A compact antipodal Vivaldi antenna with metamaterial half-lens for beam control

Abstract

A compact antipodal Vivaldi antenna (AVA) with metamaterial half-lens (MHL) for beam control is proposed. The proposed AVA has three different beam forms in the operating frequency band, including end beam from 3 GHz to 9 GHz, beam splitting at 12.2 GHz, and beam deflection at 13 GHz. Furthermore, it can perform beam scanning by adjusting operating frequency from 12.7 GHz to 13.5 GHz. The simulation indicates that the proposed AVA has a −10 dB impedance bandwidth of 143.6% (2.3–14.0 GHz) and a −3 dB gain bandwidth of 100% (4.5–13.5 GHz), which is consistent with the experimental results. Besides, the gain of the proposed AVA has an improvement of about 2 dB in the working band. As a new method to control the beam, the loading of MHL realizes the design of a small size and multi-function antenna, which can be widely used in wireless communication systems.