Wideband flush-mounted surface wave antenna of very low profile

This paper presents the design of a compact and wideband surface wave antenna that exhibits very low profile and can be flush-mounted on a conformal platform. The proposed antenna comprises a tapered grounded ceramic slab, a unidirectional surface wave launcher, and a tapered impedance transition. T...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Chen, Zhuozhu, Shen, Zhongxiang
Other Authors: School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: 2015
Subjects:
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10356/96204
http://hdl.handle.net/10220/38458
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Institution: Nanyang Technological University
Language: English
Description
Summary:This paper presents the design of a compact and wideband surface wave antenna that exhibits very low profile and can be flush-mounted on a conformal platform. The proposed antenna comprises a tapered grounded ceramic slab, a unidirectional surface wave launcher, and a tapered impedance transition. The ceramic slab is smoothly tapered to transform the guided surface wave into radiated space wave over a wide frequency range. The surface wave launcher employs a probe-fed parallel plate waveguide with a modified parabolic reflecting wall and a metallic post, which are critical for effectively transforming the cylindrical waves to a unidirectional plane wave within a broad frequency range. Simulated results show that the proposed surface wave antenna achieves a wide operation bandwidth from 6.1 to 18 GHz with a thickness of only 0.12λ0 at the center frequency. Acceptable gain values with stable and quasi end-fire radiation beams are obtained over the entire frequency band. A prototype of the proposed antenna is fabricated and tested. Measured results are in good agreement with simulated ones.