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PIERS Proceedings, Hangzhou, China, March 24-28, 2008

The Planar V-dipole Antenna Fed by Marchand Balun

Cheng-Hung Lin1 , Guan-Yu Chen2 , Jwo-Shiun Sun2 , Kwong-Kau Tiong1 , and Y. D. Chen3
2 1 Department of Electrical Engineering, National Taiwan Ocean University, Taiwan Department of Electronic Engineering, National Taipei University of Technology, Taiwan 3 Antenna and EMC Laboratory, High Tech Computer Corp. (HTC), Taiwan

Abstract The Marchand balun for microwave band as a feeding network structure that effectively excited tapered V-dipole antenna geometry is proposed. The microstrip line to coplanar strip line transition then to fed tapered V-dipole antenna. The designed quasi-tapered TEM horn (V-dipole) antenna has the merits such as wideband, simple feeding network, low prole compact size with fairly good antenna performances such as return loss, peak gain and radiation patterns. 1. INTRODUCTION

The radiation mechanism of a TEM horn antenna is based on traveling wave propagation along the tapered aperture slot, which results in an end-re antenna. TEM horn or tapered slot antenna (TSA) exhibits some advantages such as wideband, wide scanning, high gain, low cross polarization and symmetrical E and H plane radiation patterns [1] for an array or embedded circuits as antenna radiating elements. Some articles for analyses of tapered slot antenna were studied such as moment method [2], nite dierence time domain method [3]. And the applications of TSA were proposed in dual polarized antenna array [4], spatial power combining [5] and waveguide transition [6]. The general feeding structures in a TSA were mentioned with a coaxial cable, a microstrip line or a coplanar waveguide (CPW) [79]. A novel design method [10] for a TEM horn antenna is proposed on the basis of parallel plate waveguide theory. An exponentially tapered wideband TEM horn antenna [11] having a balun is designed. The balun is used to improve the impedance characteristic of the TEM horn antenna. The designed antenna can be used not only for EMC measurements, but also for broadband communication systems. A novel stable beamwidth, ultrawide-bandwidth low-scattering antenna [12] is presented. This antenna is a modied version of the conducting slotline bowtie hybrid antenna with resistive sheets introduced into the guiding structure design. The analytical and design formula [13], based on conformal mapping, for the characteristic impedance of the transverse electromagnetic horn antenna. In this paper, the Marchand balun with a balanced to unbalanced transition is shown good impedance matching and easy to integration and fabrication and the frame of the planar structure on tapered TEM horn (V-dipole) was experimentally investigated. Measured results indicate that eects have signicant impacts on the return loss, input impedance, radiation patterns and antenna gain of the TEM horn (V-dipole) antenna.

Figure 1: V-dipole antenna fed by Marchand balun.

Figure 2: V-dipole antenna structure and size.

Progress In Electromagnetics Research Symposium, Hangzhou, China, March 24-28, 2008 2. QUASI-TEM HORN (V-DIPOLE) ANTENNA

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The coplanar stripline to feed planar tapered V-shape as quasi-TEM antenna radiator. The Vdipole antenna is a kind of traveling wave antenna that wave propagating along the tapered slot for heading radiation. The basic geometry of the designed TEM horn antenna is like a double ridge as shown in Figure 1. The transition provides wider balanced equal outputs, as well as a matching section for the traveling tapered slot of TEM horn antenna. The FEM software based on full wave frequency domain method [14] was adopted to perform the simulation of the designed low prole and planar TEM horn antenna. The planar quasi-TEM horn was fabricated on the FR4 substrate (dielectric constant = 4.4 and dielectric loss = 0.02) and detail size is shown in Figure 2. The simple quasi-TEM horn antenna structures exhibits broadband and low prole compact structure for UWB and impulse radio applications.
VSWR
5
150 125 100

Input Impedance (Zin)

75 50 25

V-Dipole
2

-25 -50 -75 -100 -125

Re(ZIN[1]) Im(ZIN[1])

1 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 Frequency (GHz)

-150 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 Frequency (GHz)

Figure 3: Measured data of VSWR. 3. RESULTS

Figure 4: Measured data of input impedance.

Figure 2 shows the layout of the quasi-TEM horn (V-dipole) antenna size and structure. The measured VSWR and input impedance of V-dipole antenna (Zin = Rin + j Xin) shows good impedance matching based on the transition as shown in Figure 3 and Figure 4. The radiation characteristics of the TEM horn antenna based on the spherical coordinate and 3D chamber system [15] are measured. The measured data of H-plane and E-plane are shown in Figure 5.

Figure 5: Measured 3 GHz antenna gain pattern of E and H plane. 4. CONCLUSIONS

The designed V-dipole antenna fed by coplanar stripline and the transition is presented. It exhibits the merits of geometric simplicity, wide bandwidth, lightweight, low cross polarization, and high peak gain. This V-dipole antenna is suitable for UWB impulse radio operation and application.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The authors acknowledge the Antenna and Wireless System Integration Department of High Tech Computer, Corp (HTC), Taiwan for sport the wireless technique and measurement environment.

194 REFERENCES

PIERS Proceedings, Hangzhou, China, March 24-28, 2008

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