Circularly Polarized X-Band Fan-Beam Antenna and Its Application to Offset Reflector Systems

In this letter, a circularly polarized (CP) 4 × 4 array antenna generating a fan-beam radiation pattern is presented, along with its application as the primary pattern of an offset reflector antenna. A sequentially rotated feed network is incorporated into the proposed antenna, enabling a wide axial ratio (AR) bandwidth of 1.9 GHz centered at 8.2 GHz. The proposed array antenna generates about 27.5° and 14.5° of half-power beamwidth (HPBW) in ϕ=0° and ϕ=90° planes, respectively. The fabricated antenna shows good agreement with the simulated results in terms of impedance bandwidth, gain, and radiation characteristics. Furthermore, the offset reflector antenna fed by the proposed CP array is evaluated, resulting in a gain enhancement of approximately 17 dB and a fan-beam radiation characteristic with half-power beamwidths of 3.95° and 2.15°, with an axial ratio bandwidth of 1 GHz.