Optimizing Ridge Gap Waveguide Based Slot Antenna Shape for Maximum Gain and Bandwidth for Satellite Applications

Abstract

This work proposes different V-band antennas optimized to operate at 70 GHz with various geometric slots. The development is based on substrate integrated gap waveguide (SIGW) technology. Five geometries are considered, namely, rectangular, circular, hexagon, T-shape, and U-shape, with the target of maximizing the realized gain and bandwidth. The Finite Difference Time Domain (FDTD) technique is used to optimize the design parameters (CST studio simulator). The overall size of the developed antenna is 8.4x7.2x0.87 mm(3). The maximum obtained realized gain is found to be 10.98 dBi for the antenna with a rectangular slot. The circular slot antenna shows the highest S-11 < -10 dB bandwidth of 5.35 GHz in the range 66.53-71.88 GHz. The developed slot antennas are very appropriate for point-to-point wireless communication systems and inter-satellite and mobile satellite applications.