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Compact Omnidirectional Conformal Array Antenna in Waveguide Technology

Abstract:

A conformal array antenna has been designed in the waveguide technology in order to obtain an omnidirectional radiation pattern in the azimuth plane at the Ku-band. The antenna shape is a regular prism, where the single radiating elements, which consist of a rectangular waveguide ended on a cavity-slot, are placed on the planar faces of the prism. The physical dimensions as well as the number of faces of the regular prism have been optimized following the conformal array formulation in order to achieve a minimum ripple omnidirectional pattern. An eight-faced regular prism with an apothem of 20.6 mm has been selected as the radiating structure. The single elements are fed by an eight-way radial waveguide power divider symmetrically excited by a 50-Ω SMA input port. The use of waveguide technology to design the single elements and the feeding network makes the conformal array suitable for low losses and high-power applications. Several prototypes have been manufactured in order to experimentally validate the antenna performance. An omnidirectional pattern with a maximum ripple of 1.6 dB in the azimuth plane, 95.3% efficiency, and 11.7% input matching bandwidth has been measured.