A Low-Profile And High-Gain Continuous Transverse Stub Antenna Using Pcb-Air Hybrid Technology

We present the design and simulation of a highgain low-profile Continuous Transverse Stub (CTS) antenna array excited by a parallel-plate PCB-made Beam Forming Network (BFN). The radiating part consists of 32 radiating slots fed in parallel by hollow parallel-plate waveguides. The pillbox coupler exciting the CTS array is designed on a dual-layer organic dielectric stack-up using SIW technology. This PCB-air hybrid assembly technique reduces the fabrication complexity of the entire antenna system, and simultaneously allows minimizing the total insertion loss. The antenna is matched below -19dB over the 71-86GHz band, and its gain remains larger than 30dBi within a +/-9 degrees scanning range across the same frequency band. The overall antenna efficiency is higher than 50%. This flat antenna solution is attractive for high-performance backhaul communication systems in E-band.