidth (ARBW). The antenna size is 0.51λ₀ × 0.51λ₀ × 0.33λ₀, where λ₀ is the corresponding free‐space wavelength at the center frequency. A prototype antenna is fabricated and tested. The experiment results depict that the impedance bandwidth (IBW) for voltage standing wave ratio < 2 is 79.2% (2.5‐5.78 GHz) and the 3‐dB axial ratio bandwidth (ARBW) is 72.5% (2.7‐5.77 GHz). At the same time, good CP characteristics and stable symmetrical radiation patterns can be obtained across the operation bandwidth.     

A compact dual‐band zeroth‐order resonator antenna loaded with meander line inductor

A novel zeroth‐order resonator (ZOR) meta‐material (MTM) antenna with dual‐band is suggested using compound right/left handed transmission line as MTM. In this article, suggested antenna consists of patch through series gap, two meander line inductors, and two circular stubs. The MTM antenna is compact in size which shows dual‐band properties with first band centered at 2.47 GHz (2.05‐2.89 GHz) and second band is centered at 5.9 GHz (3.70‐8.10 GHz) with impedance bandwidth of (S₁₁ < ? 10 dB) 34.69% and 72.45%, respectively. At ZOR mode (2.35 GHz), the suggested antenna has overall dimension of 0.197λ_o × 0.07λ_o × 0.011λ_o with gain of 1.65 dB for ZOR band and 3.35 dB for first positive order resonator band which covers the applications like Bluetooth (2.4 GHZ), TV/Radio/Data (3.700‐6.425 GHz), WLAN (5‐5.16 GHz), C band frequencies (5.15‐5.35, 5.47‐5.725, or 5.725‐5.875 GHz) and satellite communication (7.25‐7.9 GHz). The radiation patterns of suggested structure are steady during the operating band for which sample antenna has been fabricated and confirmed experimentally. It exhibits novel omnidirectional radiation characteristics in phi = 0° plane with lower cross‐polarization values.     

A high‐gain compact circularly polarized microstrip array antenna with simplified feed network

A broadband high‐gain circularly polarized (CP) microstrip antenna operating in X band is proposed. The circular polarization property is achieved by rotating four narrow band linearly polarized (LP) microstrip patch elements in sequence. Since the conventional series‐parallel feed network is not conducive to the miniaturization of the array, a corresponding simplified feed network is designed to realize the four‐way equal power division and sequential 90° phase shift. With this feed network, the impedance bandwidth (IBW) of the CP array is greatly improved compared with that of the LP element, while maintaining a miniaturized size. Then, parasitic patches are introduced to enhance the axial ratio bandwidth (ARBW). A prototype of this antenna is fabricated and tested. The size of proposed antenna is 0.93λ₀ × 0.93λ₀ × 0.017λ₀ (λ₀ denotes the space wavelength corresponding to the center frequency 10.4 GHz). The measured 10‐dB IBW and 3‐dB ARBW are 13.6% (9.8‐11.23 GHz), 11.2% (9.9‐11.07 GHz) respectively, and peak gain in the overlapping band is 9.8 dBi.     

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.     

Metamaterial‐inspired miniaturized antenna loaded with IDC and meander line inductor using partial ground plane

In this article, a novel omnidirectional compact dual band metamaterial‐inspired antenna with CPW feed has been proposed for application of GSM 1800 (1.71‐1.785 GHz/1.805‐1.879 GHz), GSM 1900 (1.85‐1.91 GHz/1.93‐1.99 GHz), UMTS (1.92‐2.17 GHz), WLAN/Wi Fi (4.9, 5, 5.9 GHz), HiperLAN1 (5.15‐5.3 GHz), and HiperLAN2 (5.47‐5.72 GHz) using a combination of meander line inductor and interdigital capacitor (IDC). The antenna consists of complimentary right/left handed (CRLH) transmission line on both sides of patch to excite zeroth order mode (n = 0). The rectangular slotted stubs act as a virtual ground for the structure using a short circuit condition at the end of the IDC. The zeroth order resonance (ZOR) frequency is mainly controlled by IDC and partially with the meander line inductor. The designed antenna operates from 1.72 to 2.22 GHz and 4.25 to 5.88 GHz with radiating size of 0.56λ_o × 0.35λ_o (32 × 20 mm²), where λ_o is the free‐space wavelength at ZOR frequency of 5.27 GHz. The proposed antenna offers measured impedance bandwidth (|S₁₁| <?10 dB) of 25.3 and 18.7% at 1.95 and 5.28 GHz and covers the targeted frequency bands. The proposed structure offers omnidirectional radiation patterns are congruous throughout the working band.     

