A Wideband Low-Profile Tightly Coupled Antenna Array With a Very High Figure of Merit

A wideband, low-profile, tightly coupled antenna array with a simple feed network is presented. The dipole and feed networks in each unit cell are printed on both sides of a single RT/Duroid 6010 substrate with a relative dielectric constant of 10.2. The feed network, composed of meandered impedance transformer and balun sections, is designed based on Klopfenstein tapered microstrip lines. The wide-angle impedance matching is empowered by a novel wideband metasurface superstrate. For the optimum design, scanning to 70° along the E-plane is obtained together with a very high array figure of merit P<sub>A</sub> = 2.84. The H-plane scan extends to 55°. The broadside impedance bandwidth is 5.5:1 (0.80–4.38) GHz with an active voltage standing-wave ratio value ≤2. The overall height of the array above the ground plane is <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$0.088\lambda _{\mathrm {L}}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>, where <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\lambda _{\mathrm {L}}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> is the wavelength at the lowest frequency of operation. A prototype was fabricated and tested to confirm the design concepts.

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