Design and characterization of a circularly polarized microstrip-line-fed slot array antenna for S-band applications

A 2×2 slot array antenna fed by microstrip line for circular polarization operated in the S band frequency range is designed in this paper. Single cross slot with single port feed as well as dual port feed is taken into consideration for realizing circular polarization and combining these two processes, the slot array is designed with single feed for circular polarization. The antennas are designed on a Teflon glass fiber substrate of thickness 0.8 mm. The slot array dimension is 120×142×1.636 mm3. Smith chart of single cross slot antenna with single feed as well as dual feed has a dip at 2.69 and 2.53 GHz respectively indicate the capability of realizing circular polarization in the S band frequency range. The return loss of the slot array antenna is -58 dB shows good input impedance matching of the antenna. A dip in the smith chart of the slot array shows circular polarization near 2.4 GHz ensuring wireless applications as well. Axial ratio is found to be less than 1 dB in the resonance frequency. The impedance bandwidth percentage of the slot array antenna is 12.24%. The simulation is done by using keysight advanced design system (ADS) software

Towards an Advanced Automotive Radar Front-end Based on Gap Waveguide Technology

This thesis presents the early works on dual circularly polarized array antenna based on gap waveguide, also microstrip-to-waveguide transitions for integration of automotive radar front-end. Being the most widely used radar antenna, PCB antenna suffers from dielectric loss and design flexibility. Next generation automotive radars demand sophisticated antenna systems with high efficiency, which makes waveguide antenna become a better candidate. Over the last few years, gap waveguide has shown advantages for implementation of complicated antenna systems. Ridge gap waveguides have been widely used in passive gap waveguide components design including slot arrays. In this regard, two transitions between ridge gap waveguides and microstrip lines are presented for the integration with gap waveguide antennas. The transitions are verified in both passive and active configuration. Another work on packaging techniques is presented for integration with inverted microstrip gap waveguide antennas.Systems utilizing individual linear polarization (LP) that lack polarimetric capabilities are not capable of measuring the full scattering matrix, thus losing information about the scenery. To develop a more advanced radar system with better detectability, dual circularly polarized gap waveguide slot arrays for polarimetric radar sensing are investigated. An 8 78 planar array using double grooved circular waveguide polarizer is presented. The polarizers are compact in size and have excellent polarization properties. Multi-layer design of the array antenna benefits from the gap waveguide technology and features better performance. The works presented in this thesis laid the foundation of future works regarding integration of the radar front end. More works on prototyping radar systems using gap waveguide technology will be presented in future publications

Antenna Array Designs For Directional Wireless Communicatoin

Ph.D. Thesis. University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa 2018

Advanced Circularly Polarised Microstrip Patch Antennas

The thesis describes outcomes of research on advanced circularly polarised antennas. The proposed designs are intended for integration into small mobile devices, therefore low profile and easy manufacturability are key parameters, along with good CP radiation properties. The designs were validated by simulation and measurement, and are also backed by theory and design guidelines. The primary focus is on the development of planar omnidirectional circularly polarised antennas, which are fabricated using multilayer PCB techniques and thus are lightweight and cost-efficient. Unlike in classical microstrip patch antenna designs, the groundplane of the proposed antenna was substantially reduced. This helps to achieve an omnidirectional circular polarisation pattern and miniaturize the antenna, however at the cost of increased feed circuit complexity. The basic design, its advantages and disadvantages are discussed in Section 3. In the next step, the omnidirectional circularly polarised antenna was extended with additional, advanced features. A miniaturized version is investigated, which offers a 20% footprint reduction by folding parts of the patch underneath itself. Further miniaturization is possible by increasing the dielectric constant of the substrate. A method to adjust the omnidirectional circularly polarised antenna performance by trimming four lumped capacitors is also investigated. Manufacturing inaccuracy in large scale production may cause some of the units to radiate outside of the desired frequencies. By integrating four trimmed capacitors into the antenna it can be precisely tuned to the desired band. Simulated results demonstrate this property by trimming the antenna between GPS L1 band (centre frequency at 1.575 GHz) and Galileo/Beidou-2 E2 band (1.561 GHz). Furthermore, a dual-band omnidirectional circularly polarised antenna is presented, which employs slots and capacitor loading to steer the current path of the first and second resonant mode. The design offers a small frequency ratio of 1.182. The methods to obtain a planar omnidirectional circularly polarised antenna have been further advanced to propose a reconfigurable antenna. The beam reconfiguration is capable of rotating it dipole-like radiation pattern around an axis, thus allowing reception or transmission from any spherical angle. The switching method is simple and does not require any semiconductor devices. Finally, a dual circularly polarised antenna is presented, which achieves dual-polarisation by employing even and odd modes in a coplanar waveguide. This technique allows greater flexibility and size reduction of the feed network, as two signals can be transmitted by a single multi-mode transmission line. Simulated results demonstrate this property by trimming the antenna between GPS L1 band (centre frequency at 1.575 GHz) and Galileo/Beidou-2 E2 band (1.561 GHz). Furthermore, a dual-band omnidirectional circularly polarised antenna is presented, which employs slots and capacitor loading to steer the current path of the first and second resonant mode. The design offers a small frequency ratio of 1.182. The methods to obtain a planar omnidirectional circularly polarised antenna have been further advanced to propose a reconfigurable antenna. The beam reconfiguration is capable of rotating it dipole-like radiation pattern around an axis, thus allowing reception or transmission from any spherical angle. The switching method is simple and does not require any semiconductor devices. Finally, a dual circularly polarised antenna is presented, which achieves dual-polarisation by employing even and odd modes in a coplanar waveguide. This technique allows greater flexibility and size reduction of the feed network, as two signals can be transmitted by a single multi-mode transmission line

