Novel Stripline-fed Vivaldi Antenna Array with Wide Scanning Range

Abstract

In this paper, a wideband phased array based on the stripline-fed Vivaldi antenna is presented. The antenna covers the frequency band 6-18GHz. Very wide beam scanning angle is achieved. The antenna element is composed with a stripline-to-slotline transition, a stripline stub, a slotline cavity and a bilateral exponential slot, and has the feature of small size, light weight, and low cost. By numerically optimized, the antenna element operates from 6 to 18GHz with good VSWR, and wide scanning angles from -60° to 60°. The <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$k$</tex> phased array is designed, and the simulated results show that the average beam scanning gain can be greater than 20dB within the range of <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$\pm \mathbf{60}^{\circ}$</tex> . All the simulated results indicate that the proposed antenna have a good performance to scan over at wide angles while operating over a wide frequency band.