Bandwidth Enhancement of Waveguide Slot Antenna Array for Satellite Communication.

Owing to many advantages such as low losses in the feeder, high power handling capability, and high efficiency, waveguide slot antenna array has been widely used. However, the bandwidth of this kind of antenna is very limited. In this paper, 3 dB couplers are inserted to enhance the bandwidth of the waveguide slot antenna. To verify the validity of the bandwidth enhancement technique, A waveguide slot antenna array working at Ka band is designed, fabricated, and measured. Good agreement is found between the simulated and measured results, and the results show that the bandwidth is enhanced to 2.3 GHz (6.7%), which makes it suitable for satellite communication systems.