A metasurface‐based wideband bidirectional same‐sense circularly polarized antenna

This article presents a wideband bidirectional same‐sense circularly polarized (CP) antenna based on metasurface structure. The antenna consists of a rectangular slot and two identical layers of periodic metallic plates as metasurfaces (MSs). The MS structure is formed by 16 unit cells of truncated‐corner patches arranged in 4 × 4 configuration. For bidirectional beam realization, the MSs are positioned on both the front and back sides of the primary radiating slot. In the proposed design, the MSs act as a polarization conversion structures, which convert the linearly polarized wave produced by the rectangular slot to the CP wave. The final antenna has a profile of 0.13λ _o and lateral dimensions of 0.86λ _o × 0.67λ _o at the center operating frequency. Measurements show that the proposed design radiates left‐hand CP radiation for both front and back directions over wide operating bandwidth of 14.3% (5.2‐6.0 GHz). In addition, the average gain value is about 4.2 dBi and the radiation efficiency is always better than 83% across the operating band. To the best of authors' knowledge, the proposed one shows a state‐of‐the‐art operating bandwidth in comparison with other reported designs.     

Compact wideband circularly polarized horn antenna with tapered slot‐coupled feeding for Ku‐band applications

A compact wideband circularly polarized (CP) horn antenna with slot‐coupled feeding structure at Ku band for satellite communication is devised. The proposed design is based on a square aperture horn antenna with two orthogonal ridges, which is fed by nonuniform curved slot along the diagonal of the horn on the bottom cavity. And in order to improve the impedance matching, a staircase typed ridge is connected the feeding probe as a matching network. Moreover, two orthogonal ridges are excited with a tapered slot coupled by the staircase ridges via feeding probe. Wideband CP performance is achieved with an overall physical dimension of 9 mm × 9 mm × 14 mm (0.045λ₀ × 0.045λ₀ × 0.07λ₀ at frequency of 15 GHz). It is experimentally demonstrated that the proposed antenna achieves: a wide 10‐dB return loss bandwidth of about 2.4 GHz, a 3‐dB axial ratio bandwidth of 1 GHz, and a peak gain of 6.5 dBi.     

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 broadband coplanar waveguide fed circularly polarized printed monopole antenna with asymmetric modified ground plane

In this communication, a broadband circularly polarized (CP) monopole antenna with coplanar waveguide (CPW) feeding is proposed. It consists of a modified rectangular monopole, an asymmetric ground plane, a two‐linked inverted L‐shaped strips on the left CPW ground, and two rectangular horizontal slots in asymmetric CPW ground plane. The overall dimension is only 0.47λ _o × 0.47λ _o. The antenna prototype has been fabricated. The measured results indicate that a broad ?10 dB impedance bandwidth (IBW) of 107.5% (4.3 GHz, 1.85‐6.15 GHz) and a broad 3 dB axial ratio ARBW of 104.3% (4 GHz, 1.855‐5.9 GHz) can be achieved; the average realized gain is 2.3 dBi for the entire CP band. The proposed antenna is an attractive candidate for several wireless communication systems.     

Planar circularly polarized X‐band array antenna with low sidelobe and high aperture efficiency for small satellites

A planar broadband circularly polarized (CP) X‐band array antenna with low sidelobe and high aperture efficiency is presented for small satellite applications. The array design is composed of 4 × 4 broadband CP stacked patch elements, which are fed by a feeding network consisted of unequal series‐parallel power dividers to achieve the low sidelobe and high aperture efficiency. The final prototype with overall size of 100 mm × 100 mm × 3 mm (2.73λ₀ × 2.73λ₀ × 0.082λ₀ at 8.2 GHz) was fabricated and measured. The antenna has a broadband characteristic with |S₁₁| < ?10 dB bandwidth of 15.9% (7.52‐8.82 GHz) and 3‐dB axial ratio bandwidth of 11.95% (7.63‐8.60 GHz). Also, it achieves an excellent broadside CP radiation with a gain of 17.2‐20.03 dBic, a sidelobe level of <?20 dB, and aperture efficiency of 65% to 97.5%. With these features, the proposed antenna is a good candidate for high‐speed data downlink onboard small satellites (MiniSat, MicroSat, NanoSat, and CubeSat).     

