Multilayered substrate integrated waveguide 4 × 4 butler matrix

In this article, a multilayered substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) Butler matrix beam‐forming network is proposed, designed, and demonstrated at 24 GHz for automotive radar system applications. The proposed low‐cost SIW structure can be used to develop a highly integrated multibeam antenna platform in automotive radar systems and other applications. In this structure, an SIW H‐plane coupler is optimized with an H‐plane slit to provide the required phase shift. A class of SIW E‐plane 3‐dB couplers in doubled layer substrate are studied and designed as the fundamental building blocks to avoid crossovers usually required in the construction of a Butler matrix. A 4 × 4 matrix is investigated and designed, which shows excellent performance over 22–26 GHz frequency band. Two types of antenna are tested with the proposed matrix scheme. First, an antipodal linearly tapered slot antenna (ALTSA) is incorporated into the Butler matrix to verify the broadband performances. Second, a longitudinal slotted waveguide antenna array is examined to generate radiation patterns in the broadside direction. Measured results agree well with simulated counterparts, thus validating the proposed multilayer SIW design concepts. In the next sections, the use as feeding networks for providing the reconfigurability operation of an antenna will be illustrated. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE , 2012.