Wideband high‐gain SIW‐fed antenna array for mm‐Wave applications.

A wideband high‐gain mm‐Wave antenna array operating in Ka‐band is reported. The antenna element consists of an antipodal Vivaldi antenna (AVA) with plated through vias on the edges of the radiating arms, which is utilized to eliminate the harmful gap resonance due to the electrically discontinuity. A modified wideband 8‐way substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) power divider is proposed to feed the linear array. In addition, in order to enhance antenna gain, a stacked dielectric superstrate is employed, which achieves 2.3 dBi average gain improvement over 25‐40 GHz. The proposed structure provides superior bandwidth of 25.4‐40 GHz with S11 < −9.5 dB (corresponding to VSWR < 2). The modified SIW power divider, 1 × 8 AVA array and the dielectric superstrate are designed and fabricated, resulting in a wideband and high‐gain structure as compared to other SIW‐fed antennas. A prototype is experimentally verified. The measured results show that the impedance bandwidth ranges from 25.37 to 39.48 GHz (S11 < −9.6 dB, relative bandwidth of 43%). The measured gain varies from 15.5 to 18.5 dBi in the frequency range with an average gain of 16.6 dBi. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]