| In this paper, a novel SMA fed substrate integrated E-plane horn antenna and antenna array are proposed. The substrate integrated E-plane waveguide (SIEW) is not only able to integrate conventional waveguide circuits on printed circuit boards (PCB), but also especially falls into all E-plane circuits which substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) technique fails to. Essential copper strips are sandwiched in the middle by two PCBs to support longitudinal current in the E-plane fed through an SIEW-to-SMA transition. Copper plated holes aligned along the wave propagation direction are drilled through the substrate and copper strips, so that vertical current in the H-plane can also be supported. In order to minimize the reflections due to discontinuity between substrate and the free space, a dielectric load is placed in front of the aperture for lower return loss and better gain performance. Moreover, a two-element antenna array fed through a Y-junction power divider is also designed and prototyped for further performance enhancement. Good agreement between results from simulation and measurement is achieved. |
