Design and Fabrication of a High-Gain 60-GHz Corrugated Slot Antenna Array With Ridge Gap Waveguide Distribution Layer

Abstract

 Abstract-A wideband, high gain high efficiency 16×16-element slot antenna array is presented for 60 GHz band applications. The antenna is designed based on gap waveguide technology. The most important advantage of using this technology is its ability to decrease complexity and cost of fabrication because there is no requirement of electrical contact between the three layers of the antenna structure. The three layers are a corrugated metal plate with radiating slots, a sub-array cavity layer, and a ridge gap waveguide feed network layer. The corporate feed network is realized by a texture of pins and guiding ridges in a metal plate. Also, in order to excite the antenna with a standard V-band rectangular waveguide, a transition from ridge gap waveguide to WR-15 is designed. The radiating elements, corrugations, cavity layer, power dividers and transition are designed and optimized to suppress the reflection coefficient at the input WR-15 port over the desired frequency range from 57 to 66 GHz. Finally, the 16×16-element slot antenna array is fabricated by standard milling technology. Measured results demonstrate about 16% of reflection coefficient bandwidth (|S 11 | < -10 dB) covering 56-65.7 GHz frequency range, and the measured gain is larger than 32.5 dBi over the band with more than 70% antenna efficiency.Index Terms-Slot array antenna, corporate feed network, gap waveguide, high gain antennas, 60-GHz frequency band.

DESIGN of a 3‐DB directional coupler based on groove gap waveguide technology

“…At high frequencies, due to small wavelength and dimensions, fabrication tolerances and good electrical contact requirements, the fabrication process of conventional waveguide components is a challenge. Gap waveguide technology is a newly developed technology based on soft and hard surfaces which has been used in many conventional microwave components . This technology overcomes the problem of good electrical contact associated with mechanical assembly especially at high frequencies.…”

Design and Measurement of a Novel Seamless Scanning Leaky Wave Antenna in Ridge Gap Waveguide Technology

“…RGW characterizes its simple mechanical assembly, low losses, wider bandwidth compared to rectangular waveguide. Many applications in gap waveguide technology such as power divider, filter, coupler, and slot antenna have been realized [17][18][19][20][21][22].…”

Gap Waveguide Array Antennas and Corporate-Feed Networks for mm-Wave band Applications

“…2.19. Besides, in [75] it is also demonstrated that the coupling is lower than −20 dB in case of one row of nails, lower than -37 dB using two rows of nails and -50 dB for three rows of nails in the desired frequency band (57)(58)(59)(60)(61)(62)(63)(64)(65)(66)(67)(68).…”

“…Practically all their proposals consist of multilayer linearly-polarized antennas composed by several unconnected layers, thanks to the properties of the Gap Waveguide technology. Notable contributions for their simplicity and performance can be found in [68]- [67]. There are much more examples of high-gain linear-polarized antennas in the mm-wave band [76]- [79], but they are not completely metallic since they make use of SIW or LTCC.…”

“…Expected low cost of manufacturing process for gap waveguide technology, compared to hollow waveguide array antennas at mm-wave frequency bands can be a considerable advantage. Among the recent contributions, those carried out in Chalmers Antenna Group stand out [68], [72], [74], [191], as it has already been discussed in previous chapters. Nevertheless, most of these antennas use a feeding network composed of two layers.…”