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.     

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.     

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.     

Novel square slot circularly polarized antenna with broadband characteristics

In this article, a novel wideband circularly polarized (CP) square-slot antenna with perturbation elements is proposed. The antenna comprises of an inverted L-shaped feeding line, pairs of corner cuts, a rectangular slot, and a semi-elliptical patch. The numerous CP resonant modes were excited simultaneously using these slots and patches as perturbation elements. To verify this concept, an antenna prototype was built and tested. The measured results indicate the ?10-dB impedance bandwidth (IBW) is 69.2% (2.42–4.98, 3.7 GHz) and 3-dB axial ratio bandwidth (ARBW) is 59% (2.58–4.74, 3.66 GHz). Furthermore, the measured peak gain is 4.3 dBi, and the gain variation within the certain bandwidth is less than 1 dB. Therefore, the presented antenna features wide CPBW and stable gain characteristics.     

Coplanar waveguide‐fed electrically small dual‐polarized short‐ended zeroth‐order resonating antenna using Ω‐shaped capacitor and single‐split ring resonator for GPS/WiMAX/WLAN/C‐band applications

This work explains the design and analysis of a triple‐band electrically small (ka = 0.56 < 1) zeroth‐order resonating (ZOR) antenna with wideband circular polarization (CP) characteristics. The antenna compactness is obtained due to ZOR frequency of composite right/left‐handed (CRLH) transmission line (TL) and wideband CP radiation are achieved due to the introduction of single‐split ring resonator and asymmetric coplanar waveguide fed ground plane. The proposed antenna obtains an overall electrical size including the ground plane of 0.124 λ₀ × 0.131 λ₀ × 0.005 λ₀ at 1.58 GHz and physical dimension of 23.7 × 25 × 1 mm³ are achieved. The antenna provides a size reduction of 44.95% compared to a conventional monopole antenna. The novelty behind the ohm‐shaped capacitor is the generation of extra miniaturization with better antenna compactness. The antenna provides dual‐polarized radiation pattern with linear polarization radiation at 1.58 and 3.54 GHz, wideband CP radiation at 5.8 GHz. The antenna measured results shows good impedance bandwidth of 5%, 6.21%, and 57.5% for the three bands centered at 1.58, 3.54, and 5.8 GHz with a wider axial ratio bandwidth (ARBW) of 25.47% is obtained in the third band. The antenna provides a higher level of compactness, wider ARBW, good radiation efficiency, and wider S₁₁ bandwidth. Hence, the proposed antenna is suitable for use in GPS L1 band (1.565‐1.585 GHz), WiMAX 3.5 GHz (3.4‐3.8 GHz) GHz, WLAN 5.2/5.8 GHz (5.15‐5.825 GHz), and C‐band (4‐8 GHz) wireless application systems.     

A coaxial probe fed wideband circularly polarized antenna using unequal and adjacent‐slided rectangular dielectric resonators for WLAN applications

In this article, a coaxial probe fed wideband circularly polarized antenna has been designed and investigated using unequal and adjacent‐slided rectangular dielectric resonators radiating in broadside direction (Φ = 0°, θ = 0°). Wi‐Fi wireless network use radio signal either in 2.4 or 5 GHz band. Owing to high rush in 2.4 GHz band, the proposed antenna is designed for 5 GHz (5.15‐5.825 GHz) WLAN band. The proposed design uses fundamental orthogonal modes and excited in two individual rectangular dielectric resonators to achieve wide axial‐ratio bandwidth (below 3 dB). Measured input reflection coefficient (below ?10 dB) and axial ratio bandwidth (below 3 dB) of 26.07% (5.27‐6.85 GHz) and 26.85% (5.32‐6.97 GHz) has been attained, respectively, in this proposed antenna. The measured far‐field patterns such as gain and radiation patterns are showing consistent performance throughout the working band.     

