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Tapered composite right/left‐handed leaky‐wave antenna for wideband

broadside radiation

Article  in  Microwave and Optical Technology Letters · March 2015

DOI: 10.1002/mop.28916

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Figure 9 Measured gain of the proposed antenna. [Color figure can be
viewed in the online issue, which is available at wileyonlinelibrary.com]
the antenna shown in Figure 9, it is clear that the antenna can
provide an overall gain of about 6 dBi.
4. CONCLUSION
A compact microstrip antenna, with a rectangular slot on a hex-
agonal patch and a defective ground plane for UWB applica-
tions is presented. The percentage bandwidth can be increased
by inserting a rectangular slot in the patch. The proposed
antenna is fabricated and tested. The results show that the
antenna is resonating at two resonant frequencies 8.2 and
9.76 GHz, respectively, with a percentage bandwidth of 61.34
(5.73–10.8 GHz). The proposed antenna is very compact having
a size of 28 3 29 mm2. The gain of the antenna is up to 6 dBi
and the VSWR is less than two.
REFERENCES
1. Federal Communications Commission, First Report and Order, Feb-
ruary 14, 2002.
2. S. Dey and R. Mittra, Compact microstrip patch antenna, Microwave
Opt Technol Lett 13 (1996), 12–14.
3. K.L. Wong, C.L. Tang, and H.T. Chen, A compact meandered circu-
lar microstrip antenna with a shorting pin, Microwave Opt Technol
Lett 15 (1997), 147–149.
4. J. George, M. Deepukumar, C.K. Aanandan, P. Mohanan, and K.G.
Nair, New compact microstrip antenna, Electron Lett 32 (1996),
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5. S. Sadat, M. Fardis, F. Geran, and G. Dadashzadeh, A compact
microstrip square-ring slot antenna for UWB applications, Prog Elec-
tromagn Res 67 (2007), 173–179.
6. L. Peng and C. Ruan, Design and time domain analysis of compact
multi band notched UWB antennas with EBG structures, Prog Elec-
tromagn Res B 47 (2013), 339–357.
C 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
V LWAs [23,24] were used to achieve highly directive beam with
TAPERED COMPOSITE RIGHT/LEFT-
HANDED LEAKY-WAVE ANTENNA FOR
WIDEBAND BROADSIDE RADIATION
Nasimuddin,1 Zhi Ning Chen,1,2 and Xianming Qing1
1
Institute for Infocomm Research, 138632 Singapore;
Corresponding author: nasimuddin@i2r.a-star.edu.sg
2
National University of Singapore, 119077 Singapore
Received 1 August 2014
ABSTRACT: A leaky-wave antenna (LWA) based on tapered composite
right/left-handed unit cell sections is proposed for wideband broadside
624 MICROWAVE AND OPTICAL TECHNOLOGY LETTERS / Vol. 57, No. 3, March 2015
radiation. The substrate-integrated-waveguide metamaterial based
antenna consists of three sections with varying slot lengths for unit
cells. The measured broadside gain of the proposed tapered antenna
prototype is higher than 9.0 dBi over a bandwidth of 4.7% (8.825–
9.250 GHz). The bandwidth of the proposed tapered LWA for 1-dB
gain variation doubles that of the conventional LWA with non-
tapered unit cells. In addition, the proposed antenna is able to scan
the beam from 272 to 175 over a frequency range of 8.0–
13.0 GHz with the gain greater than 9.0 dBi. V C 2015 Wiley
Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 57:624–629, 2015;
View this article online at wileyonlinelibrary.com. DOI 10.1002/
mop.28916
Key words: beam scanning; boresight radiation; leaky-wave antenna;
metamaterial; composite right/left-handed structure; tapered structure;
substrate integrated waveguide; wideband
1. INTRODUCTION
Metamaterial based leaky-wave antennas (LWAs) have been
with growing interest in antenna engineering because of their
completed scanning capability from back-fire to end-fire
along with the broadside. Several types of the LWAs have
been presented in the literature for different applications such
as improving impedance bandwidth, radiation beam control,
continuous main beam scanning, and radiation at the
broadside.
Nonplanar, nontapered, and tapered LWAs [1–6] have been
used to control the beam shape as well as improve the imped-
ance bandwidth and the side-lobes. For synthesis of near-field
patterns, the rectilinear and tapered LWAs/lenses based on theo-
retical studies were proposed in Refs. 7 and [8]. The rectilinear
and modulated substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) based
LWAs [9,10] have studied for beam shaping of far-field radia-
tion patterns.
Generally, the microstrip planar and waveguide types LWAs
are unable to achieve a broadside radiation. However, the peri-
odic LWAs with spatial harmonic and special feeding network
[11–13] can be used for the broadside radiation. The broadside
radiation can also be achieved using the metamaterial LWAs
with simple feeding network which are based on the composite
right/left-handed (CRLH) structures [14–19]. These metamaterial
based LWAs can radiate at the broadside over a narrow fre-
quency band, when the balanced condition is satisfied. If a
CRLH structure is unbalanced; stopband gap region is generated
between the left-handed and the right-handed regions. Under an
unbalanced condition, the broadside radiation of the LWA is
blocked.
The LWA with 25 unit cells was designed on a concave sur-
face to get a uniform radiation beam [20–22]. The conformal
desired direction. The LWA comprising two same CRLH
transmission-line structures was presented to steer its main beam
around 10.0 GHz using the port excitations [25]. A surface
wave holographic antenna excited by a traveling wave patch
array was proposed for the broadside radiation [26]. An electro-
magnetic band-gap waveguide based LWA was proposed to
achieve the broadside radiation at 29.6 GHz but without any
information about the broadside radiation bandwidth in the
paper [27].
All the aforementioned LWAs using the CRLH structure are
with around 2% bandwidth for the broadside radiation. Improv-
ing the broadside radiation, bandwidth of the metamaterial based
LWA is challenging because the balanced condition is satisfied
only at a single frequency point. Recently, a dual-element SIW
DOI 10.1002/mop

