Efficient, Low-Cost Integrated Waveguide-Fed Planar Antenna Array for Ku-Band Applications

Low-cost printed circuit board waveguide (PCB-WG) 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 $\times$ 4 sequentially rotated subarray of circularly polarized microstrip patches and on the feed layer SIW is utilized to combine any number of these subarrays to form a larger array. Since SIWs 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 PCB-WG 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.

[1]  Wei Hong,et al.  Substrate integrated waveguide elliptic filter with transmission line inserted inverter , 2005 .

[2]  M. Shahabadi,et al.  Low-cost, high-efficiency quasi-planar array of waveguide-fed circularly polarized microstrip antennas , 2005, IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation.

[3]  M. Ando,et al.  Efficiency of 76-GHz post-wall waveguide-fed parallel-plate slot arrays , 2000 .

[4]  N. Shino,et al.  Novel circular polarized antenna array substrates for 60GHz-band , 2005, IEEE MTT-S International Microwave Symposium Digest, 2005..

[5]  Li Yan,et al.  Simulation and experiment on SIW slot array antennas , 2004 .

[6]  M. Ehlert,et al.  An integrated LTCC laminated waveguide-to-microstrip line T-junction , 2003, IEEE Microwave and Wireless Components Letters.

[7]  Dan Busuioc.  Conformal, integrated antenna array technology for low-cost intelligent system applications , 2005 .

[8]  Wolfgang Menzel,et al.  Millimeter-Wave Microstrip Antenna Arrays with Waveguide Feed Network , 2001 .

[9]  Ke Wu,et al.  Millimeter-wave ferrite phase shifter in substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) , 2003, IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society International Symposium. Digest. Held in conjunction with: USNC/CNC/URSI North American Radio Sci. Meeting (Cat. No.03CH37450).

[10]  H. Uchimura,et al.  Development of the "laminated waveguide" , 1998, IMS 1998.

[11]  Wei Hong,et al.  Simulation and experiment on substrate integrated monopulse antenna , 2005, 2005 IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society International Symposium.

[12]  C. Eswarappa,et al.  A low profile 77 GHz three beam antenna for automotive radar , 2001, 2001 IEEE MTT-S International Microwave Sympsoium Digest (Cat. No.01CH37157).

[13]  Ke Wu,et al.  Development of substrate integrated waveguide power dividers , 2003, CCECE 2003 - Canadian Conference on Electrical and Computer Engineering. Toward a Caring and Humane Technology (Cat. No.03CH37436).