Compact wide band directional antenna using cross‐slot artificial magnetic conductor (CSAMC)

In this article a novel wide‐band artificial magnetic conductor (AMC) based wideband directional antenna is presented for ultra‐wideband (UWB) applications. The proposed novel cross‐slot AMC (CSAMC) achieves wide ±90° reflection phase bandwidth of 4.07 GHz (44.69%) and is used as a reflector. The overall antenna structure is designed with 4 × 4 CSAMC unit cell array and has very compact size of (0.584λ₀ × 0.584λ₀). The proposed structure improves the radiation properties and exhibits 91.5% (3.13‐8.41 GHz) impedance bandwidth (VSWR ≤2). Additionally, it results in significant improvement in gain and front to back ratio. The proposed antenna is fabricated and its measured performance is in good agreement with simulation results.     

A vertex‐fed hexa‐band frequency reconfigurable antenna for wireless applications

Present article embodies the design and analysis of an octagonal shaped split ring resonator based multiband antenna fed at vertex for wireless applications with frequency‐band reconfigurable characteristics. The proposed antenna is printed on FR4 substrate with electrical dimension of 0.4884 λ × 0.4329 λ × 0.0178 λ (44 × 39 × 1.6 mm³), at lower frequency of 3.33 GHz. The antenna consists of SRR based vertex fed octagonal ring as the radiation element and switchable reclined L‐shaped slotted ground plane. Antenna achieves six bands for wireless standards viz: upper WLAN (5.0/5.8 GHz), lower WiMAX (3.3 GHz), super extended C‐band (6.6 GHz), middle X band (9.9 GHz—for space communication), and lower K_U band (15.9 GHz—for satellite communication systems operating band). Stable radiation patterns are observed for the operating bands with low cross polarization. The proposed design achieves hexa band characteristics during switching ON state of PIN diode located at reclined L‐shaped slot in the ground plane. Experimental characteristic of antenna shows close agreement with those obtained by simulation of the proposed antenna.     

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.     

A novel wideband circularly polarized modified square‐slot antenna with loaded strips

In this article, a novel inverted L‐shaped microstrip‐fed wideband circularly polarized (CP) modified square‐slot antenna is designed. By cutting a pair of triangle chamfers and introducing a pair of triangle patches at the square‐slot, the antenna achieves a wideband CP radiation. Moreover, CP performance of the antenna can also be remarkably enhanced by protruding an L‐shaped strip and embedding a tuning rectangle slot into the slot ground. The measured results demonstrate that the axial‐ratio bandwidth for AR < 3 is 75.1% (from 4.45 to 9.8 GHz) and the impedance bandwidth (|S₁₁| < ?10 dB) reaches 65.8% (from 4.95 to 9.8 GHz). In addition, surface current studies are performed to illustrate the operating mechanism of CP operation, and the antenna has bidirectional radiation characteristics with an average gain of ~4 dBic within the CP band.     

A dipole‐type millimeter‐wave antenna with directional radiation characteristics

A dipole‐type millimeter‐wave (mm‐wave) antenna with directional radiation characteristics is presented. A radiating patch structure composed of a dipole‐type radiation patch and a rectangular‐shaped parasitic patch are initially investigated to achieve a wider bandwidth. To further improve the operating bandwidth and to realize a directional radiation characteristic, this radiating patch structure is top‐loaded above a conducting cavity‐backed ground structure, which has a low profile (thickness of 3 mm). The measured results show that the proposed mm‐wave antenna can achieve a wide 10‐dB bandwidth of 51.3% (29.6‐50.0 GHz) and stable gain across the desired frequency range. Furthermore, good directional characteristics over the entire mm‐wave frequency band with a compact antenna size of 0.64λ_40GHz × 0.91_λ40GHz × 0.43_λ40GHz are also realized. Hence, it is suitable for many small size wireless mm‐wave systems.     

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 dual‐band efficient circularly polarized rectenna for RF energy harvesting systems

A multilayered circularly polarized (CP), dual‐band, stacked slit‐/slotted‐patch antenna with compact size and with compact rectifier is offered for RF energy harvesting systems. The compact dual‐band CP antenna size is able to achieve by stacking slotted‐circular‐patch (SCP) on the substrate above the tapered‐slit‐octagon patch (TSOP). Dual‐band CP radiation is realized by stacking the SCP on the TSOP and the microstrip feedline with metallic‐via to SCP. Eight‐tapered‐slit with length difference of 6.25% are embedded along the octagonal directions symmetrically on the TSOP from the patch's center and two unequal size circular slots are embedded in diagonal axis onto SCP to produce dual‐orthogonal modes with almost equal magnitude for CP waves. The designed antenna is realized measured gain of greater than 5.2 dBic across the band (0.908‐0.922 GHz) with maximum gain of 5.41 dBic at 0.918 GHz and gain of greater than 6.14 dBic across the band (2.35‐2.50 GHz) with maximum gain of 7.94 dBic at 2.485 GHz. An overall antenna volume is 0.36λ _o × 0.36λ _o × 0.026λ _o (λ _o is free space wavelength at 0.9 GHz). A compact composite right‐/left‐handed (CRLH) based rectifier with dual‐band at 0.9 and 2.45 GHz is designed, prototyped, and measured. The right‐handed (RH) part of the CRLH transmission line (TL) is formed by a microstrip line. The left‐handed (LH) part of the CRLH‐TL is formed by lumped components. The measured RF‐DC conversion efficiency is 43% at 0.9 GHz and 39% at 2.45 GHz with rectifier size of 0.18λ _o × 0.075λ _o × 0.0002λ _o at 0.9 GHz.     

