Wideband High-Gain Dual-Polarized Array Antenna With Bottom-Coupled Feeding Structure

A $32\times 32$ dual-polarized high-gain high-efficiency antenna array with an enhanced wide operating band applied in remote telemetry systems is proposed. The basic element is composed of a cavity with stepped ridges and a bottom coupling feeding balun. By improving the profile of the stepped ridge, wideband radiation and miniaturization are realized. The balun is designed to coupling feed in a wideband and makes the elements easy to mass integrate with the feeding network. Compact air-filled stripline networks (AFSNs) are used to feed the small size antenna elements and have the characteristics of low transmission loss. The AFSN is finally fed by a double-layer ridge waveguide network (RWN). The complete array integrates the wideband miniaturized elements and the feeding networks, achieving an operating band of 57.1%. An array prototype is designed and fabricated. The measured results show that the operating bandwidth ranges from 10 to 18 GHz. The measured gain varies from 33.4 to 38.2 dBi. All physical apertures of the array are radiation apertures, and the antenna efficiency reaches 57%, which proves that the proposed antenna effectively widens the bandwidth of the high-efficiency feeding network integrated array.