Broadband antipodal tapered slot antenna array with low mutual coupling and high gain properties

摘要

Strong mutual coupling always exists between the elements of the antenna array, thereby affecting its radiation capability. For this problem, an efficient method for suppressing the mutual coupling of array elements and improving the radiation performance of the antenna is proposed. In this study, take the antipodal tapered slot antenna (ATSA) array, for instance, a set of split-ring resonators (SRRs) unit cells is incorporated into the design to reduce leakage of the side walls at first. With the adding of SRRs, the mutual coupling in the entire operating frequency band (1.4-10 GHz) gets reduced, and the maximum reduction of 35 dB can be achieved. In addition, in order to compensate for the gain reduction caused by the isolation material, the grooves and semi-circular dielectric lens were introduced to enhance the low- and high-frequency gain, respectively. The gain of the proposed ATSA array can be improved by similar to 3.2 dB. At last, the proposed ATSA array has broadband, high gain with lower mutual coupling properties. This decoupling and gain-enhancing mechanism can be applied to other antenna designs.