Broad-band cavity-backed and probe-fed microstrip phased array antenna in X-band

The design of a broad-band cavity-backed microstrip phased array antenna is presented in this paper. The array antenna uses novel single layer cavity-backed microstrip patch elements supporting broad operating frequency band. The better angle scan performance of the array antenna can be obtained because of the using of the independent probe feeding technique. The design has been experimentally validated with an X-band planar 8×8 array. The array antenna providing 33.6% bandwidth with VSWR lower than 2. And the operating frequency range cover 7.9 ~ 11.1GHz. The antenna array supports wide angle scanning up to a maximum of 30 degrees at the whole operating frequency band. Consequently, a broadband cavity-backed microstrip phased array antenna with wide scan performance is successfully verified.