A Low-Cost Millimeter-Wave High-Gain Slot Antenna Array Fed by Multilayer Waveguide

Abstract

A millimeter-wave antenna array fed by multilayer waveguide is proposed in this paper. Different from traditional rectangular cavity waveguide, the multilayer waveguide structure used for the antenna is constructed by stacking several thin metal plates. The metal plates are filled with air and do not require any electrical contact. The electromagnetic band gap (EBG) structure is added to the thin metal plates to prevent the leakage of electromagnetic waves within a certain frequency between the metal layers. By using this waveguide structure, manufacturing cost can be greatly reduced. Introduce this waveguide structure into the design of the waveguide slot antenna, and a highperformance millimeter-wave antenna is realized. This 12-element antenna array works at W-band, the gain at the highest point is more than 21 dBi, and the difference between the side lobe and the main lobe exceeds 12 dB. The proposed antenna array could be an excellent candidate for designing millimeter-wave waveguide slot antenna, and can be used for navigation, radar, and other high-frequency communication systems.