High gain and circularly polarized beam-switching 8 × 8 Vivaldi antenna array for X-band application

Abstract

An 8 × 8 butler Vivaldi beam-steering antenna array is introduced for X-band application. Circularly polarized array is made of eight Vivaldi elements with 1×8 platform and an 8×8 beam feeding network. Vivaldi radiating element is used in array form to enhance impedance bandwidth and overall efficiency such as gain. Using microwave passive components, for instance, 3 dB branch line couplers and crossover help to have orthogonal modes for feeding each of the elements, hence circular polarization property is achieved. Extracted results show that the array has an impedance bandwidth over 7–12.7 GHz (~58%) for VSWR≤2 and an axial-ratio bandwidth of 3.15 GHz that is between 8.15 and 11.3 GHz (~33%). The peak gain of antenna array is 18 dBi at 10 GHz. The proposed beam-steering antenna with compact size and good operation is capable to cover an angle range from −42 to 55 degree in whole operation frequency.