Figure 1 Proposed tapered LWA: (a) top view and (b) cross-sectional
view
based LWA was proposed to improve the broadside radiation
bandwidth in Ref. 28 with 1-dB broadside gain bandwidth of
4.2%.
A SIW based LWA with tapered CRLH is proposed to
improve broadside radiation bandwidth in this article. The pro-
posed LWA is designed with three different slot sizes of CRLH
SIW sections to achieve wideband broadside radiation. The
designed antenna was fabricated and measured. The measured
results are compared with the simulation using the CST Micro-
wave Studio commercial software [29]. In addition, the simu-
lated results of the nontapered LWA are also presented for
comparison with proposed tapered LWA.
2. PROPOSED TAPERED CRLH BASED LWA AND DESIGN
Figure 1 shows the top and cross-sectional views of the pro-
posed LWA with tapered CRLH unit cells. The antenna consists
of three different CRLH SIW sections and each section consists
of five CRLH unit cells. So, the antenna totally has 15 unit
cells. Each unit cell is designed using multilayered SIW struc-
ture [30]; wherein, a rectangular patch is embedded in the SIW
right under the narrow rectangular slot cutoff the upper-ground
layer of the SIW. All patches have the same patch size while
the slot sizes keep unchanged in each section but vary in differ-
ent sections. The slotted upper-ground and lower-ground layers
are connected through metallic via walls. The length of rectan-
gular slots in the sections increases from Sections 1–3. The
CRLH unit cell of the Section 2 is designed with a transition
frequency of around 9.0 GHz. Other sections are slight unbal-
anced at around 9.0 GHz.
Details of the unit cells are shown in Figure 2. The embed-
ded patch is positioned in the SIW with a height of
h1 5 0.66 mm. The Rogers RT Duroid 5880 substrate configur-
ing the taper SIW is with er of 2.2 and loss tangent of 0.0009.
The slot is cut onto the upper-ground plane with a height of
h2 1 h1 5 0.914 mm. Designed parameters and optimized dimen-
DOI 10.1002/mop MICROWAVE AND OPTICAL TECHNOLOGY LETTERS / Vol. 57, No. 3, March 2015
sions of the antenna are; unit cell length: p 5 10.2 mm, ground
plane width: g 5 20 mm, metallic via diameter: 2r 5 0.76 mm,
via center to via center spacing: d 5 1.52 mm, embedded
patch area: l 3 w 5 4.75 mm 3 3.725 mm, effective SIW
width: Weff 5 11.85 mm, upper-ground slot width:
Sw 5 1.0 mm, and slot lengths: Sl 5 9.05 mm (Section 1),
S2 5 9.2 mm (Section 2), and S3 5 9.25 mm (Section 2). Sizes
of the patch and the slot are main parameters to achieve a
balanced condition of the structure. Dispersion diagram of the
unit cell of the Section 2 is studied using the CST Microwave
Studio Eigen-mode solver and plotted in Figure 3. The bal-
anced condition of the unit cell is satisfied at 8.98 GHz for
Section 2. Other sections unit cells are slight off for the per-
fect balanced condition as the Sections 1 and 3 are with slight
different slot lengths as compared to the Section 2. The radi-
ated waves at the balanced condition of Section 2 and slight
unbalanced of Sections (1 and 3) from three sections can be
combined together and therefore, the bandwidth for broadside
radiation is improved.
3. COMPARISON OF NONTAPERED AND TAPERED LWAS
In this section, realized gains at the broadside of the nonta-
pered LWA and the proposed tapered LWA are compared.
Both the antennas are designed with 15 unit cells and opti-
mized for the wideband broadside radiation. The overall sizes
of both antennas are kept the same. Figure 4 shows the real-
ized gains at the broadside of the proposed tapered and the
nontapered LWAs. The proposed tapered LWA shows the
broadside gain bandwidth wider than that of the nontapered
LWA. The radiation from the tapered slotted sections are
combined at nearly balanced condition frequencies, as a
result, the bandwidth of broadside gain is improved. The pro-
posed tapered LWA broadside gain is 9.0 dBi over a band-
width of 410 MHz with 1-dB gain variation. On contrast, the
Figure 2 Details of the unit cell. [Color figure can be viewed in the
online issue, which is available at wileyonlinelibrary.com]
625
 Figure 3 Dispersion diagram of the unit cell of Section 2

