High-Efficiency Waveguide Antenna with Low-Cost Materials for Radar Sensors in LRR and SRR Band

This paper presents a novel antenna structure de-signed to operate at the 77 GHz frequency for long-range radar (LRR) and short-range radar (SRR) applications. The proposed structure integrates an air waveguide in low cost materials such as FR4. The transmission takes place in the air and the waveguide walls are implemented with an electromagnetic band gap (EBG) structure in the printed circuit board (PCB). This new waveguide technology is used to design a slotted waveguide array. The design is optimized in terms of radiation pattern and directivity. In addition, the proposed slot antenna is modified to avoid diagonal side lobes in the 3D pattern, which is a common problem in non-uniform slot antennas. The proposed structure outperforms existing antenna technologies and opens new perspectives for the development of highly efficient antenna systems in the millimeter-wave range.