A two‐layer beam‐steering array antenna with 4 × 4 modified Butler matrix fed network for switched beam application

This paper presents a novel two layers beam‐steering array antenna fed by a 4 × 4 modified Butler matrix. Each of the radiation elements have been replaced by a collection of 2 × 2 circularly polarized (CP) square patches, which joined together by a modified sequentially rotated feed network. The antenna array consists of 2 × 5 CP square patches, which connected to four ring sequential rotation and fed by butler matrix. The proposed Butler matrix which plays a role as beam‐steering feed network consists of four novel 90° circular patch couplers and two 45° half circular patch phase shifter. Altogether, using of a 2 × 5 phased array antenna and a modified Butler matrix cause to empower array antenna for covering frequency range between 4.67 to 6.09GHz, the maximum gain of 14.98 dB and 3‐dB axial ratio bandwidth of 1.2GHz (4.9~6.1GHz) is attained.     

Circularly polarized 4 × 8 stacked patch antenna phased array with enhanced bandwidth for commercial drones

This paper demonstrates the design procedure of a 4 × 8 phased array antenna. Initially, a unit element in multilayer topology with orthogonal slots in the ground plane to couple electromagnetic energy is designed. Then, a stacked patch with truncated edges is placed on the top thick substrate layer to enhance the bandwidth to 600 MHz. This multilayered stacked patch unit element is then used to design a 1 × 4 and 4 × 8 slot coupled stacked patch array. On the bottom side, a novel feedline structure is designed to provide a 90 ^o phase difference at the antenna feed for the circular polarization. The phase difference is achieved in the feedline structure using a quarter wavelength ( λ_g/4 ) difference in the lengths. After the numerical validation, both 1 × 4 and 4 × 8 stacked patch antenna arrays are fabricated to validate the simulations. The final 4 × 8 array achieved the target specification of an active reflection of less than ?10 dB over 2.4 to 3.0 GHz, axial ratio of less than 3 dB, and stable radiation pattern over the complete band. In addition, beam scanning characteristics of the proposed stacked patch antenna arrays are also verified. The prototype resulted a peak gain of 19.5 dB at 2.7 GHz, 3‐dB beamwidth around 12 ^o in the xz‐plane, and scanning range of 90 ^o . Overall, good agreement between measured and simulated results showed that the proposed designed array capable of providing 600 MHz is an excellent candidate for the radar communication, small commercial drones, and synthetic aperture radar applications.     

Compact broadband circularly polarized slot‐patch antenna array

A simple design of circularly polarized slot‐patch antenna array with broadband operation and compact size is presented in this article. The antenna element consists of a circular slot and a semicircular patch, which are etched on both sides of a substrate. For the gain and axial ratio (AR) bandwidth enhancement, its array antennas are implemented in a 2 × 2 arrangement and fed by a sequential‐phase feeding network. The final 2 × 2 antenna array prototype with compact lateral dimension of 0.8λ_L × 0.8λ_L (λ_L is the lowest frequency within AR bandwidth) yielded a measured impedance bandwidth of 103.83% (2.76‐8.72 GHz) and a measured AR bandwidth of 94.62% (2.45‐6.85 GHz). The peak gain values within the AR bandwidth are from 2.85 to 8.71 dBi. A good agreement between the simulated and measured results is achieved. This antenna array is suitable for multiservice wireless systems covering WiMAX, WLAN and C‐band applications such as satellite communications.     

Gain and bandwidth enhancements of sequential‐fed circularly polarized patch antenna array using multiple parasitic elements

This paper presents a circularly polarized (CP) antenna array with wideband operation and high gain characteristics. The single array element is composed of a slotted CP patch and parasitic elements. It has been found that besides improving the operating bandwidth (BW), properly choosing a number of parasitic elements can also contribute to a significant increase in the antenna gain over the entire operating band. For further boost in the performance, multiple array elements are arranged in 2 × 2 configuration and fed by a sequential‐phase feeding network. In comparison with the related works in the literature, the proposed design shows approximately 3‐dB higher gain. The design concept has been validated by experiments. The fabricated array has a measured operating BW of 28% (4.6‐6.1 GHz) and a peak broadside gain of 15.8 dBic.     

