Single‐layer low‐profile wideband circularly polarized patch antenna surrounded by periodic metallic plates

This article presents a simple design of circularly polarized (CP) antenna with low profile and wideband operation characteristics. To achieve these desirable features, a truncated corner squared patch is chosen as primary radiating source and surrounded by periodic metallic plates for bandwidth enhancement. Notably, all the radiating elements are designed on a single layer of substrate using printed circuit techniques, which significantly reduces the design complexity. The final prototype with overall size of 0.60λ_o × 0.60λ_o × 0.05λ_o (λ_o is free‐space wavelength at the center operating frequency) was fabricated and tested. Measured results show that the proposed antenna has wide operation bandwidth of 19.7% (5.1‐6.2 GHz). Additionally, broadside gain ranging from 5.0 to 6.9 dBic is also attained within the operating band. In comparison with the other reported antennas in literature, the proposed one has the simplest design architecture with competitive operating bandwidth.     

A modified fractal‐shaped slotted patch antenna with defected ground using metasurface for dual band applications

A novel modified fractal‐shaped slotted patch antenna employing metasurface at bottom plane along with partial ground has been proposed in this work for dual band applications with significant gain. A 4 × 5 order metasurface has been formed in the ground plane by introducing a periodic combination of two L‐type patches with centered C‐type shaped patch. The top conductor and the ground plane are designed on a 1.6 mm thick FR4 dielectric with the dimension of 28 × 28 mm². The antenna is designed in such a way that it operates over the dual frequency ranges viz., 1.80 to 5.70 GHz and 10.38 to 10.94 GHz. The maximum return loss of 21 dB has been achieved over 2.60 GHz while the maximum realized gain of 7.16 dBi has been obtained at 10.92 GHz. The designed antenna offers omnidirectional radiation characteristics in the first band while directional radiation characteristics have been observed in the second band. The proposed antenna can be utilized for WiMAX 3.5/5.5 GHz, mobile, radio astronomy, and microimaging in medical analysis.     

Analysis of wideband circularly polarized ring slot antenna using characteristics mode for bandwidth enhancement

In this article, a coplanar waveguide fed ring slot antenna is proposed for the generation of circular polarization. It is shown that the bandwidth can be improved by adding a stub. Characteristics mode analysis is used to understand the wideband behavior and generation of circular polarization in different antenna configurations. Parametric analysis is used to optimize the performance of the antenna. The proposed antenna is fabricated and the measured results are compared with the simulated performance. The measured impedance bandwidth (|S₁₁| ≤ －10 dB) is 64.6% (2.25 GHz–4.4 GHz) and a 3 dB axial ratio bandwidth is 64.6% (2.25 GHz–4.4 GHz).     

Epsilon‐shaped circularly polarized strip and slot‐loaded ultra‐wideband antenna for Ku‐band and K‐band

A compact epsilon‐shaped (ε) ultra‐wideband (UWB) antenna for dual‐wideband circularly polarized (CP) applications has been investigated in this article. It consists of a stepped stub loaded modified annular ring‐shaped radiator and modified CPW ground plane. The ground plane is loaded with two semicircular notches and a spiral‐shaped slot. The impedance bandwidth (IBW) is 97.02% (10.4‐30 GHz) along with an overall footprint of 20 × 20 mm². The fractional axial ratio bandwidth (3‐dB ARBW) for two wide bands is 38.50% (13.30‐19.64 GHz) and 6.45% (26.25‐28.00 GHz), respectively. The proposed antenna is left‐hand circularly polarized with a peak gain of about 5.09 and 5.14 dB in both 3‐dB ARBW bands. The proposed antenna is dominating other reported CP antenna structures in terms of number of CP bands, 3‐dB ARBW, IBW, peak gain, and dimensions.     

A high gain wideband circularly polarized antenna with asymmetric metasurface

An asymmetric‐metasurface based wideband circularly polarized (CP) microstrip antenna using a coaxial probe is proposed for L‐band applications. The antenna involves a stacked asymmetric‐metasurface, a radiating rectangular‐patch and a coaxial feed. An asymmetric‐metasurface is designed using rectangular unit cells and smaller size unit cells along one of the diagonal lines. The asymmetric‐metasurface is placed above a radiating rectangular‐patch with support of foam layer to achieve a wideband CP radiation. The measured performance of the prototype antenna achieves an impedance bandwidth (?10 dB return loss bandwidth) of 15.7% (1.58‐1.85 GHz) with CP bandwidth (3‐dB axial ratio) of 13% (1.58‐1.80 GHz) and gain of ≥9 dBic.     

