Antipodal Vivaldi Antenna with Star Trek insignia-based side slot edge for ultra-wideband applications

Abstract

This article presents a Vivaldi Antipodal Antenna (AVA) with lens and radiating side cavities based on the Star Trek insignia, called Star Trek Side Edge Radiation (STSER-AVA). The objective was to improve parameters to make the radiation of the proposed antenna more directive. To this aim, the development is focused on reducing the squint of the central radiation beam and the side lobe level (SLL), as well as increasing the gain compared to a Conventional AVA. To achieve the objective, using an optimized design. The proposed antenna with or without a lens reached the target with a squint of -2.0 degrees, at 3.90 GHz the antenna with a lens achieved better gain (9.42 dB), but with a greater reduction in SLL of -10.73 dB compared to the lens less antenna. The results were obtained with computational electromagnetic simulations and experimental measurements.