Waveguide-Based Differentially Fed Dual-Polarized Magnetoelectric Dipole Antennas

This paper proposes a concept of waveguide-based dual-polarized magnetoelectric (ME) dipole antenna. Based on this concept, two antenna designs with rectangular and triangular-shaped E-dipoles are studied and presented. The former is differentially fed by four probes and the latter by a turnstile junction orthomode transducer feed. Using 3-D printing technique, the corresponding prototypes are fabricated for demonstration. Experimental results show that the rectangular-shaped E-dipole design has a wide impedance bandwidth of 55.1% from 7.5 to 13.2 GHz and a stable gain of 6 ± 1.5 dBi. On the other hand, the triangular-shaped E-dipole design can achieve 62.8% impedance bandwidth from 7 to 13.4 GHz and 5.15 ± 0.95 dBi gain over the operating frequencies. Furthermore, it is found that both antennas have low cross polarization and backlobe radiation, both characteristics of ME dipoles. Due to the waveguide configuration, the proposed antennas have good mechanical and electrical performances. They can be easily implemented and applied for various high power capacity applications. With these advantages, the proposed antennas are good candidates for the satellite and other wireless communication systems.