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.     

Wideband circularly polarized leaky‐wave antenna with flat gain using printed ridge gap waveguide

A wideband beam scanning circularly polarized (CP) leaky‐wave antenna (LWA) at Ku band is proposed based on the printed ridge gap waveguide (PRGW). In this design, the printed technology is used to realize the ridge gap waveguide (RGW) structure, and a substrate layer is introduced to replace the air gap layer in conventional RGWs. The proposed beam scanning CP LWA has been fabricated. Measured results of the fabricated antenna prototype are carried out to verify the simulation analysis. It provides a wide impedance bandwidth of 22% ranging from 12 to 15 GHz while performing continuous frequency beam scanning from ?2° to +47°. Furthermore, it maintains the excellent CP characteristic with axial ratio (AR) below 1.5 dB and a flat gain response with variation less than 2 dB in the entire operation frequency band.     

A dual‐band and wideband omnidirectional circularly polarized antenna based on VO2

In this article, a dual‐band and wideband omnidirectional circularly polarized (CP) antenna based on the vanadium dioxide (VO₂) is investigated. The operating bandwidth of such an antenna can be regulated by altering the outside temperature (T), which is attained by the insulator‐metal transition of VO₂. The omnidirectional CP antenna is based on a loop antenna‐dipole model, which is composed of four tilted metal and VO₂ resonant units that are loaded around a cuboid and a feeding network for broadening bandwidth. The simulated results show that when T = 50°C (State I), the 10‐dB impedance bandwidth is 45.7% (1.67‐2.66 GHz), and the 3‐dB axial ratio (AR) bandwidth is 40% (1.9‐2.85 GHz). When T = 80°C (State II), the 10‐dB impedance bandwidth is 13.8% (1.62‐1.86 GHz), and the 3‐dB AR bandwidth is 21.8% (1.68‐2.09 GHz). In order to further characterize the concept of the proposed antenna, the related parameters of such an antenna are studied using simulation software HFSS.     

High isolation dual‐frequency patch antenna integrated with cascade defected microstrip structure

This article presents a high‐isolation dual‐frequency rectangular patch antenna utilizing microstrip feed line integrated with a cascade defected microstrip structure (CDMS). Two types of CDMS are added, T‐shaped CDMS and Dumbbell‐T‐shaped CDMS. Simulation results show using these structures improve isolation up to 70 dB and reduce harmonic signals from transmitter. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE, 2011.     

Isolation enhanced circularly polarized patch antenna array using modified electric‐field‐coupled resonator

A modified electric‐field‐coupled (MELC) resonator featuring negative permittivity is proposed to enhance the inter‐element isolation of a circularly polarized (CP) patch antenna array operated at Chinese compass navigation satellite system (CNSS) downlink band. The resonator comprises two capacitive gaps and a common inductive strip connected to the ground plane by two metal vias. A suspended microstrip line excitation is employed to efficiently design and investigate the MELC resonator whose constitutive parameters are subsequently extracted. A dual‐element CNSS antenna array has been prototyped and measured. The experimental results demonstrate that under the assistance of the proposed MELC resonator, a mutual coupling reduction of 15 dB has been achieved while maintaining good impedance matching and CP radiation performance. Details of the design considerations along with simulation and measurement results are presented and discussed.     

Microstrip patch antenna feed for offset reflector antenna for dual band application

In this article, details of a dual band microstrip patch antenna (MPA) array feed for an offset reflector antenna is presented. The main objective of the proposed structure is to achieve low cross‐polarization at Φ = 90° plane in the reflector pattern. Low cross‐polar levels in the reflector pattern are achieved by illuminating the reflector with fields of the proposed dual band feed structure. A centered circular array as the dual band feed structure is proposed in which the central radiating element is a dual mode circular MPA operating at 6 GHz and the surrounding circular ring of eight circular MPA elements operating at 4 GHz in the dominant mode. The dual mode central antenna uses the concept of conjugate field matching for cross‐polarization reduction. TM₂₁ mode is excited at an appropriate ratio with the TM₁₁ mode to achieve the proper field matching at 6 GHz. The radius of the surrounding circular array is varied to obtain cross‐polarization better than ?30 dB at both the resonant frequencies. The offset reflector gain is found to be better than 37 dB with a 2.5 m parabolic reflector and F/D = 0.8 at both the operating frequencies.     

