阅读说明：本技术 一种超宽带高增益共形Vivaldi端射天线 (Ultra-wideband high-gain conformal Vivaldi end-fire antenna ) 是由 何业军 陈亚玲 黄金花 李文廷 张龙 王世伟 于 2021-07-07 设计创作，主要内容包括：本发明公开了一种超宽带高增益共形Viva ldi端射天线,所述天线包括：圆柱形柔性介质基板；设置在所述柔性介质基板的内表面上的金属贴片；以及设置在所述柔性介质基板的外表面上的馈电网络；所述金属贴片包括基于所述柔性介质基板的中心轴线对称设置的第一金属贴片与第二金属贴片,且所述第一金属贴片与所述第二金属贴片连接；所述第一金属贴片与所述第二金属贴片上均设置有喇叭状开口,所述第一金属贴片上的喇叭状开口与所述第二金属贴片的喇叭状开口基于所述中心轴线对称；所述第一金属贴片上的喇叭状开口与所述第二金属贴片上的喇叭状开口的连接处设置有圆形谐振腔。本发明的天线具有工作频带宽、增益高、成本低和结构简单等优点。(The invention discloses an ultra-wideband high-gain conformal Viva ldi endfire antenna, which comprises: a cylindrical flexible dielectric substrate; the metal patch is arranged on the inner surface of the flexible medium substrate; the feed network is arranged on the outer surface of the flexible medium substrate; the metal patches comprise a first metal patch and a second metal patch which are symmetrically arranged based on the central axis of the flexible medium substrate, and the first metal patch is connected with the second metal patch; horn-shaped openings are formed in the first metal patch and the second metal patch, and the horn-shaped openings in the first metal patch and the horn-shaped openings in the second metal patch are symmetrical based on the central axis; and a circular resonant cavity is arranged at the joint of the horn-shaped opening on the first metal patch and the horn-shaped opening on the second metal patch. The antenna has the advantages of wide working frequency band, high gain, low cost, simple structure and the like.)

1. An ultra-wideband high-gain conformal Vivaldi endfire antenna, the antenna comprising: a cylindrical flexible dielectric substrate; the metal patch is arranged on the inner surface of the flexible medium substrate; the feed network is arranged on the outer surface of the flexible medium substrate;

the metal patches comprise a first metal patch and a second metal patch which are symmetrically arranged based on the central axis of the flexible medium substrate, and the first metal patch is connected with the second metal patch;

horn-shaped openings are formed in the first metal patch and the second metal patch, and the horn-shaped openings in the first metal patch and the horn-shaped openings in the second metal patch are symmetrical based on the central axis; and a circular resonant cavity is arranged at the joint of the horn-shaped opening on the first metal patch and the horn-shaped opening on the second metal patch.

2. The ultra-wideband high-gain conformal Vivaldi end-fire antenna according to claim 1, wherein said feed network comprises a T-shaped impedance-matched microstrip line and fan-shaped metal stub structures disposed on both ends of said T-shaped impedance-matched microstrip line, respectively.

3. The ultra-wideband high-gain conformal Vivaldi endfire antenna of claim 1, wherein the slot lines on the first metal patch for forming the flared opening are the same shape as the slot lines on the second metal patch for forming the flared opening, both being gradually deformed slot lines; and the circular resonant cavity is formed at the joint of the bottom ends of the two gradually-deformed slot lines.

4. The ultra-wideband high-gain conformal Vivaldi endfire antenna according to claim 3, wherein said tapered slot line is exponentially tapered, said tapered slot line originating from a center of a bottom edge of said flexible dielectric substrate opposite to an opening of said flared opening.

5. The ultra-wideband high-gain conformal Vivaldi endfire antenna of claim 1, wherein the flexible dielectric substrate has a size of 235.6 x 230.0mm²The thickness is 0.24 to 0.28mm, and the dielectric constant is 3.1.

6. The ultra-wideband high-gain conformal Vivaldi endfire antenna according to claim 1, wherein said metal patch has a height of 220-240 mm and a length of 117.8 mm.

7. The ultra-wideband high-gain conformal Vivaldi endfire antenna according to claim 1, wherein the diameter of said circular resonant cavity is 4-8 mm.

8. The ultra-wideband high-gain conformal Vivaldi end-fire antenna according to claim 1, wherein said feed network is a one-to-two constant amplitude in-phase feed network.

