A High-Efficiency Ultral-Wideband Dual-Polarization Array Antenna

Abstract

The ultra-wideband(UWB) large-angle scan array antenna is the base of electronic countermeasures and wideband radar. Almost the ultra-wideband array are the tightly coupled array, and all the antenna element spacing of the array is less than half a wavelength of highest frequency. A new 3: 1 bandwidth dual-polarization tightly coupled array antenna is designed. The new antenna is a pure metal vivaldi antenna, and it's feed by the inner conductor of a RF connector directly. The antenna element spacing is bigger than half a wavelength of highest frequency, by adjust the thickness of the antenna to enhance the coupling between antenna elements, which means the antenna has higher efficiency. By use two-dimensional periodic boundary in HFSS, the antenna is simulated and optimized. The antenna is measured, the active-VSWRs at 6-18GHz are blew 3, the unweighted side lobe is less than −13dB, and the cross-polarization within the operation band are better than −25dB.