1-dB gain variation bandwidth of the nontapered LWA is 196

MHz. The maximum gain of the antenna is slight lowered as
compared with nontapered LWA since less elements of the
tapered LWA contribute to the radiation at the transition fre-
quencies and follows the gain-bandwidth product.
Simulated electric fields with different frequency points are
illustrated in the Figure 5(a) at 8.5, 9.0, and 9.5 GHz, respec-
tively, for left-handed, transition, and right-handed regions.
The electric fields are strong at around the input port as com-
pared to the output port. Its strength decreases with increase in
the antenna length. Also the electric field strength is varied
with operating frequency as shown in Figure 5(a). The surface
current distributions at 8.5, 9.0, and 9.5 GHz are illustrated in
Figure 5(b). The strong surface current distributions are near
the input port and around the slotted area of unit cells. The
current strength decreases with increase in the LWA length Figure 5 Electric fields and currents distributions at 8.5, 9.0, and
from input port to output port. The radiated powers from the 9.5 GHz: (a) electric fields and (b) surface currents. [Color figure can
tapered and nontapered LWAs are also computed and com- be viewed in the online issue, which is available at wileyonlinelibrary.
pared in the Figure 6. Slight difference was noted in left- com]
handed region and transition region of the radiated power from

Figure 4 Realized gain at the broadside of the tapered and nontapered Figure 6 Simulated radiated power of tapered and nontapered LWAs
LWAs with frequency

626 MICROWAVE AND OPTICAL TECHNOLOGY LETTERS / Vol. 57, No. 3, March 2015 DOI 10.1002/mop
Figure 7 Photo of proposed tapered LWA. [Color figure can be
viewed in the online issue, which is available at wileyonlinelibrary.com]

the tapered and nontapered LWAs. The right-handed region

shows almost same radiated power for both nontapered and
tapered LWAs.

