A multistate high gain antenna based on metasurface

A multi‐state high gain antenna based on metasurface is proposed. The antenna is composed of two stacking layers and a ground plane. The metasurface is constituted by two layers with the same size. And both of the two layers contain a copper patch array which is formed by 4 × 4 square copper cells uniformly distributed along x and y directions. The metasurface antenna is excited by the aperture coupled structure. The structure is consists of an anomaly microstrip line and a narrow slot etched in the ground plane. Genetic algorithm (GA) is adopted to optimize all the parameters and obtain the best performance of the metasurface antenna. By appropriately choosing the dimensions of the antenna, the proposed antenna can be achieved with the impedance bandwidth (RL≥10 dB) of about 340 MHz (7.8% at 4.36 GHz), 180 MHz (3.6% at 5.02 GHz), and 2800 MHz (41.1% at 6.81 GHz). The peak gain of the proposed antenna is 10.1dBi, 6.9 dBi, and 10.5dBi at 4.26 GHz, 5 GHz, and 7 GHz. In addition, the proposed metasurface antenna can work in multistate, which makes it an excellent candidate for practical applications.     

Single‐layer high‐gain flat lens antenna based on the focusing gradient metasurface

A single‐layer transmitting focusing gradient metasurface (F‐GMS) has been proposed that can realize high gain increment at 10 GHz. The unit of F‐GMS is composed of two identical structures placed on the top and bottom of one dielectric layer, which can have high transmitting efficiencies that over 0.8 and achieve [0, 2π] phase range in X‐band. The F‐GMS can convert the spherical waves into plane waves. A patch antenna working at 10 GHz is positioned as the focus of the proposed F‐GMS as the feed source to develop an ultrathin flat lens antenna system. It achieves a simulated gain of 19.6 dBi which is 12.9 dB greater than that of the single patch antenna at 10 GHz. Lastly, the F‐GMS and the patch antenna are manufactured and then measured in an anechoic chamber. A good agreement was demonstrated between experimental and simulated results.     

Gain enhancement of circularly polarized antenna with dual‐polarization conversion transmitarray

A dual‐polarization conversion transmitarray is proposed for a circularly polarized (CP) transmitarray antenna. The designed transmitarray realizes the polarization conversion and gain enhancement for the circular polarization incident wave. The transmitarray can transform the left‐hand circularly polarization (LHCP) wave and the right hand circularly polarization (RHCP) wave into RHCP and LHCP waves, respectively. Two CP patch antennas are designed as source antennas to illuminate the transmitarray and form the transmitarray antenna. The experimental and simulation results show that the designed transmitarray realizes the polarization conversation and the gain enhancement for two CP antennas indeed.     

Novel wideband metal‐only transmitarray antenna based on 1‐bit polarization rotation element

In this article, a novel wideband metal‐only transmitarray based on 1‐bit polarization rotation element is proposed. First, a novel wideband polarization rotation element is designed, which consists of four metallic layers without any substrate layers. The element can be used to rotate polarization of the transmission wave by 90° with respect to that of the incident wave. The element and its mirror image can provide 0° and 180° phase shifts with 1‐bit phase quantization in the 9.2 to 11.2 GHz band with more than 80% polarization conversion rate. Then, by using the proposed element, a 21 × 21‐element transmitarray with a standard pyramidal horn feed is designed and fabricated. The measured results show that the transmitarray achieves 16.8% 1‐dB gain bandwidth with a peak gain of 21.6 dBi. Its cross‐polarization and side‐lobe levels are below ?20 and ?10 dB, respectively, in the operating band. The measured results agree well with the simulation ones, validating effectiveness of the transmitarray design method.     

Novel ultra‐compact two‐dimensional waveguide‐based metasurface for electromagnetic coupling reduction of microstrip antenna array

A novel ultracompact two‐dimensional (2D) waveguide‐based metasurface is proposed herein and applied for the first time to reduce mutual coupling in antenna array for multiple‐input multiple‐output applications. The unit cell of the proposed 2D waveguide‐based metasurface is ultracompact (8.6 mm × 4.8 mm, equal to λ₀/14.2 × λ₀/25.5) mainly due to the symmetrical spiral lines etched on the ground. The metasurface exhibits a bandgap with two transmission zeros attributing to the negative permeability in the vicinity of magnetic resonance and the negative permittivity in the vicinity of electric resonance. Taking advantage of these two features, a microstrip antenna array is then designed, fabricated, and measured by embedding an 8 × 1 array of the well‐engineered 2D waveguide‐based metasurface elements between two closely spaced (9.2 mm, equal to λ₀/13.3) H‐plane coupled rectangular patches. There is good agreement between the simulated and measured results, indicating that the metasurface effectively reduces antenna mutual coupling by more than 11.18 dB and improves forward gain. The proposed compact structure has one of the highest reported decoupling efficiencies among similar periodic structures with comparable dimensions. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE 25:789–794, 2015.     

