Low-profile direction finding system with SIW horn antennas for vehicular applications

A fully operational low-profile direction finding system working in Ku-band is presented. In particular, a circular array of 8 SIW horn antennas is used to provide a full 360° coverage of the azimuthal plane. The antennas are interconnected with commercial MMICs and driven by a microcontroller to estimate the direction of arrival. Thanks to the SIW technology, the antenna array and hence the whole system is low-profile, lightweight and low cost, therefore being suitable to be flush-mounted in airborne or terrestrial vehicles. The proposed concept is not only limited to direction finding operations, but also feasible for more ambitious applications requiring high data rate transmissions.