A broadband single-layer substrate integrated waveguide cavity-backed slot array antenna with improved gain

ABSTRACT A single-layer substrate-integrated waveguide (SIW) cavity-backed slot array antenna with broad impedance bandwidth and improved gain is presented in this paper. In the element design, a multi-branch slot and a pair of inclined slots are designed on the top layer of the SIW as radiating structure and the grounded coplanar waveguide feeding structure are used for impedance matching, which ensures that the triple special resonant modes with the odd TE120 mode, the half TE120 mode, and a hybrid mode can be excited successfully to obtain broad impedance bandwidth and high gain, because of its low order and adjacent working frequencies points. Following this, an array antenna consisting of four elements and a four-way microstrip feeding network using only single-layer substrate structure is simulated and fabricated. The measured impedance bandwidth of the four-element array antenna achieves up to 34.4% and the measure peak gain at desired frequency band is 14.4 dBi with an aperture efficiency of 71.1%. The measured results prove that the proposed design has advantages of simple structure, broadband, and high gain, which is expected to be applied in high-speed vehicular communication system.