On the Enhancement of Scanning and Gain Flatness of Leaky-Wave Gap-Waveguide Antennas with Glide Symmetry

The gain of leaky-wave antennas typically has a frequency dependence, since at different frequencies use different amount of the available aperture. The frequencies variations of the gain are more significant when the bandwidth of operation is wider. Here, we propose a leaky-wave antenna in groove gap-waveguide technology with glide-symmetric leaky pins to improve the gain flatness and scanning angle. To validate this technique, one antenna is designed following this technique. Its realized gain is improved more than 3.0 dB in the frequency band from 8.5 GHz to 14.5 GHz. The 3-dB realized gain bandwidth is enhanced from 4 GHz (36%) to 6.2 GHz (55%), with a enhanced scanning angle from 18.0° to 32.5°.