Broadband low‐profile transmitarray antenna using three‐dimensional cross dipole elements

This article presents a novel transmitarray antenna using three‐dimensional frequency selective structures as the radiating elements. The proposed unit cell, which consists of two cascaded cross dipoles, has a thickness of 0.22λ₀ and provides a 310° transmission phase range with transmission magnitude equal or better than ?0.8 dB. Compared with those conventional transmitarray antennas, the proposed one can realize greater flexibility in the installation with less manufacturing complexity. For the purpose of validation, a transmitarray prototype using the proposed elements has been manufactured and tested at X‐band. The peak gain of 25.5 dB is achieved at the frequency of 10 GHz, resulting in an aperture efficiency of 64%. Besides, antenna bandwidth of 10% for 1‐dB gain is achieved in this design.     

Broadband compact CPW‐fed metasurface antenna for SAR‐based portable imaging system

A broadband and compact coplanar waveguide (CPW) coupled‐fed metasurface (MS)‐based antenna for C‐band synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imaging application is proposed in this article, which is consisted of 16 uniform periodic square patches performed as radiators. The CPW feeding structure gives two following functions: (1) It excites an aperture coupling slot structure underneath the center of MS patch array. (2) It acts as a ground plane for the metasurface patch units. Different slots were investigated and eventually an hourglass‐shaped slot is applied to enhance bandwidth for imaging applications. A prototype with a dimension of 60 × 60 × 1.524 mm³ (1.1λ₀ × 1.1λ₀ × 0.03λ₀) operating at the center frequency 5.5 GHz (f₀) has been fabricated and measured to verify the design principle. This antenna has a measured impedance bandwidth of 12.4% from 5.14 to 5.82 GHz, a peak gain of 9.2 dBi and averaged gain of 7.2 dBi at broadside radiation. Microwave imaging experiments using the proposed antenna have been carried out and a good performance is achieved.     

Design of high gain/directional ultra‐wideband antenna for radar imaging systems

A compact size of 40 × 40 mm² ( λ₀ × λ₀ ) semi‐elliptical slotted ground structure (SESGS) directional ultra‐wideband (UWB) antenna is proposed for radar imaging applications. A vertical semi‐elliptical slot is inserted into ground and subsequently, an axis of semi‐ellipse is rotated diagonally (with 45°) in direction of the substrate. Axes of semi‐ellipse are optimized symmetrically around the circular patch to work antenna as a reflector. Furthermore, semi‐elliptical slot is rotated horizontally (with 90°) again to improve the impedance bandwidth. Proposed antenna achieves fractional bandwidth around 83% covering the UWB frequency range from 4.40 to 10.60 GHz (S₁₁ < ?10 dB) having 4.5/6/7/8/9.3/10.2 GHz resonant frequencies. Also, antenna is capable to send low‐distortion Gaussian pulses with fidelity factor more than 95% in time‐domain. Measured gain and half power beam width (HPBW) are 6.1‐9.1 dBi and 44°‐29° in 4.40‐10.60 GHz band, respectively, which show an improvement of 1‐3 dBi in gain and half power beam‐width is reduced by 5°‐10° when compared with previously designed antennas. Experimental results show good agreement with CST simulation.     

A modified fractal‐shaped slotted patch antenna with defected ground using metasurface for dual band applications

A novel modified fractal‐shaped slotted patch antenna employing metasurface at bottom plane along with partial ground has been proposed in this work for dual band applications with significant gain. A 4 × 5 order metasurface has been formed in the ground plane by introducing a periodic combination of two L‐type patches with centered C‐type shaped patch. The top conductor and the ground plane are designed on a 1.6 mm thick FR4 dielectric with the dimension of 28 × 28 mm². The antenna is designed in such a way that it operates over the dual frequency ranges viz., 1.80 to 5.70 GHz and 10.38 to 10.94 GHz. The maximum return loss of 21 dB has been achieved over 2.60 GHz while the maximum realized gain of 7.16 dBi has been obtained at 10.92 GHz. The designed antenna offers omnidirectional radiation characteristics in the first band while directional radiation characteristics have been observed in the second band. The proposed antenna can be utilized for WiMAX 3.5/5.5 GHz, mobile, radio astronomy, and microimaging in medical analysis.     

