Hexagonal Slot Antennas For Broadband CP Operation
Hexagonal Slot Antennas For Broadband CP Operation
Hexagonal Slot Antennas For Broadband CP Operation
Introduction
In the past, the study of the slot antennas has focused on those with a narrow slot
[1]. From the literature, it is believed that the dimension of the slot and the feed
point topology affect much the input impedance. Recently, it is reported that the
microstrip-fed slot antennas with a wider-radiating slot exhibit a larger
impedance bandwidth [2]. In [3], the authors showed that wide impedance
bandwidth can be obtained by designing the radiating slot in hexagonal shape
and fed by a microstrip line. It was demonstrated in that work that by increasing
the size of the hexagonal slot, the impedance bandwidth can be made wider. In
addition, the wider bandwidth can also be achieved by special feeding structures
such as the T-shape and U-shape feed-lines [4, 5]. It is indicated in [6] that
wider bandwidth is obtained when the feed line is located along the diagonal of
the square slot. On the other hand, circularly polarized (CP) slot antennas are
expected to have much wider CP bandwidth than that of microstrip antennas due
to its wide bandwidth characteristic. The CP slot antennas usually utilize a
single feed with a perturbation element to reduce the design complexity. Two
methods are often employed in the related antenna designs. One of the methods
uses an asymmetric slot structure [7] to perturb the distribution of the magnetic
current. Then the CP operation can be obtained with the simultaneous excitation
of the feed-line and perturbation element. The other method employs an L-shape
feed-line to excite two orthogonal modes with the same amplitude and a 90°
phase difference in the slot [8]. In such a way, the antenna CP bandwidth can be
achieved up to 5%. In this paper, a newly designed broadband CP slot antenna
with a hexagonal slot is proposed. Sample antennas with different sizes of the
hexagonal slot were fabricated and measured for verification. Details of the
antenna design and the obtained results are presented in the following sections.
Figure 1 shows the geometry of the proposed broadband hexagonal slot antenna.
The hexagonal slot that has four long sides of length L and two short sides of
length W is etched in the ground plane of an FR4 substrate with a thickness 1.6
mm and a relative permittivity 4.4. The slot is fed by a 50 Ω non-uniform
microstrip feed-line. To achieve good impedance matching, the latter part of the
microstrip width (Wm) is made widen, and a pair of slits with length Lg and
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Table 1 Performance of some sample antennas of Fig. 1. Impedance
bandwidth is determined for VSWR ≤ 2.
L W W m Ls Lg Lm fc RLBW CPBW Gain
(mm) (MHz) (MHz) (MHz) (dBic)
22.1% 5.1%
Ant. 1 30 0 10 15.5 8 18.2 2940 3.5
(2650~3300) (2890~3040)
22.4% 5.5%
Ant. 2 30 4 12 18.5 8 19.2 2620 3.6
(2250~2837) (2540~2685)
38.1% 9.1%
Ant. 3 30 8 18 22 4 18.7 2400 3.6
(2075~2987) (2310~2530)
39.7% 8.9%
Ant. 4 30 12 20 24 3.5 19.2 2390 3.1
(2012~2962) (2301~2514)
Figure 3 plots the measured axial ratio in the broadside direction. The CP
bandwidth of the Antenna 1 determined by 3 dB axial ratio is about 5.1% (2890
~ 3040 MHz) of the center frequency at 2940 MHz. Antenna 3 has the widest
CP bandwidth which reaches 9.1% (2310 ~ 2530 MHz) of the center frequency
at 2400 MHz. Table 1 shows that the CP bandwidth can be improved by
choosing appropriate short-side length W of the hexagonal slot. Figure 4
presents the measured spinning linear radiation patterns of Antenna 3 in two
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principal planes at 2400 MHz. Good (right-hand) CP radiation is obtained in the
broadside direction. The measured antenna gain is shown in Table 1. It is
observed that the variation of gain is small. As the short-side length W of the
hexagonal slot varies from 0 mm to 12 mm, the antenna gain variation is within
0.5 dBic.
Conclusion
In this paper, the hexagonal slot antennas with an L-shape microstrip-fed for
broadband CP operation have been designed, simulated, and verified by and
measurement. Results show that the CP bandwidth gets wider with the increased
short-side length W of the hexagonal slot. However, the CP bandwidth increases
slowly and stops broadening as the length W > 8 mm. In the obtained results, the
proposed CP hexagonal slot antenna with W = 8 mm (Antenna 3) has an
impedance bandwidth of about 38.1% and a wide 3-dB axial-ratio CP bandwidth
of about 9.1%. The antenna gain has been seen to be stable over a wide
frequency range and no less than 3.1 dBic in the operating band.
References
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