Shorted Stacked Patch Array for Photonic Beam Steering at mm-Waves

A broadband aperture-coupled stacked patch array with a 45° polarization is presented. With the stacked patches and air layer structure being used, the elements' bandwidth and radiation efficiency are improved. The array achieves the 45°-polarization radiation through rotating the patches of each element. Experimental results show that a sound impedance match and stable radiation patterns are achieved in a 40% frequency band.

A novel hybrid-fed dual-polarized 1×4 patch array microstrip stacked antenna is proposed for Ku-band radar systems which require low cross-polarization and compact size. The antenna is fed by cable probe and microstrip transmission line. A conductor ground between two layer dielectric substrates is employed to shield the radiation microstrip patch array and the feed networks in order to discriminate the cross polarization level. Full-wave simulations show promising features in terms of reduced cross-polarization less than −20 dB, return loss better than −10 dB from 14.9 to 15.1 GHz and co-polarized gains greater than 11.9 dBi. The isolation between the two ports is better than 20 dB throughout the designed frequency range. The radiation patterns show good symmetry in both E-plane and H-plane with wider scanning capability.

A sequentially rotated feeding circularly polarized stacked patch antenna and its array based on substrate integrated suspended line (SISL) are presented. The resonant frequencies of 5.05 and 5.35 GHz are obtained by using the cross slot on the driven patch, which can also realize circular polarization. The windmill stacked patch is introduced to generate another resonant frequency of 5.85 GHz and expand 3‐dB axial ratio (AR) bandwidth (BW). The measured 10‐dB impedance BW of 18.2% (4.98–5.98 GHz) and the 3‐dB AR BW of 3.6% (5.45–5.65 GHz) are obtained from the proposed antenna element. The measured peak gain is 9.0 dBi. A sequentially rotated feeding is used to excite the proposed 2 × 2 antenna array. The measured peak gain is 13.31 dBi. The measured 10‐dB impedance BW is 28.3% (4.80–6.38 GHz) and the 3‐dB AR BW is 8.9% (5.35–5.85 GHz).

In this paper, a meandering-fed 4-layer stacked patch antenna is proposed to construct a 4×4 antenna array and achieve a high gain in a very limited area. The meandering-fed structure assures wide operation bandwidth. The 4-layer stacked patches contribute the high gain. The patch antennas with different layers are compared. The prototypes of antenna element and antenna array are simulated. The 10-dB impedance matching bandwidth of the proposed patch antenna array is 31% covering from 1.2 GHz to 1.64 GHz. The realized gain is change from 18.7 dBi to 20.5 dBi between 1.25 GHz and 1.55 GHz.

This paper presents the design and development of sequentially rotated broadband circularly polarized stacked patch array antenna for data & voice communication in MSS service. A Sequential rotation technique is used for improvement in axial ratio in 2 times 2 array environment. The driven element is Electromagnetically Coupled square patch with dual edges fed by T power divider. A parasitic patch is used for increasing the return loss bandwidth and improvement in gain. The lower patch should be over excited and the upper patch should be loosely coupled to achieve maximum possible bandwidth. Measured gain is more than 15.5 dB and axial ratio less than 1 dB over the MSS band. Measured bandwidth is 40% for 10 dB return loss.

The four-element stacked patch antenna array on conducting cylinder is reported. Multilayered dielectric structure is analyzed using the equivalent transmission line model for two coupled lines with E and H waves. The problem of the patch antenna design with expanded bandwidth is solved. Radiation patterns and VSWR variation are shown.

The infinite arrays of probe-fed stacked microstrip patches were investigated in Aberle et al. (1994). It was found that the scan-bandwidth was increased if the dielectric constant of the upper layer was smaller than that of the lower layer according to a certain relationship. Frequency independent matching networks were inserted between the array elements and the feed lines. It is not easy to implement the desired dielectric constant of the upper layer and wideband frequency independent networks are difficult to design. To circumvent the above disadvantages, an infinite array of offset dual-patch microstrip antennas is studied.

In this paper, a novel metasurface-based decoupler is proposed to reduce mutual coupling of a wideband stacked patch array antenna. The metasurface-based decoupler consists of a metasurface made of periodic square rings and a dielectric rod array made of transparent resin. The whole structure is able to reject propagation of space coupling wave, realize wideband decoupling and partly change the coupling mode. Different from previously reported some metasurface decoupling solutions, the proposed method does not deteriorate matching condition and no need to rematch. Besides, by using dielectric rod array to complement insufficient isolation enhancement of metasurface, the metasurface-based decoupler shows a wider decoupling bandwidth compared with conventional metasurface decoupling solutions.

This article proposes a low‐profile dual‐linear polarized multilayer parasitic patch array antenna, which is composed of 3‐layer printed substrates and 1 air gap layer inserted between the lower and middle substrate. There is 1 slotted square patch printed on the lower substrate with 2 excited probes acting as feeding element, and 1 and 4 slotted square patches are on the middle and upper substrate respectively as parasitic elements. The stacked patches introduce additional dual‐polarized resonances for bandwidth enhancement. Specifically, the T‐ and rectangular slots and T‐stubs are employed near/on the orthogonal axis of the patches in order to achieve impedance matching and to improve 2 orthogonal polarizations. Furthermore, 6 stacked complementary split‐ring resonators (CSRRs) are loaded in the middle and upper substrate mainly for both impedance matching and port isolation adjustment. Simulated and measured results comply with each other, which shows that the fabricated antenna has an operational fractional bandwidth of 6.6% (2.34–2.5 GHz), a maximum gain of 7.9 and 6.9 dB at port 1 and 2 (while 10.2 and 9.3 dBi for the simulated ones), respectively, and port isolation better than 19 dB. In addition, the air‐gap thickness can be maintained at an extremely narrow level of 0.02λ0 (λ0 is the free‐space wavelength at the central frequency).

In this study, a high-performance, dual linearly polarized patch array antenna is presented for satellite synthetic aperture radar (SAR) applications. The antenna features an aperture-fed stacked patch as the radiation element and a stripline feeding network. A high-performance and low-loss dielectric substrate RF-35 by Taconic, and a honeycomb substrate is used. The honeycomb substrate is used to maximize the impedance bandwidth and decrease the insertion loss of the antenna. The proposed antenna offers exceptional isolation between the antenna’s ports in excess of 55 dB owing to its stripline feeding network. The via stitching technique is utilized to suppress the parallel-plate mode excited by the discontinuities in the stripline. The antenna is designed to possess a wide impedance bandwidth. A prototype antenna of size 2×4 elements, which operates in the X-band, is fabricated. Its impedance and radiation performance are experimentally verified, and the results are presented. The antenna exhibits a 15.7 dB peak gain and more than 40 dB of cross-polarization discrimination. In addition, a wide bandwidth of 19.4 % at a −10 dB return loss (RL) level is obtained.