Ka-Band Linear to Circular Polarization Converter Based on Multilayer Slab With Broadband Performance

In this paper, a Ka-band polarization converter is presented, which is based on multilayer slab. In order to improve impedance matching, metallic circular traces are printed periodically on each dielectric multilayer slab. Simulated results of the polarizer show that it can transform linearly polarized (LP) to circularly polarized (CP) fields over a frequency band from 23 to 35GHz (42%) with an insertion loss less than 0.5 dB. The transmitted CP wave by the polarizer is approximately robust under oblique illuminations. The polarizer is fabricated and measured by a wideband horn antenna satisfying the simulated results. Next, in order to design a high-gain CP structure around 30 GHz, an 8-element LP array antenna with Chebyshev tapered distribution is designed and integrated with the polarizer. Obviously, the antenna limits the overall bandwidth (nearly 28 to 31.5 GHz) due to the narrowband nature of the LP antenna array. When the polarizer is illuminated by an incident LP wave, the two linear components of the transmitted wave with approximately equal amplitudes and 90° phase difference on the frequency band of interest are produced. Experimental results of the proposed structure show a pure CP with a gain of 13 dBi at 30 GHz, which can be suitable for millimeter wave communication

Spatially Decoupling of CP Antennas Based on FSS for 30GHz MIMO Systems

In this paper, an effective approach for mitigating the near-field coupling between four-port circularly polarized (CP) antennas in a 30-GHz multiple-input, multiple-output (MIMO) system is suggested and investigated. This is obtained by incorporating a two-layer transmission-type frequency selective surface (FSS) superstrate based on planar crossed-dipole metal strips. This paper presents a comparison between the mutual coupling when the patches are radiating in free space and in the presence of the FSS layers. The simulated results, when the FSS layers are applied, show an average of 6–12-dB improvement in the isolation between four adjacent CP-MIMO antennas. In addition, an accurate study is carried out on the insignificant reflections produced by the FSS layers to redirect those and also prevent any interference. The proposed 2×2 CP-MIMO antenna along with the superstrate is implemented and tested to validate the simulation results. Experimental results of the coupling and reflection coefficients and axial ratio show an acceptable agreement with the corresponding simulated ones