60 GHz membrane supported aperture coupled patch antenna based on FR4 and new thin Pyralux substrate

A low cost technology based on FR4 and thin flexible Pyralux substrate to develop membrane antennas with high efficiency and wide bandwidth for high speed V-band communication systems are proposed in this paper. The new low cost thin Pyralux substrate with a thickness of 75μm, relative permittivity of εr = 2.4 and tanδ = 0.002 is used. First we developed the known classical aperture coupled antenna based on FR4 and pyralux substrate to validate this technology. The simulated and measured antenna radiation parameters for a single patch aperture coupled technology give good results in terms of S11 bandwidth, gain and radiation pattern. Measurements of the antenna shows 9.7 % impedance bandwidth (S11= -10 dB) with 7.6 dBi maximum antenna gain around 60 GHz. Then we developed the slot coupled antenna with substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) technology. Measurements show the 10 % impedance bandwidth with 7.9 dBi maximum antenna gain around 60 GHz for a SIW single patch antenna. The efficiency in this case is found to be very good due to very low back radiation compared to classical aperture coupled antenna. The measured results are in good agreement with the numerical simulations. The new thin substrate used for making the antenna helps for the easy integration with millimeter wave components and circuits.