Design of a Dual-Polarization Single-Ridged Waveguide Slot Array With Enhanced Bandwidth

Abstract

A dual-polarization slotted waveguide array based on a single-ridged waveguide (SRWG) with enhanced working bandwidth and low cross-polarization is designed and fabricated. A longitudinal slot etched on the broad sidewall of the SRWG is employed for the vertical polarization (VP) radiating element, and a V-shaped slot cut on the ridged sidewall of the SRWG is used as a horizontal polarization (HP) radiating element. The width of the radiating slots is weighted to broaden the bandwidth of the radiating parts. A corporate feed network is employed as the feed network instead of a conventional series feed network. An 8 × 8 array is fabricated by milling and vacuum brazing. The measured VSWR < 2.0 bandwidth of the HP and VP arrays are 2.1 GHz (12.4%) and 1.6 GHz (9.4%), respectively, at the center frequency of 17 GHz. The gain of the HP and VP arrays are higher than 22.1 and 21.5 dBi with antenna efficiencies better than 59.3% and 52.9% over the operation bandwidth of 16.25–17.85 GHz.