Tapered slotted Vivaldi antenna design using Fourier series approach for UWB applications

Antenna designed for ultra wide band (UWB) applications should offer a wider bandwidth with minimum distortion of pulses. One such antenna which meets these requirements is the Vivaldi antenna. In a conventional Vivaldi antenna the radiating flare is restricted to take an exponential profile. This paper presents the design of slot loaded Vivaldi antenna, using Fourier series approach. Here the geometry of the profile is not restricted and takes an optimized shape, to meet the objective of maximum gain subject to minimum reflection coefficient (Su). Antenna performance obtained from simulations and hardware prototype measurements shows good agreement, which verifies the proposed design concepts.