High gain metamaterial loaded antipodal tapered slot antenna over 20–40 GHz for imaging applications

Abstract

We propose a novel high gain antipodal tapered slot antenna over 20–40 GHz for high resolution imaging applications. We design the radiating fins of the antenna as elliptical and circular shape for inner and outer tapers respectively. We incorporate isosceles trapezoid-shaped dielectric lens in the antenna and load it with an anisotropic left-handed metamaterial unit cells to obtain high gain and stable radiation pattern. The antenna is printed on RT/Duroid 5880 substrate and occupies a volume of 30 × 55 × 0.254 mm3. The measured results show good agreement with the simulation results over 20–40 GHz. The proposed antenna has a compact size and exhibits improved gain and stable radiation pattern as compared to the other state-of-the-art designs. We demonstrate the suitability of the proposed antenna for imaging applications such as concealed weapon detection and detection of defects in structures using simulation-based case studies. The retrieved images show that the proposed antenna can be used effectively for high resolution imaging applications.