Experimental Characterization of Compact Slotted Substrate-Integrated-Waveguide Array Antenna

Experimental characterization of a compact array of slotted substrate-integrated-waveguide (SIW) antenna is presented. The SIW structure utilization aims to acquire a compact dimension of array of waveguide-based antenna particularly at low frequency. The proposed design of SIW array antenna is configured using a 1x2 array of slotted waveguide whereby each array has 8 slots. Optimizations are performed using simulation to attain an optimum design of array antenna suitable for wireless local area network (WLAN) application. An FR4 epoxy dielectric substrate with the thickness of 1.6mm is applied for designing and manufacturing the proposed array antenna. The measured result of realized slotted SIW array antenna could achieve a 4.7dBi gain at the frequency of 2.35GHz comparable to the simulated one.