Symmetrically Direct Coupled Stacked Broadband Microstrip Antenna

Abstract

ABSTRACT A technique employing the use of directly coupled stacked patches to increase impedance bandwidth with reduced cross-polarization is proposed in this paper. The top stacked multi-resonator configurations are directly excited by employing metallic shorting posts (vias) between the metallic patches. In stacked directly coupled MSA, a bandwidth of 25.8% and a gain of 8.8 dBi with a gain variation of ±0.2 dB over the band are achieved. The cross-polar levels for this configuration are less than −15 dB and −5 dB at lower and upper frequencies, respectively. To suppress the cross-polar components, a symmetrically direct-coupled stacked MSA design is proposed. In this configuration, a bandwidth of 26.1% and a gain of 9.3 dBi with ±0.3 dB variation over the entire bandwidth are achieved. The cross-polar levels are significantly suppressed up to −25 dB and −16 dB at lower and upper frequencies, respectively. The proposed antenna configurations are designed and fabricated. The experimental results agree with the simulated results.