Substrate Integrated Waveguide H-plane Horn Research Articles

Guided-wave manipulation in SIW H-plane horn antenna by combining phase correction and holographic-based leakage

A hybrid technique is proposed to manipulate the field distribution in a substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) H-plane horn to enhance its radiation characteristics. The technique comprises two cascaded steps to govern the guided waves in the structure. The first step is to correct the phase of fields and form a quasi-uniform distribution in the flare section so that the gain increases and side-lobe-level (SLL) decreases. This is obtained by loading the structure with a novel modulated metal-via lens. Field expansion on the radiating aperture of the SIW H-plane horn generates backward surface waves on both broad walls which increases the backlobe. In the second step, these backward surface waves are recycled and directed forward with the aid of holography theory. This is achieved by adding a couple of dielectric slabs with holographic-based patterns of metallic strips on both broad walls. With this step, the backlobe is reduced and the endfire gain is further increased. Using the proposed technique, the structure is designed and fabricated to operate at f=30 GHz which simultaneously improves the measured values of gain to 11.65 dBi, H-plane SLL to -,17.94 dB, and front-to-back ratio to 17.02 dB.

A Millimeter-Wave Substrate Integrated Waveguide H-Plane Horn Antenna With Enhanced Gain and Efficiency

A modified substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) H-plane horn antenna with enhanced gain and efficiency is proposed. The design features a multilayer hollow-core printed circuit board with integrated power-dividing and phase-shifting structures that simultaneously achieves low dielectric loss within the antenna and a refined field distribution over the radiating aperture. The antenna gain is further improved by loading a dipole array at the opening aperture of the SIW horn. Within an impedance bandwidth of 15.5%, the proposed antenna achieves a gain of up to 12.5 dBi, a radiation efficiency of 90%, and an aperture efficiency of 510%. Attractive merits including enhanced gain, high efficiency, and broad bandwidth make the proposed design a promising candidate for millimeter-wave (mmW) applications.

High Gain SIW H-Plane Horn Antenna with 3D Printed Parasitic E-Plane Horn

Substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) technology that combines 3D and 2D structures has been successfully utilized due to its notable advantages, including in its application to H-plane horn antennas. As this type of antenna is commonly constructed on thin substrates, the E-plane radiation pattern is always wide, thereby limiting the achievable gain performance. In this work, we propose an approach that incorporates 3D printed horns on a prefabricated SIW H-plane horn antenna to successfully narrow the E-plane radiation pattern, thereby improving the gain performance. The proposed E-plane horn is designed at the aperture of the original H-plane horn, providing a smooth and continuous wave transition from the thin substrate to the end-fire direction. This approach improves the directional radiation performance significantly and reduces fabrication time and associated difficulties as the parasitic structures are simply attached to the SIW horn, without the requirement of redesigning or refabricating the original antenna. From 20 to 25 GHz, an optimized prototype shows excellent performance. At 22.7 GHz, it exhibits 35° and 33° for the E- and H-plane half-power beamwidths (HPBWs), with corresponding side-lobe levels (SLLs) of −23 dB and −15 dB. The present research reveals that the proposed design presents high feasibility and a reduced demand for high-precision manufacturing processes at a lower cost, concomitantly providing an effective means to further improve on the radiation characteristics.

Compact Slow-Wave SIW H-Plane Horn Antenna With Increased Gain for Vehicular Millimeter Wave Communication

A substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) H-plane horn antenna with miniaturized longitudinal dimension and increased gain is proposed by loading slow-wave (SW) structures in the form of metallized blind via-holes inside the flare region of the horn for vehicular millimeter wave communications. The slow-wave structure can reduce the phase velocity around the center line of the broad wall and compensate the large phase difference between the center and edge of the aperture caused by reduction of longitudinal length of the horn. Compared with optimum horn with the same aperture width, the gain of miniaturized SIW horn is successfully increased, while the longitudinal dimension is decreased. A SW-SIW horn antenna which covers the 28 GHz band (27.5–28.35 GHz) allocated by Federal Communications Commission for the 5G millimeter wave communications is designed to verify the feasibility of the miniaturized SIW horn antenna facilitated by the proposed slow-wave structure. The SW-SIW horn realizes 53.83% reduction of longitudinal length compared with the optimum horn. The gain of the SW-SIW horn is improved by 1.1 dB on average over 27.5–28.5 GHz compared with optimum horn. A prototype of the proposed SW-SIW H-plane horn antenna is manufactured and measured. The measured results agree well with the simulations.

