Laminated waveguide as radiating element for phased array with brick architecture

This paper presents the study of a five-element array antenna prototype developed for communications in K-band. The radiating elements are radiating waveguides realised in laminated technology. The element exhibits a 1 GHz bandwidth around a 20.7 GHz centre frequency. The radiation patterns indicate a gain of 2.7 dBi. In an array configuration the input impedance of each radiating element is slightly perturbed by the proximity of the other antennas. The coupling between the elements, however, remains below -18 dB across the bandwidth. The simulated boresight radiation pattern of a five-element array is stable over the bandwidth and the gain reaches 9.2 dBi at 20.7 GHz. The scanned radiation patterns obtained by simulation show a good behaviour of this array for scan angles up to 50°.