Broadband substrate integrated dielectric resonator antenna for millimeter-wave applications

A broadband substrate integrated dielectric resonator antenna (BSIDRA) is presented and investigated experimentally. The proposed BSIDRA consists of a substrate integrated dielectric resonator (SIDR) fed by a substrate integrated waveguide with an exciting slot. Dual resonances of the SIDR and the exciting slot radiator are merged to expand the antenna bandwidth. To validate the proposed concept, a prototype antenna is designed at Ka-band and fabricated with two different substrates using printed circuit board process. The return loss, radiation patterns, and antenna gain are studied, and good agreement between the measured and simulated results is observed. The proposed BSIDRA provides a bandwidth of about 25% around 35 GHz for 10 dB return loss and stable broadside radiation patterns with an average gain of 4.6 dBi across the band.