Dielectric‐loaded substrate integrated waveguide H‐plane horn antenna with embedded air cavity

A new type of dielectric-loaded substrate integrated waveguide H-plane horn antenna with an embedded air cavity is proposed aiming to improve E-plane performance on a thin substrate. Comparing with recent works, this design attracts superior radiation performance only requiring drilling process to embed a rectangular air cavity in the extended dielectric loading. The measurement results show that at 24.15 GHz, the proposed antenna provides a gain of 13 dBi and 27.7 dB front-to-back ratio with narrow 34.3° and 27.3° half-power beamwidths in E- and H-plane. From 22 to 27 GHz, the side lobe level in E-plane is reduced below −10 dB. The entire proposed antenna size is 59 × 16 × 3.175 mm.

Dielectric-Loaded SIW H-Plane Horn Antenna With Gradient Air Slots

In this letter, a new structure of a dielectric-loaded substrate integrated waveguide H-plane horn antenna with gradient air slots, fed by a coaxial pin, is proposed. This novel structure aims at improvements in the radiation characteristics, including the gain, front-to-back ratio (FTBR), both E- and H-planes half-power beamwidth (HPBW), and sidelobe level (SLL). The measurements of the fabricated antenna show 15.4 dBi gain, 37 dB FTBR, and narrow E- and H-plane HPBW of 35° and 27° respectively, at 24.15 GHz. The entire antenna structure design is briefly expressed to combine the advantage of one single Rogers TMM4 thermoset laminate layer for reduced manufacturing difficulties and ensured improved performance. The optimized proposed antenna is fabricated by standard printed circuit board (PCB) manufacturing process, with the overall size 61.2 mm × 18.6 mm × 3.175 mm.

Substrate Integrated Waveguide Filtering Horn Antenna Facilitated by Embedded Via-Hole Arrays

A substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) H-plane filtering horn antenna with embedded metallized via-hole arrays is proposed in this letter. The SIW H-plane filtering horn originates from a simple SIW H-plane horn with very narrow bandwidth and no frequency selectivity performance. To significantly increase bandwidth, two metal strips are printed on both sides of the substrate near the radiating aperture of the horn antenna. Critically, four rows of inductive metallized via holes are embedded into the flare region of the horn antenna, forming three coupled resonant cavities to achieve filtering function without any increase of the antenna dimension. The proposed SIW H-plane filtering horn antenna achieves good frequency selectivity, which satisfies the increasing demand of the miniaturization and integration of multifunctional devices. An optimized prototype is manufactured and measured to verify the design feasibility. The results show that the filtering performance is successfully realized with high level of integration.

Gain and Bandwidth Improvement of Empty Substrate Integrated Waveguide H-plane Horn Antenna at W-band

A high-gain broadband empty substrate integrated waveguide (ESIW) H-plane horn antenna constructed by four low-cost printed circuit board (PCB) layers is proposed in this paper. The empty structure is fabricated by using high-precision laser engraving technology. A slotted rectangular dielectric load (SRDL) is introduced by simply extending the substrates, resulting a 4-dB gain enhancement and a 31% bandwidth improvement. The proposed antenna gives a measured realized gain at 14.5-dBi level with a relative impedance bandwidth larger than 19.6% (|S11| ≤ − 10 dB). The proposed antenna features the merits of low cost, high gain, and broad bandwidth.

Development a new wideband substrate integrated waveguide H-plane horn antenna loaded with periodically diamond patches

This paper presents a new wideband Substrate Integrated Waveguide (SIW) H-plane horn antenna. A few rows of diamond patches are printed on the top and bottom side of the dielectric slab at front of the radiating aperture of a conventional horn to improve impedance matching. The proposed antenna is numerically investigated using a software package and a prototype of the antenna is made to validate the obtained simulated results. The measured results show that the introduced antenna provides 22.7% impedance bandwidth, which covers from 20.8 GHz to 26.15 GHz with stable end-fire radiation patterns, while Side Lobe Level (SLL) is lower than −10 dB over the operating bandwidth.

