Analysis of a high power microwave radial line slot antenna

Abstract

A traditional radial line slot antenna (RLSA) is a high gain planar array. To improve the power handling capacity, we design a radial line slow wave structure which replaces a traditional dielectric sheet in the radial waveguide of the traditional RLSA. This high power microwave (HPM) RLSA is fed from a double-layered radial line waveguide to realize the directional radiation of the microwave. However, the track of the widen slot array on the upper waveguide could cause large reflection, which disturbs the normal antenna operation, accordingly a reflection canceling slot is added to the lower waveguide, the key technology employed in the design of the HPM RLSA and the antenna return-loss is effectively improved. This article mainly gives the design theory of this antenna, which is confirmed by the simulations and experiments. At 9.4 GHz, the calculated aperture efficiency reaches more than 40%, the reflectance is less than 0.1, the radiation efficiency is more than 99% and its measured power-handling capacity exceeds 700 MW.