Abstract:
To meet the anti-interference requirements of antennas for broadband communication, a broadband Vivaldi filtering array antenna is proposed. This antenna consists of a fan-shaped feeder, a short-circuited stub and a radiating patch dipole. By introducing a short-circuited stub into the fan-shaped feeder, a filtering effect is achieved without increasing the antenna size. Two filtering resonant points can be formed at the out-of-band high and low frequencies merely by optimizing the dimensions of the short-circuited stub. A 12×16 array of the Vivaldi filtering antenna is designed, and the prototype of the array antenna is fabricated and tested. The proposed filtering antenna achieves an active standing wave ratio of less than 3.8, a gain higher than 22 dBi, and a gain loss of no more than 4.6 dB within the ±60° scanning range, across its operating frequency band of 2.1 GHz to 5.9 GHz. A suppression level of over 23 dB is attained at 1.8 GHz and 6.45 GHz, with good consistency observed between the measured and simulated results. Featuring stable radiation characteristics, simple structure and strong out-of-band suppression capability, the proposed broadband Vivaldi filtering array antenna can be applied to broadband communication and radar measurement fields.