Ultra‐wide band bowtie slot waveguide antenna array for SAR application

Abstract

An ultra‐wide bandwidth, high‐efficiency, small‐size and low‐profile waveguide antenna is presented in this study. To extend the bandwidth without increasing the antenna size, the bowtie shape slot and the stepped square coaxial transition in a ridged waveguide cavity are utilised. The proposed antenna is well suited to use as an element for the phased array with the wide‐angle scanning capability, and such array is a good candidate for the synthetic aperture radar (SAR) application. The development of an active solid phased array (ASPA) utilising bowtie slot waveguide antenna as the element is presented to illustrate the design procedure. The proposed ASPA is fabricated and the measured results are provided to demonstrate that the proposed array has good performance in field pattern and impedance matching over the full X‐band (8–12 GHz). The ASPA's operating frequency band is cantered at 10 GHz with bandwidth 40%. This ASPA has been integrated into the latest SAR system with the maximum ground resolution of 0.05 m, and the SAR image is also provided at the end of this study.

Keywords

• SAR application
• ultra‐wide bandwidth
• low‐profile waveguide antenna
• antenna size
• stepped square coaxial transition
• ridged waveguide cavity