This paper presents a triple‐band composite antenna array for maritime application. It consists of a three‐element base station antenna array and a waveguide based satellite antenna, which are applied for near‐shore and long distance off‐shore communications, respectively. For the former, it is a ±45° dual polarized array with dipole radiators and covers 2G/3G/4G bands. The three elements are arranged in a form of half hexagon and attain 180° coverage of half power beamwidth (HPBW) in azimuth plane by switching the feeding ports. For the latter, it is a sequentially fed circularly polarized antenna operating in Ku‐band and has a wide HPBW through loading a dielectric structure. To validate the design idea, a prototype is fabricated and measured. Experimental results show that the base station antenna array achieves wide bandwidth of 49.14% from 0.66 to 1.09 GHz and 46.58% from 1.68 to 2.7 GHz with VSWR < 1.5. Meanwhile, the satellite antenna has a wide 3‐dB axial ratio (AR) bandwidth of 20.1% from 12.1 to 14.8 GHz with reflection coefficients lower than −15 dB. Within the band, the HPBW is larger than 90° and the 3‐dB AR beamwidth covers the HPBW.
This article presents a novel circularly polarized (CP) open‐ended waveguide antenna array based on additive manufacturing technology. It is a one‐dimensional four‐element linear array and has a single piece configuration. Its main body is made of dielectric material and partial surfaces are coated by copper films through electroplating to form necessary metal components. Regarding to each element, it is based on a circular waveguide and employs an inbuilt linearly tapered double‐ridge structure to act as a polarizer. To design such a polarizer, different shaped ridges are analyzed and a design evolution is presented and discussed. Compared to the conventional designs, the proposed element and array can avoid structure partitioning during the processing, and effectively reduce the fabrication difficulty and complexity, meanwhile, attain light weights. To validate the design idea, two prototypes corresponding to the element and the array are fabricated and tested. Experimental results indicate that their axial ratio bandwidth (ARBW) are 22% (8.9–11.1 GHz) and 11.8% (9.6–10.8 GHz), and the gain are 6.6 ± 1.1 and 10.6 ± 0.6 dBic, respectively. The proposed element and array could be potentially applied for satellite and other CP communication systems.
This paper presents a wideband circularly polarized (CP) multibeam antenna array, which is with full azimuth scanning capability and operates in Ka band for 5G applications. It adopts a circular array configuration and consists of 18 elements with a simple structure. Regarding to each element, it is fed by a 90 bent rectangular waveguide and employs a simplified single dielectric slab polarizer to produce CP waves. Within the axial ratio bandwidth (ARBW), the proposed element can achieve a stable half power beamwidth (HPBW) of 29 ± 7 , while, the 3-dB AR beamwidth is larger than the HPBW. By switching the active elements, the proposed array can realize 360 beam steering in azimuth plane, while, the HPBW and the 3-dB AR beamwidth cover the entire plane. To simplify the fabrication process, dielectric and metal 3-D printing technologies are employed for processing. Experimental results indicate that the proposed array can achieve a 40.5% 3-dB ARBW which almost covers the entire Ka band from 26.2 to 39.5 GHz and a gain of 9.9 ± 1.5 dBic. The front-to-back ratio (FBR) of each beam is higher than 19 dB. In contrast to conventional designs, the proposed antenna features wide band, simple structure, and ease of fabrication.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.