A high‐isolation dual‐polarized quad‐patch antenna fed by stacked substrate integrated waveguides for millimeter‐wave application

A high‐isolation dual‐polarized quad‐patch antenna fed by stacked substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) that is suitable for millimeter‐wave band is proposed in this paper. The antenna consists of a quad‐patch radiator, a two‐layer SIW feeding structure and two feeding ports for horizontal and vertical polarization. The two‐layer stacked SIW feeding structure achieves the high isolation between the two feeding ports (|S₂₁| ≤ ?45 dB). Based on the proposed element, a 1 × 4 antenna array with a simple series‐fed network is also designed and investigated. A prototype working at the frequency band from 38 to 40 GHz is fabricated and tested. The results indicate that the proposed antenna has good radiation performance at 38 GHz that covers future 5G applications.     

Ten switched‐beams with 2 × 2 series‐fed 2.4 GHz array antenna and a simple beam‐switching network

This article presents a 2 × 2 series fed 2.4 GHz patch antenna array having multiple beam switching capabilities by using two simple 3 dB/90° couplers to achieve required amplitude and phase excitations for array elements with reduced complexity, cost and size. The beam switching performance with consistent gain and low side lobe levels (SLL) is achieved by exciting the array elements from orthogonally placed thin quarter‐wave (λ_g/4) feeds. The implemented array is capable to generate ten (10) switched‐beams in 2‐D space when series fed elements are excited from respective ports through 3 dB quadrature couplers. The dual polarized characteristics of presented array provide intrinsic interport isolation between perpendicularly placed ports through polarization diversity to achieve independent beam switching capabilities for intended directions. The implemented antenna array on 1.575 mm thick low loss (tan δ = 0.003) NH9450 substrate with ε_r = 4.5 ± 0.10 provides 10 dB return loss impedance bandwidth of more than 50 MHz. The measured beam switching loss is around 0.8 dB for beams switched at θ = ±20°, Ф = 0°, 90°, and 45° with average peak gain of 9.5 dBi and SLL ≤ ?10 dB in all cases. The novelty of this work is the capability of generating ten dual polarized switched‐beams by using only two 3 dB/90° couplers as beam controllers.     

A 2 × 2 array antenna with circular polarization and conical beam radiation

A circular disk patch antenna loaded with a hemi‐circular slot is initially proposed for achieving circular polarization (CP). To exhibit broad CP bandwidth that can cover the WLAN 2.4 GHz operating band, the patch antenna is fed by an L‐shaped probe. To further attain conical beam radiation with peak gain of ～8 dBic at ±30 degrees theta angle (θ), a 2 × 2 array type is proposed in this study, in which four circular disk patch array elements are arranged in a sequentially rotated fashion via a corporate feed network. Here, desirable 3‐dB axial ratio (AR) bandwidth and 10‐dB impedance bandwidth of ～5% and 21% were measured. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE 24:223–228, 2014.     

Compact 2 × 2/4 × 4 tapered microstrip feed MIMO antenna configuration for high‐speed wireless applications with band stop filters

In this research, compact tapered feed 2 × 2/4 × 4 MIMO antenna are presented and investigated. The proposed MIMO antenna consists of a square patch and modified rectangular ground, which is chamfered at edges and etched with two semicircular slots. Likewise, obstruction caused by WiMAX and WLAN interfering bands is also taken care of by introducing notched filters. WiMAX is removed by embedding an rotated T‐type stub and a C‐type slot eliminates the WLAN band. The proposed antenna configuration covers the usable bandwidth of 3.07 to 11.25 GHz for 2 × 2 MIMO and 2.97 to 11.28 GHz for 4 × 4 MIMO. Also, both the MIMO antennas provide isolation <–20 dB. Proposed MIMO antennas are fabricated and characterized in near, far‐field, and diversity performance where envelope correlation coefficient, directive gain (DG), total active reflection coefficient (TARC), and channel capacity loss are simulated and measured. 4 × 4 MIMO antenna configuration provides stable gain with a maximum radiation efficiency of 91% and monopole radiation patterns.     

