Low-Cost and High-Gain SIW Circularly Polarized Circular-Horn-Loaded Antenna for Broadband Millimeter-Wave Applications

Abstract

A wideband, low-cost and high-gain circularly polarized (CP) circular-horn-loaded antenna based on substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) technology operating at Ka band is presented. The proposed antenna, which is built on a single-layer substrate, consists of five parts: a short-ended SIW, a centro-symmetric wide slot, an L-shaped probe, a circular horn and a transition from SIW to air-filled rectangular waveguide for measurement. The slot is etched on the upper ground of the SIW, while the L-shaped probe for generating CP wave is printed inside the slot and connected to the SIW. A circular horn is also loaded on the surface of the SIW slot for high gain. Then, the proposed antenna with a dimension of 45×45×24.16 mm3 was fabricated and measured. The measured results show that the antenna has a wide impedance matching bandwidth of 28.6% from 30 to 40 GHz for |S11| ≤10 dB and a wide axial ratio (AR) bandwidth of 22.8% from 31.5 to 39.6 GHz for AR ≤ 3 dB. The measured maximum gain is 15.6 dBi at 36 GHz with slight fluctuations over the 30–40-GHz frequency range. This kind of antenna merits low cost and easy integration with common differential circuits at the same time.