UWB radar cross section reduction in a compact antipodal Vivaldi antenna

摘要

This paper presents the design of a compact antipodal Vivaldi antenna (AVA) with reduced radar cross section (RCS) for directional UWB communications. The impedance characteristics of a conventional AVA are improved by introducing a BALUN taper in the ground plane and circular slots of different diameters in the wings of the AVA. The slots on the wings improve the RCS performance of the antenna by rejecting the orthogonal radiations from the AVA. Furthermore, drills of suitable diameter are introduced to further enhance the monostatic RCS performance. The proposed AVA offers 74% size reduction compared to the existing AVAs reported in literature with its bandwidth extending from 3 GHz to over 12 GHz. The prototype AVA is fabricated and the simulation results are verified using experimental measurements. The prototype antenna offers at least 11 dB reduction in RCS throughout the operating bandwidth with a peak reduction of 16 dB at 7 GHz and 11 GHz. (C) 2018 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.