Broadband circularly polarized printed falcate‐shaped monopole antenna

In this study, a simple broadband circularly polarized (CP) printed monopole antenna for S/C‐band applications is proposed. The CP antenna is composed of a falcate‐shaped monopole with a right‐angle trapezoid stub, then wide impedance and axial ratio (AR) bandwidths are achieved. By placing one rectangular split‐ring resonator above the stub for generating upper CP mode, both of impedance and CP performances are further improved. The proposed antenna is fabricated on a FR4 substrate and measured. The measured ?10‐dB impedance bandwidth is 107%, ranging from 2.4‐7.9 GHz, and the measured 3‐dB AR bandwidth is 94% (2.4‐6.6 GHz), covering the entire wireless local area network (WLAN) and WiMAX bands.     

Compact wideband circularly polarized horn antenna with tapered slot‐coupled feeding for Ku‐band applications

A compact wideband circularly polarized (CP) horn antenna with slot‐coupled feeding structure at Ku band for satellite communication is devised. The proposed design is based on a square aperture horn antenna with two orthogonal ridges, which is fed by nonuniform curved slot along the diagonal of the horn on the bottom cavity. And in order to improve the impedance matching, a staircase typed ridge is connected the feeding probe as a matching network. Moreover, two orthogonal ridges are excited with a tapered slot coupled by the staircase ridges via feeding probe. Wideband CP performance is achieved with an overall physical dimension of 9 mm × 9 mm × 14 mm (0.045λ₀ × 0.045λ₀ × 0.07λ₀ at frequency of 15 GHz). It is experimentally demonstrated that the proposed antenna achieves: a wide 10‐dB return loss bandwidth of about 2.4 GHz, a 3‐dB axial ratio bandwidth of 1 GHz, and a peak gain of 6.5 dBi.     

Planar integrated substrate integrated waveguide circularly polarized filtering antenna

A new design of substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) circularly‐polarized (CP) filtering antenna is presented, which is based on dual‐mode (TE₁₀₂ and TE₂₀₁) cavities. The satisfying filtering performance of the antenna is realized by a coupled‐resonator circuit of two dual‐mode SIW cavities. And the radiating element of the antenna is a cavity‐backed CP slot antenna which is formed by a nonuniform ring slot integrated with the back cavity. To demonstrate the idea, a prototype antenna operating at X band is designed, fabricated, and measured. Measured results show that the 10‐dB impedance bandwidth is 4.2% (from 11.6 to 12.1 GHz), the 3‐dB axial‐ratio (AR) bandwidth is 4%, and the gain is 5.6 dBi at the center frequency of 11.8 GHz.     

A new dual‐mode wideband circularly polarized rectangular dielectric resonator antenna coupled with stubs and asymmetric ground plane for WiMAX applications

In this article, a new radiating stub microstrip feed has been investigated with asymmetrical ground plane for generation of circular polarization (CP) in a dielectric resonator antenna (DRA). Here, asymmetrical ground plane and 3 radiating stubs with microstrip feed line are used for generation of 2 different modes namely TE_11δ and TE_12δ in rectangular DRA. By using mode matching concepts, these modes are responsible for enhancing the impedance bandwidth (TE_12δ ie, and ) and axial ratio (AR) bandwidth (TE_11δ ie, and ) in proposed antenna. Designed antenna offers measured input impedance bandwidth (|S₁₁| < ?10 dB) and AR bandwidth (AR < 3‐dB) of 44.78%, ranging from 4.6 to 6.9 GHz and 23.32%, ranging from 4.6 to 6.9 GHz, respectively. It has been observed that proposed antenna shows left‐handed CP fields in boresight direction with average gain of 3.15 dBic and radiation efficiency of 90.54%. Designed antenna is suitable for Wi‐MAX (3.3‐3.7 GHz) applications.     

Dual circularly polarized loop antenna using a pair of resonant even‐modes

Conceptual design of dual circularly polarized (CP) square loop antennas using a pair of resonant even‐modes for wireless sensor application is presented. A pair of even‐modes is simultaneously excited within a single, nonuniform square loop element and employed to realize a dual circular polarization characteristic. When the natural boundary conditions of the even‐modes and the feed lines are matched, respectively, a bidirectional dual CP loop antenna can be attained at first. Then, a unidirectional dual CP loop antenna is designed by introducing a simple metallic reflector. Both bidirectional and unidirectional designs exhibit dual CP performance with available operation bandwidth of 10.0% and 8.5%. The design approach is expected to get applications in dual CP antenna designs for wireless sensor systems.     

