Circularly polarized antenna array with a new sequential phase feed network utilizing directional coupler

Abstract

This is a presentation of a new design of circularly polarized (CP) antenna array having a wide axial ratio (AR) bandwidth and high-gain. It uses an innovative feed network which consists of compact directional couplers and a delay line describing a new kind of sequential phase (SP) feed network. Furthermore, in this work, we report and discuss the features of the feed network and single element. In the following, the single element antenna and the 2 × 2 CP antenna array are designed, prototyped and tested. The antenna array is designed by a multilayer microstrip structure with a compact size of 75 × 52 mm2. Moreover, a metal reflector is utilized to enhance the antenna gain and achieve a unidirectional radiation pattern over the operating frequency band. According to the experimental results, the CP antenna array has a return loss (RL) bandwidth of 2.42 GHz (5.83–8.25 GHz), AR bandwidth of 1.11 GHz (6.76–7.87 GHz), and peak gain of 12.15 dBic. It seems that the performance of the proposed design is admirable for C-band frequency.