An ultra-wideband absorber backed planar slot antenna

Planar antenna designs have many advantages such as low-profile, light-weight, and ease of fabrication and integration. Low-cost is often desired but this depends on the chosen substrate. The substrate can also dominate the ruggedness of the antenna, such as the use of ceramics which can be brittle. Here, a planar slot antenna implemented on ceramic substrate with coplanar waveguide feed is considered. With absorber loading the design provides 50 Ω input impedance over the frequency range 0.3-3 GHz so it is considered ultra-wideband. This paper summarizes a numerical investigation using both frequency and time-domain solvers. The results serve to guide the future analysis of broadband antennas with lossy dielectric loading for ground penetrating radars. The evaluation of radar performance requires further simulation and model validation based on antenna measurements.