Dual-band circularly-polarized shared-aperture array for C/X-Band satellite communications

A novel method of achieving a single-feed circularly-polarized (CP) microstrip antenna with both broad impedance bandwidth and axial ratio (AR) bandwidth is presented. The CP characteristics are generated by employing a resonator to excite the two orthogonal modes of the patch via two coupling paths and the required 90 o phase difference is achieved by using the different orders of the two paths. The presented method, instead of conventional methods that power dividers and phase delay lines are usually required, not only significantly enhances the bandwidths of the antenna, but also results in a compact feed, reduced loss and high gain. Based on this method, a dual-band shared-aperture CP array antenna is implemented for C/X-band satellite communications. The antenna aperture includes a 2 × 2 array at C-band and a 4 ×4 array at X-band. To accommodate the C/X-band elements into the same aperture while achieving a good isolation between them, the C-band circular patches are etched at the four corners. The measured results agree well with the simulations, showing a wide impedance bandwidth of 21% and 21.2% at C-and X-band, respectively. The C-and X-band 3-dB AR bandwidths are 13.2% and 12.8%. The array also exhibits a high aperture efficiency of over 55%, low side-lobe (C-band: −12.5 dB; X-band: −15 dB) and high gain (C-band: 14.5 dBic; X-band: 17.5 dBic)

Dual-Circularly Polarized Single-Element Patch Antenna with Compact Multi-Port Feeding

A circularly polarized (CP) S-band patch antenna that makes use of a multi-port setup to improve its radiation efficiency and compactness is presented. The design highlights a single-element patch with eight-port feeding, by using compact slot meandering. To the best knowledge of the authors, no earlier literature discloses a similar single-element patch with eight feeding points made compact by slot meandering whilst demonstrating comparable performances, BW, agility, and polarization purity. In addition, our design utilizes eight, 50- Ω microstrip ports to set and excite the orthogonal polarization states. The miniaturized feeding arrangement, directly under the patch, enables the antenna to produce both left-handed and right-handed CP (as well as other polarization states), making the design suitable for full-duplex and diversity scenarios

Millimeter-Wave Components and Antennas for Spatial and Polarization Diversity using PRGW Technology