9. The ultra-wideband high-gain conformal Vivaldi endfire antenna according to claim 2, wherein said T-shaped impedance matching microstrip line comprises a first stub structure and a second stub structure, said second stub structure being connected to a central position of said first stub structure and being perpendicular to said second stub structure, said fan-shaped metal stub structures being located at two ends of said first stub structure.

10. An ultra-wideband high-gain conformal Vivaldi endfire antenna according to claim 2, wherein the sector radius of the sector-shaped metal stub structure is 9.90mm and the sector opening is 90 °.

Technical Field

The invention relates to the technical field of wireless communication, in particular to an ultra-wideband high-gain conformal Vivaldi end-fire antenna.

Background

The Vivaldi antenna, namely the exponential tapered slot antenna, is a non-periodic, end-fire, linearly polarized and gradually-changed traveling wave antenna, has better Gaussian pulse response, wider working frequency band, high gain and better radiation performance, is small in size, easy to manufacture, suitable for being integrated with a solid device, and very suitable for being used as a single antenna or a radiation unit of a phased array antenna. Therefore, the Vivaldi antenna is widely applied to broadband or ultra-wideband phased array radars for completing multi-target and multi-functional tasks, and meanwhile, the phased array radar can also be used for ESM, ECM electronic countermeasure, communication and the like, so that the phased array radar becomes an array antenna system with a shared caliber.

Conventional Vivaldi antennas are typically used primarily for planar antenna arrays. The resonant frequency of the Vivaldi antenna array is determined by the aperture width, and the multi-element Vivaldi antenna array is difficult to miniaturize. The Vivaldi antenna realized by the prior art is difficult to realize high gain, and particularly has poor performance in a lower frequency band. To solve these problems, conventional Vivaldi antenna arrays generally use specific structures to improve the miniaturization and gain of the Vivaldi antenna arrays, such as regular slot edge structures, arc-shaped slots, dielectric lenses, and the like. However, these methods result in complex structures and large sizes of Vivaldi antenna arrays, which are not desirable in modern wireless systems. Therefore, it remains a challenge to implement miniaturized high-gain Vivaldi antenna arrays.

Thus, there is a need for improvements and enhancements in the art.

Disclosure of Invention

The present invention provides an ultra-wideband high-gain conformal Vivaldi endfire antenna, which aims to solve the above-mentioned problems of the prior art, such as difficulty in implementing high gain, poor performance in a lower frequency band, and difficulty in implementing miniaturization.

In order to solve the technical problems, the technical scheme adopted by the invention is as follows:

in a first aspect, the present invention provides an ultra-wideband high-gain conformal Vivaldi endfire antenna array, wherein the antenna array comprises: a cylindrical flexible dielectric substrate; the metal patch is arranged on the inner surface of the flexible medium substrate; the feed network is arranged on the outer surface of the flexible medium substrate;

the metal patches comprise a first metal patch and a second metal patch which are symmetrically arranged based on the central axis of the flexible medium substrate, and the first metal patch is connected with the second metal patch;

horn-shaped openings are formed in the first metal patch and the second metal patch, and the horn-shaped openings in the first metal patch and the horn-shaped openings in the second metal patch are symmetrical based on the central axis; and a circular resonant cavity is arranged at the joint of the horn-shaped opening on the first metal patch and the horn-shaped opening on the second metal patch.

In one implementation, the feed network includes a T-shaped impedance matching microstrip line and fan-shaped metal stub structures respectively disposed on two ends of the T-shaped impedance matching microstrip line.

In one implementation, the slot line on the first metal patch for forming the horn-shaped opening and the slot line on the second metal patch for forming the horn-shaped opening are the same in shape and are gradually deformed slot lines; and the circular resonant cavity is formed at the joint of the bottom ends of the two gradually-deformed slot lines.

In one implementation manner, the gradually-deformed groove line is gradually changed in an exponential manner, and the center of a bottom edge of the flexible medium substrate, which is opposite to the opening direction of the horn-shaped opening, is used as an origin of the gradually-deformed groove line.

In one implementation, the flexible medium substrate is 235 size.6*230.0mm²The thickness is 0.24 to 0.28mm, and the dielectric constant is 3.1.

In one implementation mode, the height of the metal patch is 220-240 mm, and the length of the metal patch is 117.8 mm.

In one implementation mode, the diameter of the circular resonant cavity is 4-8 mm.

In one implementation, the feeding network is a one-to-two constant-amplitude in-phase feeding network.