Small‐size four‐element antenna system for 2 × 2 LTE LB and 4 × 4 LTE M/HB MIMO operations in 5G mobile terminals

A small‐size four‐element antenna system for 2 × 2 LTE low band (LB, 698‐960 MHz) and 4 × 4 LTE middle/high band (M/HB, 1710‐2690 MHz) multiple‐input multiple‐output (MIMO) operations in 5G (fifth‐generation) mobile terminals is presented. The proposed antenna system is formed by two identical tunable loop antennas and two identical coupled‐fed IFA (Inverted‐F Antenna) antennas. By loading a RF switch with four output states as tunable component, the proposed loop antenna can not only operate in the M/HB, but also achieve improved bandwidth coverage in the LB. Each coupled‐fed IFA element operating in the M/HB with compact volume. The four antennas are placed on the both short side‐edge of the mobile terminal with small ground clearance of 4.2 mm. The simulated S‐parameters show that the proposed MIMO system can cover 698 to 960 MHz and 1710 to 2690 MHz with reflection coefficients less than ?6 dB and isolations are all more than 12 dB. Good MIMO performances such as radiation efficiencies, envelope correlation coefficient (less than 0.4 within the entire operation bands) and channel capacity are also obtained. The effects of user's hand(s) on performances for the proposed antenna system are also discussed. This four‐element antenna system prototype is fabricated and measured.     

A WiMAX circularly polarized antenna array using slot‐coupling feeding technique

In this letter, we present a circular polarization antenna array using the novel slot‐coupling feeding technique. This antenna includes eight elements which are installed in line, each array element is fed by means of two microstrip lines with equal amplitude and phase rotation of 90°. The feeding microstrip lines are coupled to a square patch through a square‐ring slot realized in the feeding network ground plane. With the presence of the slots, this antenna array is able to cover the range of frequency of 3 GHz to 4 GHz. The size of the proposed antenna array is 7λ × 1.8λ × 0.4λ. The measured gain is 15.2 dBi and the bandwidth of S11< ?10 dB is 1 GHz (3–4 GHz, 28%). The antenna array is suited for the WiMAX applications. With the use of slot‐coupling feeding technique, the measured bandwidth for axial ratio < 3 dB is about 24% in the WiMAX frequency band (3.3–3.8GHz). The measured HPBW of the y–z planes is larger than 62°. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE 26:567–574, 2016.     

Analysis and design of dual‐polarized microstrip antenna array

A new dual‐polarized microstrip antenna array is presented. Diagonal feeding of the square patch with two ports is proposed to obtain dual linear polarization. A novel coplanar feedline network is also presented for the dual‐polarized array. For engineering purposes, a CAD‐oriented method of analysis is developed. The measured results demonstrate high isolation between the two input ports. The array has simple structure and is easy to further combine to form larger coplanar arrays. ©1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE 9: 42–48, 1999.     