A 18–40 GHz Substrate Integrated Waveguide H-Plane Horn Antenna

A 18-40 GHz wideband substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) H-plane horn antenna is proposed for applications on both the K- and Ka-bands. By employing a grating transition in front of the horn aperture, the impedance bandwidth (IBW) of the proposed antenna is broadened considerably. A broadband double-ridge waveguide (DRW)-to-SIW transition is also developed as the feeding structure for the proposed SIW H-plane horn antenna. The DRW is adopted to support a wider IBW as compared to that of a rectangular waveguide. A prototype of the proposed antenna is experimentally verified. The measured results show that the IBW for |S <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">11</sub> | ≤ -10 dB ranges from 18 GHz to more than 40 GHz, covering the entire Kand Ka-bands. The measured gain varies from 7.52 to 15.37 dBi with an average gain of 11.58 dBi. In addition, the endfire radiation patterns are observed and maintained within the IBW.

Quasi-corrugated substrate integrated waveguide H-plane horn antenna with wideband and low-profile characteristics

A wideband H-plane horn antenna based on quasi-corrugated substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) technology with a very low profile is presented in this article. Open-circuited microstrip stubs are applied to create electric sidewalls of the quasi-corrugated SIW structure. The quasi-corrugated SIW H-plane horn antenna shows high performance and simple structure. A specify-shaped horn aperture is utilized, so that the poor impedance matching owing to the structure restriction can be smoothened. The structure is simulated by ANSYS HFSS and a prototype is fabricated. The measured results match well with the simulated ones. An enhanced impedance bandwidth ranging from 5.3 GHz to 19 GHz (VSWR < 2.5) is achieved. The presented antenna also brings out stable radiation beam over the same frequency band.

Printed H ‐plane horn antenna with loaded dielectric‐metal composite lens

A printed H-plane horn antenna with loaded composite E-plane dielectric-metal lens is proposed and analysed in this study. The loaded lens of this horn antenna, which is parallel fed through an Sub-Miniature-A coaxial connecter, is integrated on one printed substrate circuit board by utilising the substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) technique. To well illustrate the superiority of the proposed antenna, three types of antennas, namely an SIW H-plane horn antenna without any load, an SIW H-plane horn antenna only loaded with the dielectric slab, and the proposed SIW H-plane horn antenna loaded with both dielectric slab and E-plane metal lens (dielectric-metal composite lens), are manufactured, measured and analysed. Compared with the horn antenna only with a loaded dielectric slab, the proposed antenna with dielectric-metal composite lens achieves a higher gain of more than 2 dB in the operating bandwidth. Besides, the antenna has a relatively lower profile and smaller size, which makes the proposed antenna more easily to be fed, integrated and form arrays.

Substrate Integrated Waveguide Horn Antenna on Thin Substrate With Back-Lobe Suppression and Its Application to Arrays

A substrate integrated waveguide H-plane horn antenna on thin substrate with low back-lobe radiation is presented, and its application to arrays demonstrated. To suppress the back lobe, a pair of slots is employed in the top and bottom metallization. After size and position of the pair of slots are investigated, low back-lobe radiation is achieved. Moreover, the size of the horn aperture is approximately one wavelength, which is suitable for array applications. To highlight this point, the proposed horn antenna is used in a $1\,\times \,4$ planar array on a substrate as thin as one tenth of the wavelength. The array is designed, fabricated, and measured. Measurements show good agreement with simulations and suppressed back-lobe radiation with a 24 dB front-to-back ratio.

