High Gain Bow-Tie Slot Antenna Array Loaded With Grooves Based on Printed Ridge Gap Waveguide Technology

• Published in: IEEE access Vol. 7; pp. 36177 - 36185
• Main Authors: Sifat, Syed M., Ali, Mohamed Mamdouh M., Shams, Shoukry I., Sebak, Abdel-Razik
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Piscataway IEEE 2019; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Antenna arrays; Antennas; Bandwidth; Bandwidths; Broadband; Gain; Grooves; High gain; Loaded antennas; Microstrip; Microwaves; Millimeter wave technology; Millimeter waves; New technology; periodic structure; Satellite communications; Slot antennas; T shape; Waveguides; wideband; Wireless communications
• ISSN: 2169-3536; 2169-3536
• DOI: 10.1109/ACCESS.2019.2902596

The development of wireless and satellite communication has led to a demand for high-performance microwaves and mm-wave components in terms of cost, losses, and fabrication complexity. Gap waveguide is one of the emerging technologies in 5G and mm-wave applications due to their low cost, low losses, and high power handling capability. In this paper, a groove-based wideband bow-tie slot antenna array is designed at 30 GHz based on printed ridge gap waveguide technology (PRGW). A two-section T-shaped ridge is designed to feed a bow tie slot placed on the upper ground of the PRGW. The gain of the proposed slot antenna is enhanced by using a horn-like groove. Then, the proposed high gain element is deployed to build up a 1 bow-tie slot antenna array loaded with three-layer groove antenna. The proposed antenna array is fabricated and measured, where the measured results show a -10-dB impedance bandwidth from 29.5 to 37 GHz (22%). The fabricated prototype achieves a high gain of 15.5 dBi and a radiation efficiency higher than 80% over the operating frequency bandwidth.