Miniaturized 1D beam switching and 2D printed Yagi-Uda antenna arrays

This article presents a multi-board arrangement of printed Yagi-Uda antennas that can be configured into 1D and 2D arrays. First, a 1 × 4 collinear array is designed and fed with a metamaterial Butler matrix (BM) network to provide beam switching at four azimuthal directions. Slow-wave concept is used in designing the hybrid, crossover and delay sections of BM to achieve a footprint reduction of 67%. The 1 × 4 collinear array with the feed network achieves 8.42–11.7 dBi gain and 21.7–25.7 degrees half power beam width (HPBW) in horizontal plane for the four switched beam patterns at 5.8 GHz in simulations. Second, measurement results of the fabricated 1 × 4 collinear array with its miniaturized feed network confirm a range of 22–27 degrees in HPBW in the horizontal plane. Finally, parasitic structures are designed to reduce antenna coupling and a 3-shelf holder is proposed to stack the 1 × 2 printed Yagi antenna subarray boards in compact 2D planar array configurations. Simulations of the 2 × 4-array demonstrate achieving 13.09 dBi peak gain at 5.8 GHz along with reduction of the HPBW by 24.7 degrees in horizontal plane in comparison with the 1 × 4-array prototype.     

A wideband circularly polarized antenna array with sequential rotation feed

A novel wideband circularly polarized (CP) antenna array is designed, which consists of a horizontally placed wideband phase shifting feed network and four vertically placed linearly polarized dipole antenna elements, and the circular polarization is realized based on sequential rotation feeding technology. By placing two parasitic strips and two grounding strips on the top and side of each T‐shaped dipole antenna element, the impedance bandwidth and circular polarization performance of the antenna can be further improved. The simulation results show that the 10‐dB impedance bandwidth of the antenna is 93% (1.56‐4.27 GHz) and the 3‐dB AR bandwidth is 80.7% (1.7‐4.0 GHz). The measured results are in good agreement with the simulation results. Due to the use of orthogonally placed wideband feed network and wideband array elements, the proposed antenna array has a wider circular polarization bandwidth than the similar antenna arrays reported.     

High gain flexible liquid crystal polymer based 8‐element printed antenna for millimetric wave applications

In this article, an offset fed printed dipole antenna 2‐element, 4‐element, and 8‐element arrays are developed and analyzed for millimeter wave applications. The 8‐element array antenna is of compact size with dimensions 43.6 × 25.1 × 0.25 mm³. It achieved a broad impedance bandwidth (S₁₁ < ?10 dB) of 15.7 GHz from 24.7 to 40.4 GHz. The mutual coupling between array elements is less than ?35 dB in the operating band. The antenna achieved a gain of 12.62 to 13.1 dB. The 8‐element array antenna is fabricated on liquid crystal polymer material and tested. Impedance matching, far field radiation characteristics, co‐polarized and cross‐polarized patterns and group delay are analyzed in simulation and experimental measurement. The investigated results are in good agreement and hence, the developed array antenna is attractive for wideband millimeter wave applications.     

Analytic study on CP enhancement of millimeter wave DR and patch subarray antennas

This article presents a comparative analysis for the performance of single, 2 × 2, and 4 × 4 dielectric resonator (DR) and patch circularly polarized (CP) antenna subarrays at 30 GHz. In order to enhance the CP bandwidth, the subarray elements are fed by two kinds of sequential feeding techniques using parallel and hybrid ring feeds. The 4 × 4 patch antenna subarrays fed by parallel and hybrid ring feeding networks are fabricated and tested. Measurements show acceptable agreement with simulation results. The experimental results show a bandwidth of 36.9% for both (?10 dB) impedance matching and (3 dB) axial ratio CP patterns for the patch subarray antenna with hybrid ring feeding. For the parallel feeding, the corresponding bandwidth is 28.81%. The proposed antennas combine desirable features such as wide impedance and AR bandwidths, low profile, and easiness of fabrication and therefore is a good candidate for millimeter wave systems around 30 GHz.     

