Design of a 4-port Half-Circular AVA MIMO Antenna for Efficient Radar and Sensing Applications

The paper described the concept and technological assessment of a 4-port half-circular antipodal Vivaldi antenna (AVA) MIMO configuration that was suitable for radar and sensing applications. The antenna was constructed using a Teflon substrate (ε<inf xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">r</inf> = 2.1, tanδ = 0.0002) and a 50-Ω microstrip line, which operated in the frequency range of 13 GHz to 40 GHz. Due to the implementation of the ground circle and flare gaps, isolation levels better than -28 dB were achieved, resulting in a gain of 10.5 dB, which was acceptable and met the design criteria. The envelope correlation coefficient (ECC) was 0.0002, indicating that there was minimal mutual coupling among the elements. The efficiency of the system was further elucidated through the high diversity gain (DG) of 9.998 dB, channel capacity loss (CCL) not exceeding 0.4 bits/s/Hz, total active reflection coefficient (TARC) being less than -10 dB, mean effective gain (MEG) varying between -3.6 dB and -3.01 dB, and MEG ratio ranging between -0.07 dB and 0.089 dB. The performance parameters of the antenna suggested that it was suitable for good radar and sensor instances. Some targeted applications included wide coverage and high gain due to accurate targeting and mapping of images of the surrounding environment.