A wideband circularly polarized antenna using mutual coupling method

A novel wideband circularly polarized (CP) antenna is presented in this article. The proposed antenna consists of a four‐leaf clover patch, four L‐probes, and wideband networks. Based on the tightly coupled mechanism, the four L‐probes are formed as a ring with the adjacent ones kept close for strong mutual coupling. Consequently, the proposed antenna realizes a wideband impedance matching. Meanwhile, the four‐leaf clover patch is put closely inside of the ring for further improving the impedance bandwidth, which is proximity‐coupled fed by the four sequential‐rotation L‐probes with phase of 0°, 90°, 180°, and 270°. The four L‐probes are connected to the respective ports of a wideband feeding network by a two‐stage impedance transforming network. The measured results indicate that the proposed design has an impedance bandwidth of 66.7% from 1.0 to 2.0 GHz for VSWR ≤ 2 and a 3‐dB axial ratio bandwidth of 56.5% from 1.08 to 1.93 GHz. Furthermore, in the operating bandwidth, stable and symmetry radiation patterns and high gain are obtained. The design has a 3‐dB gain bandwidth of 38% from 1.3 to 1.9 GHz with a peak gain of 8.5 dBic.     

Wideband turnstile junction coaxial waveguide orthomode transducer

A wideband turnstile junction coaxial waveguide orthomode transducer (OMT) is presented in this paper, featuring coaxial waveguide input and orthogonal rectangular waveguide outputs. It primarily comprises of a turnstile junction, bending stepped impedance transformers and power combiners. The symmetrical geometry helps achieve wide operating bandwidth and balanced output phases. The OMT covers the whole Ku band from 12 to 18 GHz, which aims at wideband dual‐polarized signal combination and separation within coaxial‐type multi‐band antenna systems. An experimental prototype is manufactured and the measured results confirm that the reflection coefficient is lower than ?15 dB within the whole band, and the port isolation is better than 35 dB. Turnstile junction coaxial waveguide OMTs can be adopted widely in circular/coaxial waveguide hybrid feeding networks for multi‐band satellite communication/remote sensing antenna systems.     

Wideband circularly polarized hybrid dielectric resonator antenna with bi‐directional radiation characteristics for various wireless applications

In this article, a wideband circularly polarized (CP) dielectric resonator (DR) over an asymmetric‐slot radiator based hybrid‐DR antenna is proposed with bi‐directional radiation characteristics. Bi‐directional CP radiation of the dual sense is obtained using a rectangular‐DR over asymmetric‐rectangular‐slot radiator with L‐shaped feed line. The asymmetric‐slot radiator feed by L‐shaped stub with the coplanar waveguide is used for generating two orthogonal modes, namely TE ^x _δ11 and TE^y_1δ1 in the combined (rectangular‐DR and asymmetric‐slot radiator) hybrid‐DR antenna, which is verified by the distribution of electric field inside the rectangular DRA. The measured reflection coefficient bandwidth (S₁₁ < ?10 dB) and axial ratio (AR) bandwidth (AR < 3 dB) of the hybrid‐DR antenna are 80.5% (1.87‐4.39 GHz) and 43.8% (1.75‐2.73 GHz), respectively. The antenna radiation is in the broadside (θ = 0°, ? = 0°) direction as well as in the backside (θ = 180°, φ = 0°) direction with equal magnitudes in both the directions. Right‐handed and left‐handed CP waves are achieved respectively, in the boresight (+Z) and the backside (?Z) directions. The proposed CP hybrid‐DR antenna gives an average gain of 3.55 dBic and radiation efficiency of 95.0% in both directions. The proposed antenna covers various wireless useful bands such as ISM 2400 band, Wi‐Fi, Bluetooth, and Wi‐MAX (2.5‐2.7 GHz).     

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).     

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.     

