Slot-coupled integrated antenna for LINC transmitters

Based on the slot-coupled configuration, a novel integrated antenna for LINC transmitter is presented. It can serve as both a radiator and a power combiner, thus leading to the removal of power combiner in the RF front end and ensuring maximum power efficiency. This would be useful for current LINC, where the circuit-level power combiner losses degrade overall efficiency. One example antenna is designed and simulated. Slot-coupled structure is employed here, so that we could have more freedoms in its feed network design, and its feed network could be further directly integrated with high-efficiency nonlinear RF power amplifiers. The simulated results demonstrate that it can achieve good impedance matching under the odd-mode and the even-mode excitation, respectively. Radiation patterns are also presented.