Analysis and Experimental Study of Wideband Dielectric Resonator Antenna Arrays for Waveguide-Based Spatial Power Combining

Wideband coaxial probe-fed dielectric resonator antenna (DRA) arrays with hard horn excitation are investigated, in waveguide-based spatial power combining systems. The pyramidal horn is first studied by the Finite-Difference Time-Domain (FDTD) approach with region-by-region discretization and a uniform field distribution is obtained at the horn aperture. Then, a one dimensional 4times1 embedded DRA array is investigated inside E-plane sectoral hard horn. Finally, a two dimensional 3times3 embedded DRA array is studied inside a pyramidal hard horn. The systems' prototypes were fabricated and simulation results were compared with measurement results, showing a good agreement.