Linearly polarized high gain rectangular dielectric resonator antenna

Relatively directive, single element, linearly polarized, dielectric resonator antenna for the X band applications (10.25 GHz) is presented in the paper. Its operation is based on the excitation of higher order modes inside a rectangular dielectric resonator antenna of low relative permittivity (ε
_r
= 6.15) fed by an aperture coupled microstrip line. It is found out that the size of the ground plane has an impact on the maximum achievable gain of the proposed antenna and a tradeoff between the ground plane size and the maximum gain is determined. Moreover, the antenna is optimized for two different aspect ratios and its performance in both cases is analyzed and compared to each other.