A new uni-planar compact CPW fed surface wave launcher for leaky wave antenna applications at 24 GHz

A new uni-planar, compact and broadband surface wave launcher fed by a coplanar CPW is introduced. The launcher outperforms its previously reported Yagi-Uda based counterparts in terms of bandwidth, size and robustness. Being so compact in the lateral size allows two launchers to be arranged in a side-by-side configuration that have applications in scanning at a single frequency by means of substrate beam steering technique. All design aspects were considered such as surface wave excitation efficiency, CPW leakage, matching, bandwidth, directivity and modal purity.