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A wideband circularly polarized patch antenna is presented in this article. The four‐port antenna is composed of circular patch loaded with four shorting pins and cross‐shaped slot. The realization of wideband benefits from the cooperation of three resonant modes. The lowest mode is due to the resonance of half‐wavelength cross‐shaped slot, while the higher two modes are TM11 mode and TM31 mode of the circular patch, in which the TM31 mode is excited by loading four shorting pins. The L‐shaped probes are utilized to establish the coupling feed mechanism for impedance matching in a wideband range. And the compensation of the radiation null in the broadside direction benefits from the variation of the electric field distribution caused by the shorting pins and the differential L‐shaped feed structure in TM31 mode. For the aim of implementing circularly polarized radiation in the proposed patch configuration, a phase quadrature feed network consisting of power dividers and phase shifters is designed and cooperated with this antenna. In order to verify the design concept, a prototype has been fabricated, assembled and measured. The measured results show that the relative bandwidth of VSWR <1.7 and AR <3 dB is 66.7%, ranging from 2 to 4 GHz. In addition, the measured LHCP gain >3 dBic within 2.01–3.84 GHz, and the fractional bandwidth is 61%. Moreover, the peak gain is 9.9 dBic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aiming to realize series-fed antenna array with good return loss, low sidelobe level (SLL), and small gain variation over a wide bandwidth, this article presents a unified synthesis method of designing series-fed networks (SFNs) under the equal/unequal distributions with the bandwidth enhancement. We find that the return loss and current distribution bandwidths of SFN are dominated by its input reactance slope. The ratio of SFN main line impedance Z0 and antenna impedance ZL plays an important role in it. When the optimal Z0/ZL makes the input reactance slope equal to zero at the center frequency, the bandwidth of SFN can be highly extended by 2–4 times compared with nonoptimal solutions. In this context, four classical types of SFNs are investigated and synthesized. The closed-form optimal formulas for these SFNs are further deduced under the specified element number N and current distributions I1, $\text{I}_{2}, \ldots $ , and IN. For experimental verification, an eight-element series-fed antenna array driven by the SFN with Dolph–Chebyshev current distribution is designed and fabricated based on the proposed design method. By virtue of the improved SFN, the designed series-fed array exhibits enhanced impedance and radiation bandwidths as predicted. The measured results show designed array achieves an impedance bandwidth of 52.2% (3.34–5.70 GHz) with S11 ≤ −10 dB and the radiation bandwidth with SLL ≤ −20 dB is 20.9% (3.85–4.75 GHz). The measured antenna gain is 11.3 dBi with a small variation of 1.3 dB and the efficiency of array is better than 82% over the operational bandwidth of 18.7% (3.88–4.68 GHz). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A wideband circularly polarized (CP) stacked patch antenna based on TM11 and TM10 is proposed in this article. This four-port antenna consists of a circular patch and a square patch, where the square patch is located above the circular patch. Taking into account the mutual coupling between four ports, the active reflection coefficient (ARC) is adopted to describe the impedance matching of the antenna, and a simplified form of ARC is derived. The abnormal electric field distribution generated in the square patch is attributed to the superposition of the electric fields of two orthogonal TM10 modes, which is theoretically verified. Due to the coupling between TM11 mode and TM10 mode, a new resonance mode appears in a square patch, where the abnormal electric fields on the two diagonals are generated simultaneously. The effect of the square patch on the circular patch is equivalent to a capacitor at the lower frequency end and the higher frequency end of −10 dB impedance bandwidth, while it acts as an inductor at the middle frequency band. Besides the horizontal patch of $\lceil $ -shaped feed is sandwiched between two radiators to enhance coupling. Finally, a wideband feed network composed of Wilkinson power divider and phase shifter is devised to provide four signals of equal magnitude and quadrature phase for proposed antenna. To verify the design concept, a prototype is fabricated and measured. The results show that left-hand circularly polarized (LHCP) radiation is achieved. The 3 dB gain variation bandwidth is 44.6%, ranging from 1.48 to 2.33 GHz, in which VSWR < 1.5 and AR < 1.5 dB. Besides the peak gain is 9.5 dBic and antenna efficiency is not less than 64%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a low‐profile and wideband circularly polarized patch antenna using four resonance modes is presented. It is one kind of four‐port antenna implemented by loading five shorting pins on the circular patch. In order to achieve wideband properties, TM11 and TM22 modes are stimulated in circular patch, along with their polarization orthogonal modes (TM11+ and TM22+ modes). The TM11+ mode is excited by the Γ‐shaped feed, while the TM22 mode and TM22+ mode is stimulated by four shorting pins in close proximity to the Γ‐shaped feed. Due to the strong coupling between shorting pins and Γ‐shaped feed, the peak electric field generated on the two opposing shorting pins causes the magnetic current density on the circumference of the patch to be changed, which in turn leads to the realization of broadside radiation in the TM22 and TM22+ modes. In addition, the function of the shorting pin loaded in the center of the patch is to improve the impedance matching when TM22 and TM22+ modes are operated. Cooperated with the devised one‐to‐four feed network with equal amplitude and progressive phase difference of 90°, the wideband circularly polarized patch antenna is obtained. To verify this design concept, a prototype is fabricated and measured. The diameter of the patch is 0.68λ0 and the profile is 0.078λ0 (λ0 is the wavelength in the free space at the center frequency). The measured relative bandwidth of VSWR < 2 is 106%, involving 1.53–4.96 GHz, while that of AR < 3 dB is 98%, ranging from 1.54 to 4.48 GHz. Besides, the measured LHCP gain > 3 dBic in the frequency band of 1.48–4.42 GHz. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, a low-profile and wideband circularly polarized patch antenna is proposed and developed, which is composed of the circular patch fed by four ports. A wideband property is achieved by utilizing TM11 and TM21 mode, as well as the orthogonal mode of TM11. The Γ-shaped feed is employed to stimulate the TM21 mode. Besides, due to the parasitic radiation from the face-to-face Γ-shaped feeds with opposite phase, the radiation peak of the circular patch under TM21 mode is along the broadside direction, which is different from the original radiation mechanism of TM21 mode. By loading shorting pins in the middle area of circular patch, the polarization orthogonal mode of the fundamental mode (TM11) is excited properly, which contributed to bandwidth enhancement. Cooperated with the quadrature phase feed network, a wideband circular patch antenna with unidirectional radiation and circular polarization properties is designed, fabricated, and measured. The size of the circular patch is 0.57λ0 × 0.57 λ0 and the height is only 0.053λ0 (λ0 is the free space wavelength at the center frequency). The measured results show that the 109% of fractional bandwidth is obtained under the condition of VSWR < 2, ranging from 0.94 to 3.18 GHz, and the 3 dB axial ratio fractional bandwidth is 95%, ranging from 1.04 to 2.93 GHz. Besides the realized LHCP gain >3 dBic from 1.27 to 2.99 GHz. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]