A compact hybrid dielectric resonator antenna with a meandered slot ring and cavity backing offering wideband operation

This summary article proposes a new and compact cavity-backed antenna structure offering circular polarization where a dielectric resonator (DR) element is surrounded by a meandered circular slot ring etched in the antenna ground plane (90 mm by 90 mm) to improve gain and radiation performance values. In particular, antenna gain values are greater than 3 dBic from 1.10 GHz to 1.72 GHz defining a bandwidth of more than 35%. The DR for the antenna is cylindrical in shape with ε_r = 30 and excites four radiating HE_11δ modes which are driven by four, quadrature fed aperture coupled slots. Such a compact implementation hybridizes operation of the DR with its meandered circular slot ring as well as the four aperture coupled slots. Measurements and simulations are in agreement and the proposed design technique to employ such a secondary meandered slot ring may also be useful to improve antenna gain and efficiency for other compact antenna implementations.