Wideband circularly polarized square dielectric resonator antenna for WLAN/WiMAX applications

Abstract

In the present article, a novel single fed square dielectric resonator antenna (SDRA) is presented and two orthogonal modes ( TE 111 x and TE 111 y ) of SDRA are utilized to produce the wideband circular polarization. To generate circular polarization over a broad frequency band, a new technique known as hybrid DRA has been proposed in this article. In this technique, the feeding circuit act as a radiator and also provides feeding to the dielectric resonator which enhances the impedance and axial ratio bandwidth. A 3-dB axial ratio bandwidth of 26.66% is achieved by the SDRA excited through a rectangular patch united with 50 Ω microstrip line. In order to further increase the axial ratio bandwidth from 26.66% to 48%, a notch is truncated from the rectangular patch. The design antenna prototype has been fabricated and experimentally tested. Experimental results illustrate that the proposed structure has broad impedance and axial ratio bandwidth of 75.86% and 43.75%, respectively, and the entire axial ratio bandwidth fully matched with the impedance bandwidth. The proposed antenna produces a right handed circularly polarized (RHCP) field. By taking the mirror image of the proposed microstrip feeding, the RHCP field is converted into left handed circularly polarized (LHCP) field. This antenna is preferred for wireless applications such as indoors communication, remote sensing, wireless sensor systems and WLAN/WiMAX applications.