A compact low-side lobes three-layer array antenna for X-band applications

• Published in: International journal of electronics and communications 2019-02, Vol.99, p.1-7
• Main Authors: Mardani, Hossain, Nourinia, Javad, Ghobadi, Changiz, Majidzadeh, Maryam, Mohammadi, Bahman
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Array antenna; Low-side lobe; Three-layer; X-band
• ISSN: 1434-8411; 1618-0399
• DOI: 10.1016/j.aeue.2018.11.026

This paper proposes a low-side lobe lightweight array antenna for X-band applications with center frequency of 9.5 GHz. The proposed array antenna, being composed of 144 (12 × 12) single antenna elements, is designed in a three-layer configuration with total size of the 30 cm × 30 cm. Technically speaking, it is composed of two substrates and three conductive layers on the top, bottom, and between the substrate layers. The main part of the feeding network is located on the bottom side of the antenna structure while the radiating patches are printed on the top side. The ground plane is placed in the middle layer between the two substrates. Isolation of the feed network from the radiating patches, which is realized by the embedded ground plane, yields cross-polarization and side lobe levels (SLLs) reduction. Besides, the feeding system excites the top side patches by connecting to them through vias. Moreover, 1–6 power dividers in the feeding system are connected to each other to form the complete 144-element array configuration. Adopting this technique provides easy development of a planar 2n × 2n element array antenna. To achieve low side lobes, the Dolph-Chebyshev amplitude taper coefficients are used in the design process.