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 novel tailored coplanar waveguide circularly polarized antenna controlled by the gravity field

In this article, a tailored coplanar waveguide (CPW) circularly polarized (CP) antenna is designed, whose operating band can be adjusted in a large range by the gravity field through rotating the antenna vertically. Due to the fluidity of liquid metal mercury, which is packaged in the antenna's glass containers, when the antenna is rotated, mercury will lead to different metal resonant units in different directions under the influence of gravity. This antenna utilizes CPW whose metal reflective surface and the main radiating patch are on the same side of the dielectric substrate. The dielectric substrate is made of FR4, and the metal radiation patch and the metal reflective ground are made of copper. Two metal branches separated from the main radiation patch are connected to the main radiating patch by a glass container. 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 measured results show that when the antenna turns 90° counterclockwise along the x‐axis (state I), the 10‐dB return loss bandwidth is 13.5% (4.54~5.2 GHz), and the 3‐dB axial ratio (AR) bandwidth is 13.8% (4.5~5.17 GHz). When the antenna turns 90°clockwise along the x‐axis (state II), the 10‐dB return loss bandwidth is 23% (3.73~4.7 GHz), and the 3‐dB AR bandwidth is 23% (3.73~4.7 GHz) within the antenna operating range. In the cases of two different working states, the proposed antenna can effectively cover the 5G communication band.     

Compact broadband circularly polarized Hook‐shaped microstrip antenna with DGS plane

A new antenna structure comprises of defected ground structure with hook‐shaped radiating patch designed for broad impedance bandwidth and axial ratio bandwidth is presented. In the proposed design, hook shaped radiating patch is orthogonally connected with printed strip patch and excited with 50Ω feed line at the upper side of the substrate. At the bottom side, a small rectangular slit is removed from the ground plane just underneath of radiating patch for better impedance matching along with broader bandwidth. The ground plane is defected by etching 3 symmetrical narrow slots for antenna compactness. The optimized antenna prototype is simulated, fabricated, and experimentally tested for far field and axial ratio performances in anechoic chamber. The measured results clearly show that it can yield an impedance bandwidth of approximately 27.60% centered at 2.17 GHz frequency and a 3‐dB AR bandwidth of approximately 25.20%. The measured gain range from 3 to 4.3 dBic in entire 3‐dB AR bandwidth with maximum gain of 4.30 dBic. The cross polar suppression was witnessed better than 15 dB along with wide beamwidth of 85°     

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.     

A wideband patch antenna with a pair of antisymmetric balun as differentially fed network

A novel singly differentially‐fed microstrip patch antenna (DFMA) is proposed, which is composed of a radiating patch, a differentially‐fed network with a twin antisymmetric miniaturized baluns and a ground plane for unidirectional radiation. In the differentially‐fed network, the signal is coupled to the two feedlines on both sides by the two miniaturized baluns. The radiating patch is excited by the coupling feed sheet located below the radiating patch, and the coupling feed sheet is connected to the upper end of the feedline. The lower end of the feedlines is connected to the ground plane, and there is a slot on the ground of the feeding network. Due to the existence of coupling feed sheet and slot, a second nonradiating resonant is achieved, and a wideband property is obtained. Finally, the prototype of the antenna is fabricated and studied experimentally. Simulated and measured results show that the impedance bandwidth of the antenna is 30.3% (1.71‐2.32 GHz) for S₁₁ < ?10 dB. Besides, a stable symmetric radiation pattern is obtained with gain around 9.6 dB and cross‐polarization less than ?21 dB, which demonstrates the designed antenna has the property of wideband, high gain and low cross polarization.     

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.     

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.     

Wideband polarization reconfigurable circularly polarized antenna with omnidirectional radiation pattern

This paper presents a wideband reconfigurable circularly polarized (CP) antenna with omnidirectional radiation pattern. The antenna is based on a shorted monopolar patch surrounded by multiple curved branches and it is proximity‐fed by a disk‐loaded coaxial cable. The polarization reconfigurability is realized by introducing PIN diodes on junctions between the patch and the branches to alter the current direction flowing on the branches. By properly controlling the ON/OFF states of the diodes, the antenna's polarization can be switched between right‐hand circular polarization (RHCP) and left‐hand circular polarization (LHCP). A reconfigurable prototype has been fabricated and measured. The experiments show that the prototype has wide overlapped bandwidth from 2.3 to 3.1 GHz, in which the reflection coefficient and the axial ratio (AR) are less than ?10 dB and 3 dB for both polarization states. Besides, the antenna radiates dipole‐like patterns with the realized gain of around 0.6 dBic across this operating band.