Circularly Polarized 4 × 4 Array Antenna with a Wide Axial Ratio Bandwidth

Abstract

In this manuscript, we propose a circularly polarized (CP) antenna design that can achieve broadband axial ratio (AR) bandwidth in the X-band. A sequentially rotated serial feeding network is applied to achieve the broadband requirement. The proposed antenna consists of two substrates, one is for feeding elements and the other is for radiating elements. The 16 radiating elements located on an upper substrate are fed through cross-shaped slots located in a ground plane between two substrates. The feed network is based on a 1:4 power divider design and consists of a serial connection of the power dividers resulting in the proper power splitting to the 16 radiating elements. The proposed antenna is designed to exhibit an optimal radiation characteristic of around 8.2 GHz with a CP antenna gain greater than 16 dB and similarly wide impedance and AR bandwidths. Experiments with the fabricated CP antenna were performed to support the proposed CP antenna design theory and are in good agreement with the simulation results.