Design of a wideband loaded tapered slot antenna with broad beamwidth and enhanced front-to-back ratio

摘要

A loaded wideband tapered slot antenna (TSA) with broad beamwidth and enhanced front-to-back ratio (FBR) is proposed. The antenna is obtained by adding a series of loading structures to a traditional microstrip-fed linearly TSA (LTSA). The performance of the antenna with different loading structures has been discussed. Finally, the antenna is manufactured and measured. The measured results show good performance of impendence bandwidth is approximately 82.2% (4.3-10.3GHz) for VSWR2, while a pattern bandwidth of 50.4% (4.3-7.2GHz) for more than 100 degrees 3-dB beamwidth (HPBW) both in E-plane and H-plane is obtained. Moreover, a new method for FBR improvement is presented and a moderately high average FBR (AFBR) about 19dB is obtained in the pattern band. The simulated results agree with the measured results. All above indicates that the proposed antenna cannot only be used in wireless communication, but also as antenna unit of wide-scan phased array antennas (WSPAAs).