High frequency integrated feed for front end circuitry and antenna arrays

Abstract

Low-cost printed circuit board waveguide (PCBWG) technology is employed to develop new waveguide-fed microstrip antenna arrays with low profile and light weight while maintaining high efficiency and gain at 12.5 GHz. The proposed corporate feed network has two parts: on the antenna layer, microstrip lines are used to form a 2 3 4 sequentially rotated sub-array of circularly polarized microstrip patches and on the feed layer PCB-WG is utilized to combine any number of these sub-arrays to form a larger array. Because PCB-WGs transmit the power over a large portion of the feed network, losses are substantially reduced and spurious radiations from feed circuit are eliminated. Several microstrip arrays with PCBWG feed were designed and fabricated using standard PCB process. Comparing the results with those of a hybrid array with conventional waveguide feed shows that there is only a negligible degradation in gain and efficiency when bulky and expensive aluminum waveguides are replaced by PCB-WGs.

Substrate-Integrated Cavity-Backed Patch Arrays: A Low-Cost Approach for Bandwidth Enhancement

“…However that would degrade the antenna efficiency due to undesired surface wave excitation [3]. Therefore, it is preferred to use either patches that are built with suspended substrates [6], [7], or ones that are backed by cavities [8], [9], or even a combination of both [10] to achieve a wider operating bandwidth while minimizing surface wave excitation. But, the fabrication of the cavity-backed patches is not common, as it would require the integration of metal cavities in the back-demanding two fabrication processes.…”

“…Performance is thoroughly compared to other conventional techniques for bandwidth enhancement including thick microstrip substrates [5], suspended substrates [6], [7], metalized cavity-backed patches [8], [9], and cavity-backed suspended patches [10].…”

Optimal design of wideband microstrip arrays with high aperture efficiency on FR4 substrate

“…For bandwidths of more than 10 %, it seems difficult to achieve a very high aperture efficiency. The typical aperture efficiency of a wideband microstrip array is around 50 %-65 % [3][4][5][6][7][8]. To the knowledge of the authors, the maximum aperture efficiency reported in literature for a wideband microstrip array is 71 % [9], [10].…”

Compact substrate integrated waveguide mono-pulse antenna array

“…The proposed W‐band antenna has low radiation efficiency compared with metallic waveguide based structure. An SIW feed network is employed to waveguide‐fed microstrip antenna array using standard PCB process . A single‐layer right hand circular polarized (RHCP) SIW antenna with square ring slot and shorting pin has been investigated in Ref.…”

“…An SIW feed network is employed to waveguide-fed microstrip antenna array using standard PCB process. 10 A single-layer right hand circular polarized (RHCP) SIW antenna with square ring slot and shorting pin has been investigated in Ref. [11].…”