Broadband High Gain Small Array Antenna for High Altitude Platforms Applications

This paper presents a novel design of a high gain multilayer strip-slot-foam-inverted patch (SSFIP) antenna working at 30 GHz. The antenna is designed to provide a special radiation pattern, which contributes to the reduction of grating lobes when used as element of array. Sub-arrays of 4 and 16 elements were simulated using a commercial EM simulator. Radiation pattern of 64 and 256 elements array were computed based on the single element radiation pattern and planar array theory. A uniform amplitude and equal phase array of 64 elements was fabricated for testing. Measured radiation patterns are compared with theoretical predictions and they are shown to be in good agreement.