In one implementation manner, the T-shaped impedance matching microstrip line includes a first stub structure and a second stub structure, the second stub structure is connected to a central position of the first stub structure and is perpendicular to the second stub structure, and the fan-shaped metal stub structures are located at two ends of the first stub structure.

In one implementation, the fan-shaped metal stub structure has a fan-shaped radius of 9.90mm and a fan-shaped opening of 90 °.

Has the advantages that: compared with the prior art, the invention provides an ultra-wideband high-gain conformal Vivaldi end-fire antenna, which comprises: a cylindrical flexible dielectric substrate; the metal patch is arranged on the inner surface of the flexible medium substrate; the feed network is arranged on the outer surface of the flexible medium substrate; the metal patches comprise a first metal patch and a second metal patch which are symmetrically arranged based on the central axis of the flexible medium substrate, and the first metal patch is connected with the second metal patch; horn-shaped openings are formed in the first metal patch and the second metal patch, and the horn-shaped openings in the first metal patch and the horn-shaped openings in the second metal patch are symmetrical based on the central axis; and a circular resonant cavity is arranged at the joint of the horn-shaped opening on the first metal patch and the horn-shaped opening on the second metal patch. The Vivaldi antenna has the working frequency band of 3.06-9.5GHz and the gain range of 8.81-15.16dBi, and has the advantages of wide working frequency band, high gain, low cost and simple structure.

Drawings

Fig. 1 is a schematic perspective view of an ultra-wideband high-gain conformal Vivaldi endfire antenna array according to the present invention.

Fig. 2 is an exploded schematic view of a three-dimensional structure of an ultra-wideband high-gain conformal Vivaldi endfire antenna array according to the present invention.

Fig. 3 is a schematic diagram of antenna elements of an ultra-wideband high-gain conformal Vivaldi endfire antenna array of the present invention.

Fig. 4 is a schematic diagram of a feed network of an ultra-wideband high-gain conformal Vivaldi endfire antenna array of the present invention.

Fig. 5 is a schematic diagram of standing-wave ratio simulation results of the ultra-wideband high-gain conformal Vivaldi endfire antenna array of the present invention.

Fig. 6 is a simulation diagram of the reflection coefficient S11 of the ultra-wideband high-gain conformal Vivaldi endfire antenna array of the present invention.

Fig. 7 is a schematic diagram of a gain simulation result of the ultra-wideband high-gain conformal Vivaldi endfire antenna array of the present invention.

Fig. 8 is an E-plane and H-plane radiation pattern of an ultra-wideband high-gain conformal Vivaldi endfire antenna array of the present invention at 3.1GHz, 4.3GHz, 6.1GHz, 7.9GHz, and 9.1GHz, respectively.

Detailed Description

In order to make the objects, technical solutions and effects of the present invention clearer and clearer, the present invention is further described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings and examples. It should be understood that the specific embodiments described herein are merely illustrative of the invention and are not intended to limit the invention.

It should be noted that if directional indications (such as … …, which is up, down, left, right, front, back, top, bottom, inner, outer, vertical, transverse, longitudinal, counterclockwise, clockwise, circumferential, radial, axial) are provided in the embodiments of the present invention, the directional indications are only used for explaining the relative position relationship, motion condition, etc. of the components at a specific posture (as shown in the attached drawings), and if the specific posture is changed, the directional indications are changed accordingly.

In addition, if there is a description relating to "first" or "second", etc. in the embodiments of the present invention, the description of "first" or "second", etc. is for descriptive purposes only and is not to be construed as indicating or implying relative importance or implicitly indicating the number of technical features indicated. Thus, a feature defined as "first" or "second" may explicitly or implicitly include at least one such feature. In addition, technical solutions between various embodiments may be combined with each other, but must be realized by a person skilled in the art, and when the technical solutions are contradictory or cannot be realized, such a combination should not be considered to exist, and is not within the protection scope of the present invention.

The Vivaldi antenna, namely the exponential tapered slot antenna, is a non-periodic, end-fire, linearly polarized and gradually-changed traveling wave antenna, has better Gaussian pulse response, wider working frequency band, high gain and better radiation performance, is small in size, easy to manufacture, suitable for being integrated with a solid device, and very suitable for being used as a single antenna or a radiation unit of a phased array antenna. Therefore, the Vivaldi antenna is widely applied to broadband or ultra-wideband phased array radars for completing multi-target and multi-functional tasks, and meanwhile, the phased array radar can also be used for ESM, ECM electronic countermeasure, communication and the like, so that the phased array radar becomes an array antenna system with a shared caliber.

