Radome Enclosed Circularly Polarized Antenna System with Enhanced Beamwidth

Abstract

This paper presents a circularly polarized (CP) patch antenna system enclosed by a nosecone radome which has a wide beam response. A U-slot loaded corner truncated patch antenna is mounted upon a conical ground structure for achieving the wide beam response. When two such antennas, one Right Handed CP (RHCP) and another Left Handed CP (LHCP) are placed inside a nosecone radome, a drastic reduction in the antenna beamwidth is observed. Finally a metallic conical ring is added to the structure which improves the beamwidth of the antenna and we achieve a beamwidth of 74° and 120° in the ϕ=0° and ϕ=90° planes respectively. The antenna system also provides a good axial ratio bandwidth performance.

Keywords

• beamwidth enhancement
• circular polarization
• conical ground
• nosecone radome
• u-slot loaded corner truncated microstrip patch antenna