Metasurface cavity antenna for broadband high‐gain circularly polarized radiation

The article presents a microstrip patch (MSA) fed high gain circularly polarized metasurface cavity (CP‐MSC) antenna using a planar progressively‐phased‐reflector and a transmissive linear to circular polarization conversion metascreen. The bottom metasurface reflector consists of a remodeled Jerusalem cross to obtain 2π reflection phase variation. Linear to circular polarization conversion is achieved by a hexagonal ring based meta‐element with high transmission and bellow 3 dB axial ratio from 9.5 to 10.5 GHz. Simulated and measured results of assembled CP‐MSC antenna with MSA are in good agreement. The gain of the proposed cavity antenna with 10 and 10.5 GHz MSA are 14.9 and 16.3 dBi, respectively. Below 3 dB AR throughout the operating band denotes significant circular polarization performance of the proposed antenna.     

Broadband gap‐coupled half‐hexagonal microstrip antenna fed by microstrip‐line resonator

Half‐hexagonal microstrip antenna (H‐HMSA) is a compact version of HMSA, as it resonates at the same fundamental mode frequency. In this article, a compact configuration of a single layer, broadband gap‐coupled H‐HMSA has been proposed. Gap‐coupled H‐HMSA is fed indirectly by a λ/2 microstrip‐line resonator. Broad bandwidth (BW) is achieved with an effective use of resonance introduced by λ/2 resonator and gap‐coupled half‐hexagonal radiating patches. A peak gain of 7.07 dBi and measured BW (S₁₁ ≤ ?10 dB) of 11.5% at the center frequency of 5.2 GHz have been achieved, which occupies a small volume of 0.023 λ₀³ including the ground plane. The radiation patterns remain in the broadside direction throughout the return loss BW. Simulated results of the proposed antenna configuration are experimentally validated with good agreement.     

Compact ultra‐wideband slot antenna with three notched‐band characteristics

A very compact ultra‐wideband (UWB) slot antenna with three L‐shaped slots for notched‐band characteristics is presented in this article. The antenna is designed and fabricated using a new stepped slot with different size, integrated in the ground plane, and excited by a 50 Ω microstrip transmission line. The stepped slot is used to minimize the dimensions of the antenna and to achieve an impedance bandwidth between 2.65 and 11.05 GHz with voltage standing wave ratio (VSWR) less than 2. The length of the stepped slot is equal to a quarter wavelength to create a resonance in the desired frequency. Three L‐shaped slots with various sizes are etched in the ground plane to reject three frequency bands in C‐band (3.7‐4.2 GHz), WLAN (5.15‐5.825 GHz), and X‐band (7.25‐7.75 GHz), respectively. The notched‐band frequency can be controlled by changing the length of the L‐shaped slot. The proposed antenna has a very small size (20.25 × 8 × 1.27 mm³) compared with previous works. The measured and simulated results show a good agreement in terms of radiation pattern and impedance matching.     

A coplanar waveguide‐fed flexible antenna for ultra‐wideband applications

This paper presents a novel ultra‐wideband (UWB) antenna printed on a 70 μm thick flexible substrate. The proposed antenna consists of a hybrid‐shaped patch fed by coplanar waveguide (CPW). The ground planes on opposite sides of the feeding line have different height to improve antenna bandwidth. Simulation shows that the proposed antenna maintain wide bandwidth when changing its substrate's thickness and dielectric constant, as well as bending the antenna on a cylindrical foam. The proposed antenna is fabricated in laboratory with a simple and low‐cost wet printed circuit board (PCB) etching technique. Measured bandwidths cover 3.06 to 13.58, 2.8 to 13.55, and 3.1 to 12.8 GHz in cases of flat state and bent with radii of 20 and 10 mm, respectively. Measured radiation patterns show the antenna is omnidirectional in flat and bent cases.     

Microstrip‐fed cusp antenna for ultra‐wide band communication systems

A novel antenna for ultra‐wideband (UWB) applications is presented in this article. The proposed antenna consists of one circular patch placed on one side of a substrate and one circular slot placed on the other side. The antenna is fed with a microstrip line connected to the circular patch. The radii of the circular patch and slot and the separation between their edges represent the three design parameters which are optimized such that the antenna satisfies the design specifications. The proposed antenna has been fabricated using printed circuit board (PCB) technology. It has been characterized both theoretically and experimentally. The measured and calculated results are presented, compared, and discussed. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE, 2009.     