Conventional Vivaldi antennas are typically used primarily for planar antenna arrays. The resonant frequency of the Vivaldi antenna array is determined by the aperture width, and the multi-element Vivaldi antenna array is difficult to miniaturize. The Vivaldi antenna realized by the prior art is difficult to realize high gain, and particularly has poor performance in a lower frequency band. To solve these problems, conventional Vivaldi antenna arrays generally use specific structures to improve the miniaturization and gain of the Vivaldi antenna arrays, such as regular slot edge structures, arc-shaped slots, dielectric lenses, and the like. However, these methods result in complex structures and large sizes of Vivaldi antenna arrays, which are not desirable in modern wireless systems. Therefore, it remains a challenge to implement miniaturized high-gain Vivaldi antenna arrays.

To solve the problems of the prior art, the present embodiment discloses an ultra-wideband high-gain conformal Vivaldi endfire antenna, as shown in fig. 1 and 2, comprising: a cylindrical flexible dielectric substrate 1; the metal patch 2 is arranged on the inner surface of the flexible medium substrate 1; and a feed network 5 arranged on the outer surface of the flexible dielectric substrate 1. In this embodiment, the metal patches 2 include a first metal patch and a second metal patch symmetrically disposed on the basis of the central axis of the flexible dielectric substrate 1, and the first metal patch is connected to the second metal patch, as can be seen from fig. 1 and 2, the first metal patch is located on the left side of the flexible dielectric substrate 1, and the second metal patch is located on the right side of the flexible dielectric substrate 1. Horn-shaped openings are formed in the first metal patch and the second metal patch, and the horn-shaped openings in the first metal patch and the horn-shaped openings in the second metal patch are symmetrical based on the central axis; and a circular resonant cavity 4 is arranged at the joint of the horn-shaped opening on the first metal patch and the horn-shaped opening on the second metal patch. In this embodiment, the feeding network 5 is a one-to-two constant-amplitude in-phase feeding network, and the feeding network 5 includes a T-shaped impedance matching microstrip line 6 and sector metal branch structures 7 respectively disposed at two ends of the T-shaped impedance matching microstrip line 6, and feeds the Vivaldi antenna. Compared with the traditional planar Vivaldi antenna array, the ultra-wideband high-gain conformal Vivaldi endfire antenna has the advantages of small conformal design size, easiness in miniaturization realization and capability of keeping ultra-wideband, high gain and stable endfire performance. In addition, the antenna has the advantages of low cost, simple structure and the like, and is suitable for radar communication and remote sensing systems.

Further, in this embodiment, the slot line 3 used for forming the horn-shaped opening on the first metal patch and the slot line 3 used for forming the horn-shaped opening on the second metal patch have the same shape, and are both gradually deformed slot lines; the junction of the bottom ends of the two tapered slot lines forms the circular cavity 4, as shown in particular in fig. 1. Specifically, in this embodiment, the slot line 3 is an outer edge line of the trumpet-shaped opening, and the slot line 3 is a gradual change slot line, so that the trumpet-shaped opening can be formed. Since the first metal patch and the second metal patch are symmetrical with respect to the center line of the flexible dielectric substrate 1, a mirror symmetry effect is presented, and horn-shaped openings are provided on both the first metal patch and the second metal patch, and as shown in fig. 3, the slot line 3 for forming the horn-shaped opening in this embodiment is a gradually deformed slot line, and the gradually deformed slot line is exponentially gradually changed, and the gradually deformed slot line takes the center of the bottom side of the flexible dielectric substrate, which is opposite to the opening direction of the horn-shaped opening, as an origin, so that the horn-shaped opening is opened upward. And in vision, the opening of the antenna of the invention is larger, thus realizing better gain effect.

The flexible medium substrate 1 in this embodiment is made of a flexible material, and has a size of 235.6 × 230.0mm²The thickness is 0.24-0.28 mm, the thickness of the embodiment is 0.26mm, the dielectric constant is 3.1, and the size of the planar Vivaldi antenna array can be greatly reduced. Specifically, as shown in fig. 3, the height of the metal patch 2 is 220 to 240mm, the height h of the metal patch 2 in this embodiment is 230mm, the length l is 235.6mm, the diameter of the circular resonant cavity 4 is 4 to 8mm, the diameter d of the circular resonant cavity 4 in this embodiment is 6mm, and specific structural parameters are as follows.