Wideband Circularly Polarized Substrate Integrated Waveguide Endfire Antenna System With High Gain

A K-band endfire substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) circularly polarized (CP) antenna system on a single-layer printed-circuit board is proposed. A high-gain SIW H-plane horn and a Vivaldi antenna are developed to produce two orthogonal polarizations in the plane of the substrate. They are combined with a low-profile SIW 3-dB coupler to provide identical feeding amplitudes with 90° phase difference. The performance of the CP antenna system is demonstrated over the 23-27-GHz frequency range by comparing simulations and measurements in terms of gain, axial ratio, radiation pattern, and return loss. The results show that the proposed antenna system operates with a wideband 3-dB axial ratio from 24.25 to 26.5 GHz and a high and uniform gain of almost 8 dB. Measured results are found in good agreement with simulations.

Substrate Integrated Waveguide H-Plane Horn Antenna With Improved Front-to-Back Ratio and Reduced Sidelobe Level

A cost-effective way of reducing sidelobe level and improving front-to-back ratio of the substrate integrated waveguide H-plane horn antennas is proposed in this letter. Metal rectangular patches and dielectric loading are integrated to the aperture of the horn antenna, resulting in an increased gain, narrow E-plane beamwidth, and reduced sidelobes and backward radiation. The overall dimensions of the fabricated antenna are 42 × 18.6 mm2 . The antenna works at 22.7 GHz with a measured gain of 10.1 dBi. A single substrate and a 3.5-mm connector with a transition pin are used to ensure the lowest cost for mass production.

Highly Efficient and Well-Matched Empty Substrate Integrated Waveguide H-Plane Horn Antenna

In this letter, an empty substrate integrated waveguide H-plane sectorial horn antenna is presented. The antenna is integrated within a planar substrate and is fed by means of a microstrip transmission line. It is composed of a partially empty substrate layer stacked between two cover metallic plates. Results obtained for a prototype designed and fabricated at Ku-band show a measured efficiency close to 90% and matched responses. No extra loading elements are needed in order to reduce reflection at the end of the aperture conversely to previous designs. Moreover, the structure is quite simple and cheap and does not depend on substrate characteristics, i.e., dielectric permittivity or loss tangent. This new methodology for manufacturing substrate integrated antennas without dielectric considerably improves the performance of conventional substrate integrated horn antennas.

Conformal SIW H-Plane Horn Antenna on a Conducting Cylinder

This letter presents a conformal wide-band substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) H-plane horn antenna mounted on a large conducting cylinder. The effect of a curved low-profile SIW H-plane horn is examined when it is mounted on a conducting cylinder of varying radius. In order to compensate the deterioration of the voltage standing wave ratio (VSWR) of the H-plane horn antenna, two air slots along the sides of the flare part of the antenna are cut. With the utilization of the slots, the matching between the feed line and the horn antenna is improved and the working frequency bandwidth is broadened simultaneously. Measured VSWR of the fabricated antenna is below 2.5 from 6.1 GHz to 19 GHz. The antenna also exhibits stable radiation beam over the same frequency range. It is observed that measured results agree well with simulated ones.

Design of high-gain SIW and HMSIW H-plane horn antenna using metamaterial

In this paper, a substrate-integrated waveguide (SIW) H-plane horn antenna has been designed for X-band applications. Metamaterial is incorporated for performance enhancement of the designed antenna. Capacitively loaded loop is used as the unit cell of metamaterial for achieving negative values of relative permittivity and relative permeability. A half-mode SIW H-plane horn antenna is also proposed in this paper which reduces the size of the antenna without much effect on its performance. Metamaterial is integrated on the half-mode horn as well for improvement in gain and radiation pattern. The antennas are fabricated and tested. Excellent agreement between the measured and simulated results was obtained.

A compact substrate integrated waveguide H-plane horn antenna with dielectric arc lens

An H-plane horn antenna constructed into SIW (substrate integrated waveguide) is proposed. It has a dielectric arc lens for better directivity and a simple microstrip transition as feed. The horn, the lens and the transition share the same substrate. The resulting formula from optical principles shows that the suitable dielectric lens can improve the directivity of the antenna significantly. A prototype was fabricated; the antenna size is 39.175 × 14 × 2 mm3. The frequency band is from 25.5 to 28.5 GHz. The measured gain of this antenna is about 9 dB; the bandwidth, at 10 dB return loss, is over 12%. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE, 2007.