Broadband circularly polarized antenna with moon‐shaped parasitic element

A broadband circularly polarized (CP) circular patch antenna with an L‐shaped ground plane and parasitic element is studied. The use of this L‐shaped ground is to achieve short probe feed connection to the circular patch, while maintaining a certain height between the circular patch and ground plane, so that good impedance matching and bandwidth enhancement can be attained. To achieve CP radiation, two notches are initially loaded diagonally into the circular patch, and to further enhance the CP bandwidth, a novel technique of loading a small size moon‐shaped parasitic element into the notched circular patch is proposed. By doing so, the CP bandwidth of proposed antenna can be tremendously increased by approximately 10%. The experimental results show that the proposed CP antenna can yield impedance bandwidth and CP bandwidth of 835–1150 MHz and 839–968 MHz, respectively, with good gain level of 7.6 dBic. Therefore, this proposed wideband CP antenna can be used for UHF (ultrahigh frequency) RFID (radio frequency identification) reader antenna that operates within the universal RFID bands (840 ? 960 MHz). © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE 26:387–395, 2016     

A novel millimeter‐wave dual‐band circularly polarized dielectric resonator antenna

In this article, a novel dual‐band circularly polarized (CP) dielectric resonator antenna (DRA) for millimeter‐wave (MMW) band is presented. The rectangular dielectric resonator with layered truncated corners is excited by a microstrip‐coupled cross‐slot. CP radiations in the lower band are realized by utilizing two quasi‐TE₁₁₁ modes operating at 21.7 GHz and 23.8 GHz, while CP radiations in the upper band are obtained by exciting a quasi‐TE₁₁₃ mode at 28.2 GHz. The dual‐band DRA is fabricated and measured. Due to the higher order mode, the average gain of the DRA in the upper band is about 3 dB higher than that in the lower band. The measured impedance bandwidths (|S₁₁| < ?10 dB) are 17.0% (20.5‐24.3 GHz) and 15.2% (26.1‐30.4 GHz), while the measured axial ratio (AR) bandwidths (AR < 3 dB) are 12.8% (21.2‐24.1 GHz) and 5% (27.4‐28.8 GHz). In addition, the peak gain values are 5 and 8 dBic.     

Dual‐band reconfigurable circularly polarized monopole antenna

A microstrip antenna with dual‐band reconfigurable circular polarization (CP) characteristics in Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) and Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) bands is presented in this article. The proposed antenna has a symmetrical U‐shaped slot with PIN diodes on the ground plane. The slotted ground generates a resonant mode for broad impedance‐band width, and excites contrary CP state at 2.45 GHz for WLAN and 3.4 GHz for WiMAX, respectively. Because switching the states of PIN diodes on the slot can redirect the current path, the CP state of the proposed antenna can be simply switched between the right‐handed CP and left‐handed CP. The proposed antenna has a low profile and a simple structure. Measured results of the fabricated antenna prototype are carried out to verify the simulation analysis. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE 25:109–114, 2015.     

A CPW‐fed band notched wideband circularly polarized ZOR antenna based on CRLH‐TL approach

This article presents design and analysis of three wide band zeroth‐order resonance antennas (antennas I, II, and III) using composite right and left‐handed transmission line (CRLH‐TL) approach. Coplanar waveguide technology, single layer via‐less structures are used to have the design flexibility. The bandwidth characteristics are analyzed by using lumped parameters of CRLH‐TL. By introducing a simple slot in the ground plane of antenna I both bandwidth enhancement and circularly polarization characteristics are achieved in antenna II. Another quarter wave L‐shaped slot has been introduced in the ground plane of antenna II to introduce a notch band in the frequency response of antenna III. Achieved measured 10 dB return loss bandwidth of antenna I and antenna II are 960 (3.3‐4.26 GHz) and 2890 MHz (2.77‐5.66 GHz), respectively. Antenna III offers measured 10 dB return loss bandwidth of 3220 MHz (2.32‐5.54 GHz) with a band notch from 2.39 to 2.99 GHz that isolates the 2.4 GHz WLAN and 3.5 GHz WiMAX band. Antenna II and antenna III have circular polarization property with measured axial ratio bandwidth of 440 MHz. The measured peak realized gain of antennas II and III is around 1.53‐2.9 dBi.