Cost-Effective Ultra-wideband Tightly Coupled Dipole Array (TCDA) with Low Profile

In this paper, a low-profile tightly coupled dipole array (TCDA) with ultra-wideband (UWB) and wide scanning capability has been proposed for Ku-band communication. Several main new features of the designed antenna are presented. The proposed dipole is excited by a simplified Γ-shaped probe. A wide impedance bandwidth matching is achieved by three shorting posts connected to each dipole arm. The unwanted common mode is suppressed by means of an E-wall constructed from a pair of shorted strips beneath the dipole. Also, a metasurface (MS) is used as a wide angle impedance matching (WAIM) layer realized with H-shaped elements to increase the impedance matching performance of the proposed TCDA in both E- and H-planes. Numerical simulations show that the TCDA antenna has a relative bandwidth of 3.17 : 1 (10.3 − 32.7 GHz) at a VSWR ≤ 2.3 for broadside. The good performance is maintained for a 60° scanning angle from 10.5−22.5 GHz at a VSWR ≤ 2.6 in both the E- and H-planes. The proposed TCDA has a low profile and can be realized by a cost-effective multilayer substrate manufacturing making it a potential candidate for commercial applications.