4. MEASURED RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

The proposed tapered LWA was prototyped and its S-parameters
and radiation characteristics were measured. Photo of the proto-
typed tapered LWA is illustrated in Figure 7.
Figure 8 shows the comparison between measured and simu-
lated S-parameters (|S11| and |S21|) against frequency. The transi-
tion point of the left-handed and the right-handed regions are
observed at around 9.0 GHz. The left-handed region is within a Figure 9 Measured and simulated gain at the broadside of the tapered
frequency range from 8.0 to 9.0 GHz and the right-handed LWA
region from 9.0 to 13.0 GHz. Furthermore, the bandwidth of
left-handed region is narrower than that of the right-handed
region.
The radiation characteristics of the antenna were measured
with a 50-X load connected at the output port of the LWA. The
measured and simulated gain at the broadside is plotted in Fig-
ure 9. The measured bandwidth for 1-dB gain variation is
around 425 MHz (4.7%) with the centre frequency of 9.0 GHz.
Maximum measured broadside gain is about 10.6 dBi at
8.975 GHz. Good agreement has been achieved between the
simulated and the measured gains at the broadside. The simu-
lated and measured maximum gain is also compared in Figure
10. The measured maximum gain follows the simulation results
well and the gain is consistent over the frequency band. The
gain variation is within 3-dB for the frequency range from 8.0
to 13.0 GHz. Around the transition point, the gain is slight
lower as compared with the right- and left-handed regions. The
maximum measured gain is 12.6 dBi at 9.4 GHz.
The measured and simulated beam scanning angle with fre-
quency is compared in Figure 11. The measured beam can be

Figure 10 Measured and simulated maximum gain.

Figure 8 Measured and simulated S-parameters (|S11| and |S21|) of the

tapered LWA. [Color figure can be viewed in the online issue, which is
available at wileyonlinelibrary.com] Figure 11 Measured and simulated beam scanning angle

DOI 10.1002/mop MICROWAVE AND OPTICAL TECHNOLOGY LETTERS / Vol. 57, No. 3, March 2015 627
 Figure 12 Measured and simulated 3-dB beamwidth

scanned from 272 to 175 over the frequency band of

8.0213.0 GHz. Figure 12 shows the measured and simulated 3-
dB beamwidth with frequency. The measured 3-dB beamwidth
is also consistent over the frequency band of 8.5213.0 GHz.
The measured beam angle and 3-dB beamwidth are agreed well
with simulations.
The measured radiation patterns of the proposed LWA at
8.95, 9.05, and 9.15 GHz are plotted in Figure 13. At all these
frequency points, the directions of the beams directed to the
broadside. The measured radiation patterns show consistent gain
at the broadside. The 3-dB beamwidth is also consistent from
8.8 to 9.1 GHz. The front to back ratio is better than 20 dB.
Figures 14(a)–14(c) show the normalized measured and
simulated radiation patterns of the tapered LWA at 8.25, 8.95,
and 11.0 GHz, which correspond with the patterns for backward,
broadside, and forward radiation, respectively. The proposed
tapered LWA shows slight larger 3-dB beamwidth at 8.25 GHz

Figure 14 Normalized measured and simulated radiation patterns: (a)

left-handed region (8.25 GHz), (b) balanced condition (8.95 GHz), and
Figure 13 Measured radiation patterns at 8.95, 9.05, and 9.15 GHz
(c) right-handed region (11.0 GHz)
(main beam directed toward the broadside). [Color figure can be viewed
in the online issue, which is available at wileyonlinelibrary.com]

628 MICROWAVE AND OPTICAL TECHNOLOGY LETTERS / Vol. 57, No. 3, March 2015 DOI 10.1002/mop
 TABLE 1 Comparison of the LWAs
Broadside Radiation
Structures Bandwidth Antenna Volume
[28] 4.2% 200 3 40 3 0.914 mm3
Proposed structure 4.7% 170 3 20 3 0.914 mm3
as compared to the nontapered LWA. The measured and simu-
lated radiation patterns are in good agreement as well in all
three regions. The measured side-lobe levels are 10 dB in the
left-handed region, balanced point, and better than 10 dB in the
right-handed region.
The proposed tapered metamaterial based LWA can be
achieved almost same broadside radiation bandwidth (1-dB
gain) as dual-element based metamaterial LWA published in
Ref. 28. The proposed antenna has 1-dB gain bandwidth of
4.7% but the dual-element based LWA has 4.2% with double
antenna size. The comparison of the antennas is also tabulated
in Table 1.
5. CONCLUSION
A tapered LWA based on the use of metamaterial CRLH unit
cells has been demonstrated to improve the broadside radiation
over a wide bandwidth with consistent gain. The proposed LWA
can be achieved a wideband broadside radiation with consistent
gain; the bandwidth of 1-dB gain variation has been doubled
with that of the nontapered LWA with same overall antenna
size, but at the cost of reducing the peak gain due to the lack of
phase coherence of all antenna sections. The antenna has dem-
onstrated the capability of fully scanning over upper half space
from backward to the forward directions along with the broad-
side radiation as well.
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