Substrate Integrated Waveguide Horn Research Articles

Wideband and Low-Profile H-Plane Ridged SIW Horn Antenna Mounted on a Large Conducting Plane

This communication presents a wide-band and low-profile H-plane horn antenna based on ridged substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) with a large conducting ground. The horn antenna is implemented in a single substrate with a thickness of 0.13 λ0 at the center frequency. Despite its low profile, the new H-plane horn antenna achieves a very wide bandwidth by employing an arc-shaped copper taper printed on the extended dielectric slab and a three-step ridged SIW transition. The ridged SIW is critical for widening the operation bandwidth and lowering the characteristic impedance so that an excellent impedance matching from the coaxial probe to the narrow SIW can be obtained over a wide frequency range. Measured VSWR of the fabricated horn antenna is below 2.5 from 6.6 GHz to 18 GHz. The antenna also exhibits stable radiation beam over the same frequency range. It is observed that measured results agree well with simulated ones.

Phase Corrected Substrate Integrated Waveguide H-Plane Horn Antenna With Embedded Metal-Via Arrays

A novel phase corrected substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) H-plane horn antenna with embedded metal-via arrays is presented. The SIW horn is divided into four subhorns by three metal-via arrays inside the horn. A uniform phase distribution of EM field across the horn aperture is achieved by adjusting the lengths and positions of the metal-via arrays. The proposed horn antenna has a compact profile, and its simulated gain is 7.50 dBi at 35.5 GHz, whereas the simulated gain of a traditional horn antenna without the metal-via arrays is 6.38 dBi. When measured, the gain of the proposed horn antenna is 7.87 dBi at 35.5 GHz, whereas the gain of the traditional horn antenna is 5.58 dBi. Good agreement between the simulated and the measured results is obtained.

Bandwidth Enhancement of SIW Horn Antenna Loaded With Air-Via Perforated Dielectric Slab

A substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) horn antenna loaded with air-via perforated dielectric slab for bandwidth enhancement is proposed in this letter. The narrow impedance bandwidth of the planar horn antenna is mainly resulting from the discontinuity between the substrate and air. By simply drilling air-vias with different diameters in the substrate extended from the horn aperture, a smooth transition from substrate to air can be achieved, which can enhance the impedance bandwidth of the antenna in much degree. Measured results show that the enhanced impedance bandwidth of 40% from 16 to 24 GHz is obtained with the return loss |S11| below -10 dB. In addition, stable radiation patterns are observed over the entire operating band.

Novel Thin and Compact H-Plane SIW Horn Antenna

The substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) technology allows to construct several types of commonly used antennas in a planar way. However, some practical constraints limit their performances when frequencies below 20 GHz are considered. In the case of SIW horn antennas, the available substrates are much thinner than the wavelength yielding to poor matching and undesired back radiation. In this paper, an innovative structure to overcome these limitations is presented. It consists of a transition printed on the same SIW substrate, which improves both the radiation and the matching performances of conventional SIW horns. The horn shape is also further optimized by reducing its dimensions required for a given directivity. This is obtained by modifying the horn profile in order to effectively combine different TE modes. Guidelines are provided to design this type of thin and compact SIW horn antenna. They were applied to manufacture a prototype in the Ku-band with a substrate thinner than λ0/10. Measurement results validate the proposed concepts showing excellent performances.

A Printed Transition for Matching Improvement of SIW Horn Antennas

The substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) technology allows to construct several types of commonly used antennas in a planar way. However, frequency limitations associated to commercial substrates appear in the implementation of certain types of antennas, e.g., SIW horn antennas are not well matched when the substrate thickness is much smaller than the wavelength. A printed transition is proposed to overcome this problem. Differently from current solutions, no bulky elements are required allowing to maintain the most important features of this technology namely its compactness and ease of manufacturing. In order to quickly analyze and design the transition, both a coupled resonator and a transmission line models are developed, together with design guidelines. The proposed transition is designed to match a H-plane SIW horn antenna built in a thin substrate (thickness <; λ <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">0</sub> /10) at different frequency bands at the Ku-band. Experimental results for 3 different transitions show that the matching characteristics are efficiently improved compared with the conventional SIW horn antenna and validates the proposed models.

E‐band SIW H‐plane horn antenna development

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to design and measure an H‐plane substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) 72 GHz backfired horn antenna chip. The SIW horn was fabricated on a standard 0.5‐μm GaAs process with substrate thickness of 100 μm.Design/methodology/approachPlanar SIW horn design method with standard GaAs circuit design rule was adopted. The input reflection coefficient and output antenna gain was simulated at the FEM‐based 3D full‐wave EM solver, Ansoft HFSS and measured at the Agilent E8361C Network Analyzer and Cascade 110 GHz probe station.FindingsThe measured input −6 dB bandwidth is about 0.9 GHz at a center frequency of 72.39 GHz. The maximum antenna power gain extracted from the path loss at 72.39 GHz is about −3.64 dBi.Research limitations/implicationsThin substrate exhibits larger capacitance and energy stores rather than radiates. Flat cutting restricts the arc lens design and results in the radiation plane mismatches to the air. Simple taper transition design makes the input bandwidth much narrower. The problems can be further improved by selecting thicker substrate and the multi‐section input CPW GSG pads to microstrip transition.Practical implicationsUnlike the traditional anechoic chamber, the antenna measurement station is exposed to the open space and chip antenna was supported by the FR4 substrate and the metal probing station plate. A fully characterization of the antenna open space environment before the measurement is needed.Originality/valueAn H‐plane SIW 72 GHz horn antenna was designed and studied. The antenna was using the GaAs 0.5‐μm MMICs process design rule includes the SIW designed cylindrical metal bars all being restricted in standard rectangular shape. Compare to traditional bulky waveguide horn antenna, the antenna chip size is only 1.8×1.7 mm2. The on‐wafer measurement is conducted to measure the input return loss and the maximum antenna power gain of the on‐chip antenna. The designed on‐chip SIW horn antenna is useful for the integrated design of the E band GaAs MMICs single‐chip RF transceiver.

Substrate integrated waveguide horn antenna with dielectric lens

AbstractA novel compact H‐plane horn antenna constructed is proposed for substrate integrated rectangular waveguide with ξr = 10.2. 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 measured gain of this antenna is about 9 dB; the bandwidth, at 10 dB return loss, is over 12%, and the antenna size is 39.175 × 14 × 2 mm3. The frequency band is 25.5–28.5 GHz. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 49: 168–178, 2007; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/mop.22086