A Wideband High Gain Differential Patch Antenna Featuring In-Phase Radiating Apertures

Communication systems need antennas with wide bandwidths to provide large throughput, while imaging radars benefit from high gain for increased range and wide bandwidths for high-resolution imaging. This paper presents the design and evaluation of a wideband, high-gain antenna that achieves an average gain of 9.7 dBi over a bandwidth of 1.49 GHz to 3.92 GHz by using multiple in-phase radiating apertures. The antenna has a unique structure with a central rectangular short-circuited patch sandwiched between two back-to-back U-shaped radiating patches and two flanking H-shaped short-circuited patches. Each of the U-shaped patches employs a coplanar waveguide as feeding to achieve ultra-wideband impedance matching. Benefiting from design arrangement, in-phase electrical field distributions appear at the gaps between the patches that result in equivalent radiating magnetic currents in the same direction. Theory analysis shows that the close-spaced, same-direction magnetic currents created by the radiating apertures intensify the radiation and increase antenna gain within its impedance bandwidth. Simulated data show that the use of the coplanar waveguide feeding and short-circuited patches increase the bandwidth from 65 MHz to 2.43 GHz. Moreover, the short-circuited patches increase the gain by 3.45 dB at 2.4 GHz. Simulation and measurement results validate the design and show that the antenna features a maximum gain of 11.3 dBi and an average gain of 9.7 dBi in a fractional bandwidth of 89.8%. Because of the high gain values and the wide bandwidth, the antenna is particularly suited for long-range communication systems and high-resolution radar applications.