Proceedings of ISAP2007, Niigata, Japan

POS2-5

Measured Performance of Millimeter-Wave Microstrip Comb-Line Antenna using Reection-Canceling Slit Structure
Yuki HAYASHI, Yuichi KASHINO, Kunio SAKAKIBARA, Nobuyoshi KIKUMA and Hiroshi HIRAYAMA
Nagoya Institute of Technology Gokiso-cho, Showa-ku, Nagoya, 466-8555, Japan E-mail sakaki@nitech.ac.jp

1. Introduction
Millimeter-wave antennas have been developed for various applications such as broadband highspeed wireless communication systems and automotive radar systems. Microstrip antenna is more advantageous than other millimeter-wave antennas at the viewpoints of low-prole and low-cost. A combline feeding structure is eective for relatively low loss compared with other ordinary microstrip patch array antennas since feeding loss is smaller [1]. When element spacing is just one guided wavelength for broadside beam of traveling-wave excitation, reections from all the radiating elements are in phase. Therefore, return loss increases signicantly. Furthermore, radiation due to the reection wave from the element degrades the design accuracy for required radiation pattern. Reection characteristic is improved in the conventional design by beam-tilting of several degrees, where reections from all the elements are canceled out of phase [2]. Admitted beam-directions are limited by some specic phase dierences in which reections are canceled. We propose the way to improve the reection characteristic of the antenna with arbitrary beam directions including just broadside direction. In order to suppress the reection, we propose reection-canceling slit structure installed on the feeding line around each radiating element. A 27-element linear array antenna with broadside beam is developed at 76.5 GHz. Measured performance is evaluated in the millimeter-wave band.

2. Conguration
A microstrip comb-line antenna is composed of several rectangular radiating elements directly attached to a straight feeding line printed on a dielectric substrate (Teon, thickness t = 0.127 mm, relative dielectric constant r = 2.2 and loss tangent tan = 0.001) with a backed ground plane as shown in Fig. 1. The radiating elements are inclined 45 degrees from the feeding microstrip line for polarization requirement of automotive radar systems. The radiating elements are arranged on the both sides of the feeding line, which forms interleave arrangement. Element spacing dn is approximately a half guided wavelength so that all the elements are excited in phase. Reection-canceling slit is installed on the feeding line and is closely located at each radiating element. An ordinary patch antenna is connected for a matching element at the termination of the feeding line in order to radiate all the residual power in the microstrip line.

3. Design
Figure 2 shows the analytical structure of a radiating element with a slit. The distance between the slit and the radiating element is Ds . Length and width of the slit are dened as Ls and Ws , respectively. These three parameters are optimized to suppress the reection lower than 30 dB by using the electromagnetic simulator. Reection characteristic is shown in Fig. 3 for the element with slit whose coupling power is 7.4 %. Reection coecient of the element with slit is 42.3 dB at 76.5 GHz. Therefore, it is

ISBN: 978-4-88552-223-9 C3055IEICE

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conrmed that the reection from radiating element is canceled suciently with the reection from the slit. Microstrip comb-line antenna is designed to operate in traveling wave excitation. The input power is gradually radiated from all the radiating elements during transmission from the input port toward the termination. Array design is implemented for Taylor distribution with sidelobe lower than 20 dB. Required coupling power is designed to be small near the input port and to increase toward the termination. The required variety of coupling is 2.0 49.8 %. Radiation from the elements is controlled by variation of the width Wn of the elements where Ln is the resonant length. A 27-element linear array antenna with broadside beam is designed for experiments.

4. Experiments
Figures 4 (a) and (b) show photographs of the fabricated antenna. Width of radiating element is small near the input port and it is large near the termination. Slit is cut on the feeding line at the opposite side of each radiating element. Figure 5 shows measured reection characteristics of fabricated antennas. Reection-canceling slit is not used in the conventional antenna. Instead, return loss is reduced by ordinary beam-tilting technique. Reection coecient of the proposed antenna is 17.2 dB at the design frequency 76.5 GHz and is almost the same level with the conventional antenna although the proposed antenna is a broadside array. Thus, the eect of reection-canceling slit is conrmed. Figure 6 shows measured radiation pattern and array factor of design in yz-plane at 76.5 GHz. The measured radiation pattern almost agrees well with the array factor. However, some errors are observed in the sidelobe level and the beam direction. To clarify this cause, the aperture amplitude and phase distribution are shown in Figs. 7 (a) and (b), respectively. Growing sidelobe is due to error of amplitude distribution. Figure 7 (b) shows the measured phase distribution and the calculated phase distribution for beam direction of 2 degrees. These phase distributions almost agree with each other. Therefore, error of beam direction is due to phase distribution. We have already conrmed by using electromagnetic simulator that the fabrication error of the etching process aects the phase perturbation in transmission through the radiating element. Figure 8 shows frequency characteristics of gain and antenna eciency. Since aperture lengths of proposed and conventional antennas are slightly dierent depending on the design, directivities are dierent. The maximum gain is obtained at the design frequency for both antennas. Eciency of proposed antenna is almost the same level with that of conventional antenna. Consequently, it is conrmed that the loss due to the slit structure is extremely small.

5. Conclusion
To suppress the reection from each radiating element, we propose the reection-canceling slit structure. A 27-element linear array antenna with broadside beam is designed and fabricated. Reection coecient of proposed antenna is almost the same level with the conventional antenna with beam-tilting technique although broadside array is designed for the proposed antenna. The measured radiation pattern almost agrees well with array factor. However, beam direction of measured antenna is 2 degrees. It is conrmed that the fabrication error of the etching process aects the beam direction. We estimate gain and antenna eciency. It is conrmed that the loss due to slit structure is extremely small. As a result, microstrip comb-line antenna with arbitrary beam direction can be designed without increasing return loss by using reection-canceling slit structure.

References
[1] H.Iizuka, T.Watanabe, K.Sato and K.Nishikawa, Millimeter-wave Microstrip Array Antenna For Automotive Radar, IEICE Trans. Commun., Vol.E86-B, No.9 pp.2728-2738, Sept. 2003. [2] Y.Owa, K.Sakakibara, Y.Tanaka, N.Kikuma and H,Hirayama, Low Sidelobe Millimeter-wave Microstrip Array Antenna Radiation-controlled by Modication of Feeding-line Width, Proc. ISAP2005, pp.1153-1156, Aug. 2005.

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