An optimized design for motivated broadband LPDA antenna.

Area of Science:

• Electromagnetics and Antenna Design
• Microwave Engineering
• Wireless Communication Systems

Background:

• Log periodic dipole array (LPDA) antennas are crucial for wideband applications.
• Millimeter wave (mmWave) frequencies, particularly the V-band, are increasingly important for high-speed wireless communication.
• Existing LPDA designs often face limitations in gain and bandwidth for mmWave applications.

Purpose of the Study:

• To design and simulate a super wideband and high-gain LPDA antenna.
• To enhance antenna performance using circular director units.
• To validate the antenna's suitability for V-band wireless personal area network (WPAN) applications.

Main Methods:

• Antenna structure designed and optimized using Microwave Studio computer simulation technology.
• Implementation on an RT5880 substrate with a four-arm LPDA configuration.
• Integration of circular director units to improve gain and bandwidth.

Main Results:

• The optimized antenna dimensions are 39 × 10 × 0.254 mm³.
• The antenna operates across a wide millimeter wave band from 40 to over 70 GHz.
• A maximum realized gain of 14.97 dBi was achieved at 60 GHz, with a 3 dBi gain improvement from director units.
• Simulated and tested results showed good agreement, with the proposed design outperforming prior works.

Conclusions:

• The developed LPDA antenna offers superior performance in terms of gain and bandwidth for V-band applications.
• The antenna is well-suited for IEEE 802.11ad and IEEE 802.15.3c compliant wireless personal area networks.
• The integration of director units proved effective in enhancing the antenna's gain characteristics.