A Gain Enhancement Study on a Vivaldi Antenna for Radar Applications

Abstract

This paper presents an exponential flared Vivaldi type antenna in two different modifications that achieved high bandwidth and gain. The proposed antenna has been designed and optimized, considering the integration feasibility of the phased array system. The proposed antenna has been obtained with the bandwidth 5.12-16.34 GHz by optimizing a standard exponential flared Vivaldi antenna topology on CuClad substrate with dielectric constant εr = 2.5. Including a half-circle as a hat notch and slots improve the antenna's directivity. The parametric study on notch elements is provided. The outcome of the parametric investigation is that those notch elements affect the directivity of the radiation characteristic without changing the S parameters due to its symmetrical characteristics.