Gain improvement of planar-printed broadband end-fire antenna

ABSTRACTA broadband high-gain planar-printed end-fire antenna is presented for microwave imaging application. The proposed antenna consists of a conventional Vivaldi antenna (CVA) with slot edges (SEs) and a planar phase compensation lens (PCL). Taking into account the actual phase error along E-plane direction at antenna aperture, a more precise and detailed analysis for the printed antenna with PCL is carried out. The PCL with specific layout of rectangular patches is utilised to enhance antenna gain especially at high frequencies, while the SE technique is employed to further improve directivity at low frequencies. The final design combining PCL and SE develops an expected high-flat-gain Vivaldi antenna over the entire operating range. The CVA and the proposed antenna are fabricated and measured. The measured results agree with the simulated ones well. The proposed antenna provides a high gain of 10–11.7 dBi in the range, which corresponds to a gain increase of 0.9–3.2 dBi compared to the CVA.