Planar Wideband Circularly Polarized Cavity-Backed Stacked Patch Antenna Array for Millimeter-Wave Applications

A planar circularly polarized substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) stacked patch antenna array consisting of four sequential-rotation (SR) subarrays is presented for Ka-band applications. Antenna element is realized based on a pair of stacked cavities by the combination of a driven patch layer and a parasitic patch layer, which are formed by a shorted square patch and multiple identical stacked square patches, respectively. Each subarray consisting of two pairs of elements, excited by a coplanar waveguide (CPW) network with four metallic vias, is well matched to a novel SIW SR feeding network. A narrow transverse coupling slot, a semiopening resonant cavity, two pairs of inductive vias, and an inductive window are introduced in the SIW-based feeding network to implement functions of phase shifter, impedance matching, and power divider in the two layers. By employing the proposed SR feeding network, the CPW network, and the four subarrays, the excellent performance of the array is realized. To verify the design, a prototype is fabricated and measured, which demonstrates a -10 dB impedance bandwidth of 29.6%, a 3 dB axial ratio bandwidth of 25.4%, and a peak gain of 20.32 dBic.