Printed Circuit Radio Link Antenna

A printed circuit antenna which substitutes a paraboloid antenna in radio link applications at 1.8 GHz has been developed. The antenna is a novel traveling wave antenna, a so called grid antenna. It consists of a ground plane close to which is a printed sheet with several pairs of meander lines. The lines are fed in parallel from a coaxial line causing a TEM-wave to propagate along the lines. The parts of the lines which are parallel to the antenna axis radiate in phase while the radiation from the perpendicular parts is cancelled due to the currents flowing in opposite directions. The size of the realized antenna is 1.5 m × 1.5 m × 0.09 m. It has the advantages of being flat and thin and easy to manufacture. The measured gain at the frequency range 1700...1900 MHzis 24...26 dB and the beam width 8°. The direction of the beam depends slightly on frequency.