Lightweight electrowetting display on ultra‐thin glass substrate

Mobile display devices that use ultra‐thin (≤100 µm) glass substrates offer a combination of attractive characteristics: lightweight, high quality device fabrication process, thermal and dimensional stability, and mechanical flexibility. Electrowetting (EW) devices fabricated on ultra‐thin glass are demonstrated in this paper. Water contact angle, which is the most critical parameter of EW devices, changes from ~165° to 80° when a 20 V direct current (or alternating current) voltage is applied. EW devices on ultra‐thin glass show negligible hysteresis (~2°) and fast switching time of ~10 ms. EW device operation is maintained when the glass substrate is mechanically flexed. These results indicate the promise of narrow profile EW devices on ultra‐thin glass substrate for mobile and other devices, including video rate flexible electronic paper.     

Design of a compact protrudent‐shaped ultra‐wideband multiple‐input‐multiple‐output/diversity antenna with band‐rejection capability

In this endeavor, a new multiple‐input‐multiple‐output antenna with a sharp rejection at wireless local area network (WLAN) band is designed and practically examined for portable wireless ultra‐wideband applications. The intended diversity antenna possess a small size of 15 mm × 26 mm and two inverted L‐strip are loaded over the conventional rectangular patch antenna to form protrudent‐shaped radiator that acts as a radiating element. The sharp band‐rejection capability at WLAN is established by incising the L‐shaped slits at the decoupling structure. More than ?21 dB isolation is accomplished for the complete working band (ie, 2.87 ‐17 GHz). Degradation in the antenna efficiency at the center frequency of band rejection corroborates the good interference rejection capability. The working capabilities of the intended antenna are tested by using the isolation between the ports, total efficiency, gain, envelope correlation coefficient, radiation pattern, mean effective gain, and total active reflection coefficient.     

Eighth‐mode SIW based compact high gain leaky‐wave antenna

In this article, a novel electrically small eighth‐mode substrate integrated waveguide (EMSIW) based leaky‐wave antenna (LWA) in planar environment is presented. The proposed antenna uses 1/8th mode SIW resonator which helps to improve compactness of the design while maintaining high gain and increased scanning angle. The proposed SIW cavity is excited by a 50 Ω microstrip line feeding to resonate at dominant TE₁₁₀ mode in X‐band. The dimensions of the resonators are adjusted to keep resonant mode at same frequency. The fabricated prototype is approximately 5λ₀ long. Measured results show that the proposed leaky‐wave antenna is able to operate within frequency range of 8‐10 GHz with beam scanning range of 51° and maximum gain of 13.31 dBi.     

Flower‐shaped ultra‐wideband fractal antenna

A flower‐shaped ultra‐wideband fractal antenna is presented. It comprises a fourth iterative flower‐shaped radiator, asymmetrical stub‐loaded feeding line, and coplanar quarter elliptical ground planes. A wide operating band of 12.12 GHz (4.58‐16.7 GHz) for S ₁₁ ≤ ? 10 dB is achieved along with an overall antenna footprint of 15.7 × 11.4 mm². In addition, other desirable characteristics, that is, omnidirectional radiation patterns, peak gain upto 5 dB, and fidelity factor more than 75% are achieved. A good agreement exists between the simulation and measured results. The obtained results illustrate that this antenna has wide operating range and compact dimensions than available structures.     

A low‐profile transmitarray antenna using square patch elements with cross dipole slots and vias

A low‐profile transmitarray antenna comprising only a single‐layer substrate and operating at X‐band is presented in this paper. The element consists of two identical metallic layers placed on the upper and lower surfaces of a single‐layer substrate and four vias connecting two metal layers through the substrate. The thickness of the element is 3 mm, corresponding to only 0.1 λ at the design frequency. Metallic layers contain square patches etched with cross dipole slots. By varying the side length of the square patch and adjusting the dimensions of cross dipole slots as well as the locations of the vias, a phase shift of 340° is achieved. A transmitarray using the novel elements is simulated, fabricated, and tested. The simulation and the measurement agree well and the gain at 10 GHz is 25.4 dBi, equivalent to an aperture efficiency of 49%. The low‐profile configuration and satisfactory behavior make this design an appealing candidate for space applications.