Magneto-Electric Dipole Antenna (MEDA)-Fed Fabry-Perot Resonator Antenna (FPRA) With Broad Gain Bandwidth in Ku Band

One planar Fabry-Perot resonator antenna (FPRA) with broad gain bandwidth is proposed in this paper. Magneto-electric dipole antenna (MEDA) is used as the feeding antenna providing good impedance matching and stable radiation pattern over the whole Ku band. Then, gain enhancement is realized by loading with one partially reflective surface, which consists of a single dielectric slab with 2-D patches array on both surfaces. Unlike the sharply negative phase slope of conventional cover designs, the proposed one produces a much gentle reflective phase gradient with both negative and positive phase slopes. Thus, the gain property of the MEDA is obviously improved along the whole band. One prototype is fabricated for verification and the results show that the proposed antenna has a wide impedance bandwidth, which is 56.25% for S11 <; -10 dB, ranging from 11.5 to 18.7 GHz. It possesses a 3-dB gain bandwidth of 35% from 12.3 to 17.2 GHz with a peak gain of 11.2 dBi at 14 GHz. Compared with the unloaded type, gain enhancement of about 1.5 ~ 5 dBi is achieved. Due to the advantages of simple structure and broad gain bandwidth, this method is a good option to design antennas in satellite communication systems in future.