The evolution of the wireless communication systems to the future generation is accompanied by a huge improvement in the system performance through providing a high data rate with low latency. These systems require access to millimeter wave (mmWave) bands, which offer several advantages such as physically smaller components and much wider bandwidthcomparedtomicrowavefrequencies. However, mmWavecomponentsstillneed a significant improvement to follow the rapid variations in future technologies. Although mmWave frequencies can carry more data, they are limited in terms of their penetration capabilities and their coverage range. Moreover, these frequencies avoid deploying traditional guiding technologies such as microstrip lines due to high radiation and material losses. Hence, utilizing new guiding structure techniques such as Printed Ridge Gap Waveguide (PRGW) is essential in future mmWave systems implementation. ThemainpurposeofthisthesisistodesignmmWavecomponents,antennasubsystems and utilize both in beam switching systems. The major mmWave components addressed in this thesis are hybrid coupler, crossover, and differential power divider where the host guidingstructureisthePRGW.Inaddition,variousdesignsfordifferentialfeedingPRGW antennas and antenna arrays are presented featuring wide bandwidth and high gain in mmWave band. Moreover, the integration of both the proposed components and the featured antennas is introduced. This can be considered as a significant step toward the requirements fulfillment of today's advanced communication systems enabling both space and polarization diversity. The proposed components are designed to meet the future ever-increasing consumer experience and technical requirements such as low loss, compact size, and low-cost fabrication. This directed the presented research to have a contribution into three major parts. The first part highlights the feeding structures, where mmWave PRGW directional couplers and differential feeding power divider are designed and validated. These components are among the most important passive elements of microwave circuits used in antennabeam-switchingnetworks. Different3-dBquadraturehybridcouplersandcrossover prototypes are proposed, featured with a compact size and a wide bandwidth beyond 10 % at 30 GHz. In the second part, a beam switching network implemented using hybrid couplers is presented. The proposed beam switching network is a 4 × 4 PRGW Butler matrix that used to feed a Magneto-electric (ME) dipole antenna array. As a result, a 2-D scanning antenna array with a compact size, wide bandwidth, and high radiation efficiency larger than84%isachieved. Furthergainenhancementof5dBiisachievedthroughdeployinga hybridgainenhancementtechniqueincludingAMCmushroomshapesaroundtheantenna array with a dielectric superstrate located in the broadside direction. The proposed scanning antenna array can be considered as a step toward the desired improvement in the data rate and coverage through enabling the space diversity for the communication link. The final activity is related to the development of high-gain wide-band mmWave antenna arrays for potential use in future mmWave applications. The first proposed configuration is a differential feeding circular polarized aperture antenna array implemented with PRGW technology. Differential feeding antenna designs offer more advantages than single- ended antennas for mmWave communications as they are easy to be integrated with differential mmWave monolithic ICs that have high common-mode rejection ratio providing an immunity of the environmental noise. The proposed differential feeding antenna array is designed and fabricated, which featured with a stable high gain and a high radiation efficiency over a wide bandwidth. Another proposed configuration is a dualpolarized ME-dipole PRGW antenna array for mmWave wireless communication. Dual polarizationisconsideredoneofthemostimportantantennasolutionsthatcansavecosts and space for modern communication systems. In addition, it is an effective strategy for multiple-input and multiple-output systems that can reduce the size of multiple antennas systems by utilizing extra orthogonal polarization. The proposed dual- polarized antenna array is designed to achieve a stable gain of 15 ± 1 dBi with low cross- polarization less than -30 dB over a wide frequency range of 20 % at 30 GHz

A comprehensive survey on 'circular polarized antennas' for existing and emerging wireless communication technologies

Circular polarized (CP) antennas are well suited for long-distance transmission attainment. In order to be adaptable for beyond 5G communication, a detailed and systematic investigation of their important conventional features is required for expected enhancements. The existing designs employing millimeter wave, microwave, and ultra-wideband (UWB) frequencies form the elementary platform for future studies. The 3.4-3.8 GHz frequency band has been identified as a worthy candidate for 5G communications because of spectrum availability. This band comes under UWB frequencies (3.1-10.6 GHz). In this survey, a review of CP antennas in the selected areas to improve the understanding of early-stage researchers specially experienced antenna designers has presented for the first time as best of our knowledge. Design implementations involving size, axial ratio, efficiency, and gain improvements are covered in detail. Besides that, various design approaches to realize CP antennas including (a) printed CP antennas based on parasitic or slotted elements, (b) dielectric resonator CP antennas, (c) reconfigurable CP antennas, (d) substrate integrated waveguide CP antennas, (e) fractal CP antennas, (f) hybrid techniques CP antennas, and (g) 3D printing CP antennas with single and multiple feeding structures have investigated and analyzed. The aim of this work is to provide necessary guidance for the selection of CP antenna geometries in terms of the required dimensions, available bandwidth, gain, and useful materials for the integration and realization in future communication systems

Wideband Differentially-Fed Slot Antenna and Array With Circularly Polarized Radiation for Millimeter-Wave Applications

© 2022 IEEE - All rights reserved. This is the accepted manuscript version of the accepted manuscript version of an article which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1109/TAP.2022.3145481A wideband differentially-fed slot antenna is presented for millimeter-wave (mmWave) applications. A novel method of using stepped corner-shaped slot is first utilized to establish the wideband circularly polarized (CP) radiation. In the configuration of corner-shaped slot, two wide open slots at the ends are utilized for effective orthogonal radiation, while the narrow slot at the center is utilized for power transmission and quadrature phase delay. An equivalent circuit is given to illustrate the inner working principle for CP radiation. In addition, square cuts are etched on the four corners of the radiating patches to further increase the axial ratio (AR) and impedance bandwidth. Based on this design concept, the antenna element was first designed and fabricated for performance verification. Then, a 1×4 linear array with beam scanning performance and a 4×4 planar array with high gain and stable radiation were designed and fabricated. Both the simulated and measured results show that the 1×4 linear array and 4×4 planar array can have wide overlapped impedance and AR bandwidths of 30.6% and 33.6% with thickness of 0.16λ0. The advantages of compact size and wide bandwidth make the presented antenna a good candidate for mmWave applications.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio