Gain and Bandwidth Enhancement of a Metamaterial Loaded Antipodal Vivaldi Antenna Fed by Substrate Integrated Waveguide

Abstract

This paper proposes a novel wideband, high-gain, compact Vivaldi antenna operating in the 14.7-20.5 GHz frequency range, where the antenna is fed by the substrate integrated waveguide (SIW). A Negative Index Metamaterial (NIM) has been designed, with its parameters extracted using MATLAB software. The NIM was developed to address the deficiencies of conventional Antipodal Vivaldi antennas. With a measured gain of over 5.3 dBi, the fabricated antenna performs satisfactorily across the entire bandwidth. Due to its low profile and short transversal dimension, the proposed antenna is suitable for antenna arrays; consequently, the proposed antenna design could be a viable option for modern communication and radar systems.