TABLE 1

Structural parameters	l	h	d	l1	l2
						Numerical value (mm)	117.8	230	6	58.9	36
Structural parameters	w1	w2	r	g
						Numerical value (mm)	0.245	0.49	9.9	0.2

In this embodiment, as shown in fig. 4, the T-shaped impedance matching microstrip line 6 includes a first stub structure and a second stub structure, the second stub structure is connected to a central position of the first stub structure and is perpendicular to the second stub structure, and the fan-shaped metal stub structures are located at two ends of the first stub structure. Specifically, the length l of half of the first branch structure₁58.9mm, the length l of the second branch structure₂Is 36 mm. Width w of the first branch structure₁0.245mm, the width w of the second branch structure₂Is 0.49 mm. Further, the sector radius of the sector-shaped metal branch structure 7 in this embodiment is 9.90mm, and the sector opening is 90 °.

Further, the present embodiment also performs simulation tests on the antenna, fig. 5 is a schematic diagram of a voltage standing wave ratio simulation result of the ultra-wideband high-gain conformal Vivaldi endfire antenna array of the present embodiment, and it can be observed from the diagram that the voltage standing wave ratios VSWR in the frequency band of 3.06-9.5GHz are all less than 2. Fig. 6 is a diagram illustrating a simulation result of reflection coefficient S11 of the ultra-wideband high-gain conformal Vivaldi endfire antenna array of the present embodiment. The reflection coefficient mainly reflects the return loss characteristic of the antenna and is used for quantitatively analyzing the transmitting efficiency of the antenna, and the larger the value is, the worse the efficiency of the antenna is, and the better transmitting efficiency is achieved when the value is smaller than-10 dB. It can be seen from fig. 6 that the impedance bandwidth of the Vivaldi antenna array proposed in this embodiment is close to 102.5% at 3.06-9.5 GHz. Fig. 7 is a schematic diagram of a gain simulation result of the ultra-wideband high-gain conformal Vivaldi endfire antenna array proposed in this embodiment. It can be observed from fig. 7 that the gain remains substantially in the range of 8.81-15.16dBi in the operating band, indicating that the designed antenna has a higher gain. Fig. 8 shows the E-plane and H-plane radiation patterns of the ultra-wideband high-gain conformal Vivaldi endfire antenna array provided by the present embodiment at 3.1GHz, 4.3GHz, 6.1GHz, 7.9GHz, and 9.7GHz, respectively. It can be observed from the figure that the radiation pattern of the proposed conformal Vivaldi antenna array has good end-fire characteristics, and the radiation pattern remains unchanged in the whole working frequency band, and the cross polarization is low. Fig. 5, 6, 7 and 8 obtained by comprehensive simulation provide a novel ultra-wideband high-gain conformal Vivaldi antenna array, and two balanced Vivaldi antenna units and a feed network are adopted to realize ultra-wideband and high-gain performance. Simulation results show that under the condition of keeping the structure compact, the working frequency band of the conformal Vivaldi array is 3.06-9.5GHz (102.5%), and the peak gain can reach 15.16 dBi. In addition, the antenna maintains stable end-fire radiation throughout the operating frequency range.

Based on the above embodiments, the present invention may further provide an ultra-wideband high-gain conformal Vivaldi endfire antenna, including: a cylindrical flexible dielectric substrate; the metal patch is arranged on the inner surface of the flexible medium substrate; the feed network is arranged on the outer surface of the flexible medium substrate; the metal patches comprise a first metal patch and a second metal patch which are symmetrically arranged based on the central axis of the flexible medium substrate, and the first metal patch is connected with the second metal patch; horn-shaped openings are formed in the first metal patch and the second metal patch, and the horn-shaped openings in the first metal patch and the horn-shaped openings in the second metal patch are symmetrical based on the central axis; and a circular resonant cavity is arranged at the joint of the horn-shaped opening on the first metal patch and the horn-shaped opening on the second metal patch. The antenna has the advantages of wide working frequency band, high gain, low cost, simple structure and the like.

Finally, it should be noted that: the above examples are only intended to illustrate the technical solution of the present invention, but not to limit it; although the present invention has been described in detail with reference to the foregoing embodiments, it will be understood by those of ordinary skill in the art that: the technical solutions described in the foregoing embodiments may still be modified, or some technical features may be equivalently replaced; and such modifications or substitutions do not depart from the spirit and scope of the corresponding technical solutions of the embodiments of the present invention.