Dual-Polarized Full-Metal Perpendicular-Corporate-Feed Parallel-Plate Waveguide Slot Array Antenna
Yaxiang Wu, Jiro Hirokawa, Takashi Tomura
Abstract
This article presents a dual-polarized full-metal perpendicular-corporate-feed waveguide slot array antenna. A single-layered slotted parallel-plate waveguide with corporate feed is initially proposed to realize a dual-polarized array. This design eliminates the necessity for complex cavity peripheries in the traditional cavity-backed corporate-feed array, offering a simpler antenna configuration. Wide crossed radiating slots and a modified orthogonal mode converter with better isolation are developed in the 2x2 subarray, leading to significant bandwidth improvement despite its simple structure. Next, two set corporate-feed circuits with H-plane hollow waveguides connect the subarray. A 16x16-slot array is designed, and its feeding part is fabricated by diffusion bonding of thin laminated copper plates in the V-band. The measured overlapped bandwidth for reflection less than -10 dB is 8.8%, and the isolation between the two feeding ports is better than 50.8 dB from 56 GHz to 67 GHz. The measured peak realized gain is above 32.3 dBi for the two polarizations. The antenna efficiency is higher than 60%, with an overlapped bandwidth of 9.8%.