A Compact Ultra-Wideband Circularly Polarized Antenna Array for Vehicular Communications

In this paper,a new compact ultrawideband(UWB)circularly polarized(CP)antenna array for vehicular communications is proposed.The antenna array consists of a 2×2 sequentially rotated T-shaped cross dipole,four parasitic elements,and a feeding network.By loading the T-shaped cross dipoles with parasitic rectangular elements with cut corners,the bandwidth can be expanded.On this basis,the radiation pattern can be improved by the topology with sequential rotation of four T-shaped cross-dipole antennas,and the axial ratio(AR)bandwidth of the antenna also can be further enhanced.In addition,due to the special topology that the vertical arms of all Tshaped cross dipoles are all oriented toward the center of the antenna array,the gain of proposed antenna is improved while the size of the antenna is almost the same as the traditional cross dipole.Simulated and measured results show that the proposed antenna has good CP characteristics,an impedance bandwidth for S11<-10 d B of about 106.1%(3.26:1,1.57-5.12 GHz)and the 3-d B AR bandwidth of about 104.1%(3.17:1,1.57-4.98 GHz),a wide 3-d B gain bandwidth of 73.3%as well as the peak gain of 8.6 d Bic at 3.5 GHz.The overall size of antenna is 0.56λ×0.56λ×0.12λ(λrefers to the wavelength of the lowest operating frequency in free space).The good performance of this compact UWB CP antenna array is promising for applications in vehicular communications.

Impact of EBG Structures' Positions on the Performance of an EBG Antenna

Six circularly polarized patch antennas with electromagnetic band gap（EBG）arranged at different locations were studied.These EBG antennas were compared in terms of impedance bandwidth,axial ratio（AR）bandwidth and radiation patterns.When the EBG cells were placed closer to the edge of the substrate,the EBG antenna had a larger front radiation and a narrower bandwidth.Integrating the EBG cells closer to the center of the patch resulted in a wider impedance bandwidth,a wider axial ratio bandwidth and a decreased front gain.

High-performance lens antenna using high refractive index metamaterials

In this paper, a high refractive index metamaterial （HRM）, whose element is composed of bilayer square patch （BSP） spaced by a dielectric plate, is proposed. By reducing the thickness of the dielectric plate and the gap between adjacent patches, the BSP can effectively enhance capacitive coupling and simultaneously suppress diamagnetic response, which significantly increases the refractive index of the proposed metamaterial. Furthermore, the high refractive index region is far away from the resonant region of the metamaterial, resulting in broadband. Based on these characteristics of BSP, a gradient refractive index （GRIN） lens with thin thickness （0.34/~0, where 2~0 is the wavelength at 5.75 GHz） is designed. By using this lens, we then design a circularly polarized horn antenna with high performance. The measurement results show that the 3-dB axial ratio bandwidth is 34.8% （4.75 GHz-6.75 GHz） and the antenna gain in this frequency range is increased by an average value of 3.4 dB. The proposed method opens up a new avenue to design high-performance antenna.