An SIW Quasi-Pyramid Horn Antenna Based on Patch Coupling Feed for Automotive Radar Sensors

Abstract

An SIW quasi-pyramidal horn antenna based on patch coupling feed with reduced machining difficulty and facilitated integration with the radar chip is proposed in this paper. Compared with the metal pyramid horn antenna, the Rogers 5880 dielectric substrate based on the SIW structure is used to form the horn structure and waveguide structure, which effectively reduces the difficulty of machining the antenna. The patch coupling feed structure provides a solution for integrating the SIW quasi-pyramid horn antenna with the radar chip. The proposed SIW quasi-pyramid horn antenna element achieves approximately 9 dBi realized gain, about 95% radiation efficiency and 8.2 GHz bandwidth (74.1–82.3 GHz). A four-port inverting power divider was designed to verify the feasibility of forming an array with antenna elements. The designed antenna array achieves approximately 14.5 dBi realized gain, about 80% radiation efficiency and 7.2 GHz bandwidth (74.3–81.5 GHz). Simulation and measurement results maintain good agreement for the antenna array. To further assess the impact of errors on the performance of the proposed antenna array, we have implemented a corresponding error analysis. The proposed antenna element and antenna array show promising potential for application in automotive radar systems.

Keywords

• automotive radar sensors
• SIW quasi-pyramidal horn antenna
• simple machining
• patch coupling feed
• easy integrate