A High Gain Wide Beam U-Slot Elliptical Microstrip Patch Antenna for Phased Array Applications

A high gain and a wide beam U-Slot Elliptical Microstrip Patch Antenna(USEMPA) for phased array antenna (PAA) as required for radar applications is presented. This paper presents the design procedure of the USEMPA operating in the X-band. The antenna element proposed has a low profile and is easy to fabricate. The element shape is chosen and optimized to achieve a compact form factor much lesser than a half wavelength to minimize the mutual coupling effects. This also helps in blind mating the transceivers directly to the elements in an active PAA. The −10dB impedance bandwidth of the USEMPA is approximately 1GHz. The gain of the single element is 6.3dBi. This element is extended to a 4 × 4 array and is fabricated on RT Duroid 5880 substrate. The fabricated USEMPA 16-element array shows a scan volume of ±60° over a bandwidth of 1GHz. The gain of the 16-element array is 18.56dBi. The mutual coupling between any two elements of the fabricated USEMPA 16-element array is < −18 dB. Simulated and measured results are in close agreement.