A thermally enhanced evanescent-mode dual-ridged waveguide antenna array for millimeter-wave applications

Abstract In this paper, we present an evanescent-mode dual-ridged waveguide antenna array designed for high-performance millimeter-wave wireless communications. The proposed antenna array addresses critical thermal management issues commonly encountered in active antenna array technologies operating at millimeter-wave frequencies, without compromising electromagnetic performance relative to more conventional alternative technologies. This improvement can be attributed to the metallic construction of the array. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed array achieves a thermal resistance of only 11.11 upper K slash upper W $11.11~\text{K/W}$ 11.11 K/W , representing more than an order-of-magnitude improvement compared to an equivalent patch antenna array, which exhibits a thermal resistance of 123.3 upper K slash upper W $123.3~\text{K/W}$ 123.3 K/W . Additionally, the antenna array enables wide-angle beam-scanning capabilities, achieving a field of view of 116 ring $116^{\circ}$ 116 ∘ along the H-plane and 96 ring $96^{\circ}$ 96 ∘ along the E-plane. The characteristics of the proposed design are rigorously validated through experimental measurements performed on an 8 times 8 $8 \times 8$ 8 × 8 array prototype.