A wideband compact antenna with quad‐circular polarized bands in its operating regions

This article presents the design of an offset CPW‐fed slot antenna which exhibits a narrow impedance bandwidth (IBW; |S₁₁| ≤ ?10 dB) extending from 1.20 GHz to 1.45 GHz and another wide impedance bandwidth from 1.86 GHz to 8.4 GHz thus covering almost all the conventional operating frequencies. The antenna is loaded with semicircular and rectangular stubs and meandered microstrip lines to realize circular polarization at 1.35 GHz, 3.3 GHz, 4.9 GHz, and 7.5 GHz with axial ratio bandwidth (axial ratio ≤ 3 dB) of 19.25% (1.2‐1.46 GHz), 4.24% (3.24‐3.38 GHz), 4.1%(4.8‐5 GHz), and 5.2% (7.3‐7.69 GHz) respectively thus covering the GPS, WiMAX, WLAN, and X‐band downlink satellite communication application bands. The mechanism of generation of CP is discussed using vector analysis of surface current density distribution. The gain is fairly constant in the wide IBW region with maximum fluctuation of 1.2 dB. The structure is compact with an overall layout area of 0.27λ × 0.27λ, where λ is the free‐space wavelength corresponding to the lowest circular polarized (CP) frequency. A comparison of the proposed antenna with previously reported structures is performed with respect to impedance bandwidth, compactness, number of CP bands, LHCP to RHCP isolation and gain to comprehend the novelty of the proposed design. A prototype of the proposed antenna is fabricated and the measured results are in accord with the simulated results.     

Compact microstrip antennas with very wide ARBW and triple circularly polarized bands

This article presents two compact circularly polarized microstrip antennas with a very wide 3 dB axial ratio bandwidth and triple circularly polarized bands. A hexagonal stub (circular polarization element) along with tuning element in the ground plane is used for achieving wide 3 dB ARBW in antenna‐1, while a novel approach of using a parasitic strip around the circular polarization element is used in antenna‐2 for introducing band elimination notches in the circularly polarized band of antenna‐1. The antenna‐1 has a ?10 dB impedance bandwidth of 12.34% (3.8‐4.3 GHz), 84.02% (4.9‐12 GHz), and 3 dB ARBW of 79.94% (4.9‐10.9 GHz). The antenna‐2 displays circularly polarized band elimination notch characteristics with ?10 dB impedance bandwidth of 24.80% (3.85‐4.94 GHz), 31.72% (6.1‐8.4 GHz), 25.35% (9.3‐12 GHz), and 3 dB ARBW of 4.84% (4.63‐4.86 GHz), 19.08% (6.02‐7.29 GHz), and 5.7% (9.54‐10.1 GHz). Both the antennas are designed and fabricated on FR4 substrate of dimension (0.52 × 0.52 × 0.04)λ₀ at a frequency of 7.9 GHz.     

Ultrawideband high‐gain dual‐polarized antenna with anti‐interference capability

In this article, a high‐gain dual‐polarized antenna with band‐rejection capability for ultrawideband (UWB) applications is proposed. Tapered dipoles are chosen as a primary radiator to achieve UWB operation and it is reflected by a metallic cavity reflector for high gain radiation. A notch at WLAN band is realized by etching a set of four bent slots in the radiating elements. The measured results demonstrate that the proposed design with overall dimensions of 0.69λ _L × 0.69λ _L × 0.16λ _L (λ _L is free‐space wavelength at the lowest operating frequency) has operating bandwidth of 95.1% (3.2‐9.0 GHz) and the rejected frequency band from 5.0 to 5.9 GHz. Additionally, good unidirectional radiation patterns with a broadside gain from 8.1 to 11.5 dBi and radiation efficiency of better than 90% are also achieved.