Co-designed radome with parasitic patches for the profile reduction and gain enhancement of antennas

Traditional radome adversely influences the antenna performance besides protecting the antenna from the outside environment. In this work, one co-design of a millimeter-wave antenna and radome using parasitic patches is presented, featuring a low profile and high gain. First, the basic influence of radome on patch antenna is investigated on a transparent and low-loss material cyclic olefin copolymer. Then, the electromagnetic interaction between the patches and the antenna is investigated in detail to reduce the adverse effect of field reflection and phase delay. One prototype of the co-designed radome and antenna was fabricated for demonstration. The measured results show that the entire profile of the co-designed radome and antenna is significantly reduced from traditional 0.5-0.2 lambda g and the gain is enhanced by 2.4 dB.