Monolithically Integrated Corporate-Fed Cavity-Backed Antennas

• Published in: IEEE transactions on antennas and propagation Vol. 57; no. 9; pp. 2583 - 2590
• Main Authors: Saito, Y., Lukic, M.V., Fontaine, D., Rollin, J.-M., Filipovic, D.S.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York, NY IEEE 01.09.2009; Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Antenna arrays; Antenna feeds; Antenna measurements; Antennas; Applied sciences; Arrays; Bandwidth; cavity-backed patch antenna; combining network; Exact sciences and technology; Gain; Gain measurement; Micromachining; mu -rectangular coaxial line; Networks; Patch antennas; Power dividers; Radiocommunications; Reflection; Reflection coefficient; Slits; surface micromachining; Telecommunications; Telecommunications and information theory; Performance evaluation; Micromachining; Printed antenna; Coaxial line; combining network; Power divider; surface micromachining; μ-rectangular coaxial line; Cavity; Ka band; cavity-backed patch antenna; Antenna array; Reflectance
• ISSN: 0018-926X; 1558-2221
• DOI: 10.1109/TAP.2009.2027155

A Ka-band monolithically integrated 4 × 1 corporate-fed cavity-backed patch antenna array is demonstrated in this paper. A single antenna element has four slits introduced to extend the bandwidth to about 8%. Its gain and radiation efficiency are 6.3 dBi and 97%, respectively. A rectangular ¿-coaxial line based combining network is monolithically integrated with radiating elements in a slightly modified tile configuration. Specifically, to reduce the array footprint power dividers are aligned along the array axis. Combining network has height 1/2 that of the array and feed lines do not route through the antenna elements. Overall loss of the combining network is 0.5 dB at 30 GHz. Measured reflection coefficient bandwidth and maximum gain of the fabricated 4 × 1 corporate-fed array are 13.7% and 12.73 dBi, respectively. The array is designed and fabricated in a recently developed surface micromachining process known as PolyStrata.