A compact proximity‐fed 2.4 GHz monostatic antenna with wide‐band SIC characteristics for in‐band full duplex applications

This article presents a dual polarized, proximity‐fed monostatic patch antenna (single radiator for both transmit and receive modes) with improved interport isolation for 2.4 GHz in‐band full duplex (IBFD) applications. The proximity‐fed radiating patch offers comparatively wider impedance bandwidth for presented design. Very nice self‐interference cancelation (SIC) levels for intended impedance bandwidth have been achieved through differential receive (R_x) mode configuration. The differential R_x mode based on 180° ring hybrid coupler acts as a signal inversion mechanism for effective suppression or cancelation of in‐band self‐interference (SI) that is, the leakage from transmit port. The implemented prototype of proposed antenna achieves ≥87 dB peak isolation for dual polarized IBFD operation. Moreover, the recorded interport isolation for validation model ≥60 dB within 10 dB‐return loss bandwidth of 90 MHz (2.36‐2.45 GHz). The measured radiation characteristics of implemented antenna demonstrate nice gain and low cross‐polarization levels for both transmit (T_x) and receive (R_x) modes. The dimensions of implemented antenna are 70 × 75 × 4.8 mm³. The novelty of this work is wide‐band SIC performance for monostatic antenna configuration with compact structure of presented design.     

Low‐cost broadband microstrip antenna array for 24 GHz FMCW radar applications

Two designs of microstrip antenna arrays consisting of eight radiating elements and operating within a broad frequency range having the center frequency of 24 GHz are presented. One of the proposed antenna arrays uses a single laminate layer with a ground plane on one side and radiating elements on the other side, the other one is a double layer structure, where the radiating elements with beam‐forming network are placed on the top layer and are fed with the use of the slot coupler. The application of U‐slot radiating elements with enlarged inner parasitic patch allows us to achieve reflection coefficient better than 10 dB within the assumed bandwidth of currently developed FMCW radars, which is 23–25 GHz frequency range. The theoretical analysis as well as experimental results of the manufactured 2 × 4 antenna arrays is shown. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE, 2013.     

High frequency integrated feed for front end circuitry and antenna arrays

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 × 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. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE, 2009.     

High gain substrate integrated waveguide beam scanning antenna with sub‐array elements

A method to enhance the gain of substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) beam scanning antenna is proposed in this article. 2 × 2 SIW cavity‐backed sub‐arrays are employed in array design. The antenna is constructed on two layers. The top layer places four SIW cavity‐backed sub‐arrays as radiating elements and the bottom layer is an SIW transmission line to feed the sub‐arrays. Beam scanning feature can be obtained due to the frequency dispersion. Moreover, through separating radiators to the other layer and using 2 × 2 SIW cavity‐backed sub‐arrays as radiating parts, the antenna gain is improved significantly. For a linear array, 4.1 to 6.8 dB gain enhancement is achieved compared to a conventional SIW beam scanning antenna with the same length. Then, the linear array is expanded to form a planar array for further gain improvement. A 64‐element planar beam scanning array is designed, fabricated, and tested. Experimental results show that the proposed planar array has a bandwidth from 18.5 GHz to 21. 5 GHz with beam scanning angle from ?5° to 11.5° and gain in the range of 20.5 to 21.8 dBi. The proposed high gain beam scanning antennas have potential applications in radar detection and imaging.     

Serial‐feed for a circular patch antenna with circular polarization suitable for arrays

A compact sequential‐rotation array with serial feed and three probes using multi‐layer substrate is proposed. The most compact shape for the microstrip patches are selected with the optimization for the axial ratio and return loss bandwidth. The gain, return loss, and axial ratio bandwidths of the antenna are improved significantly by converting three patches to one circular. The patch radius and the position of probes are selected to form circular Poynting vectors around it where the maximum power is present at large frequency range. While the two layers of the structure use similar board this structure only uses a substrate and three simple pins. Also the total area of the antenna is limited to the microstrip patch and it has a straightforward fabrication steps. So the wideband antenna is relatively inexpensive and compact. The antenna has 21.4% 3 dB axial ratio bandwidth in simulation and 21.1% in fabrication. Consequently, the serial‐multi‐fed circular patch with unique angular and phase arrangements is suitable for many applications as the antenna arrays. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE 24:529–535, 2014.