A printed wide-beamwidth circularly polarized antenna via two pairs of radiating slots placed in a square contour

Abstract

A low-profile circularly polarized (CP) slot antenna to achieve a wide axial-ratio (AR) beamwidth is proposed in this paper. The radiating patch consists of two orthogonal pairs of parallel slots etched symmetrically onto a ground plane. Firstly, our theoretical study demonstrates that the CP radiation can be satisfactorily achieved at the broadside, when the vertical and horizontal paired-slots are excited in the same amplitude with 90° phase difference. Secondly, the principle of CP radiation of the proposed antenna on an infinite ground plane is described. Through analyzing the spacing between two parallel slots, the |Eθ| and |Eφ| radiation patterns can be made approximately identical with each other over a large angle range. As such, the slot antenna achieves a wide AR beamwidth. After that, the 3 dB AR beamwidth with respect to the size of a finite ground plane is investigated to constitute a practical CP antenna on a finite ground plane. In final, the proposed CP antenna with a 1–4 probe-to-microstrip feeding network is designed and fabricated on a finite ground plane of a dielectric substrate. Measured results are shown to be in good agreement with the simulated ones about the gain, reflection coefficient, AR bandwidth, and radiation patterns. Most importantly, a wide 3 dB AR beamwidth of 126° and low-profile property with the height of 0.036λ0 are achieved.