A High Efficiency Ku-band Ridge Gap Waveguide Array Antenna

A Ku-band high-gain and high-efficiency <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$\mathbf{8} \times \mathbf{8}- \mathbf{element}$</tex> slot array antenna was proposed, designed, simulated, and optimized. The prototype of the <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$\mathbf{8}\times \mathbf{8}-\mathbf{element}$</tex> array antenna is fabricated by the NC milling process on an aluminum plate which can obtain the good mechanical strength performance based on the simulated results. The measured input reflection coefficients <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$\mathrm{S}_{11}$</tex> for the array antenna are below -10 dB over the desired frequency range from 14.2 to 15.2 GHz, and the gain of the array antenna is more than 26dBi, which can be agreement with the simulated results. The dimension of the prototype array antenna is about <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$\mathbf{144}\mathbf{mm}\times \mathbf{144}\mathbf{mm}\times \mathbf{18.3}\mathbf{mm}$</tex>, the measured total radiation efficiency of the array antenna is better than 65% in the designed bandwidth. And the weight of the prototype is only about 324g which is suitable for applying on the portable communication system which required the light weight.