An ultra wideband tapered slot antenna

Abstract

A typical tapered slot antenna (TSA) consists of a gradually widening slot in a metallic plate printed on a substrate. The bandwidth of TSA is limited mainly by the transition of the feeding line and slot-line, which varies with frequency. A wideband Vivaldi TSA, fed by a microstrip line, has been realized. The slot-line is etched on the ground plane of the microstrip line; one side is a narrow open port and the other side is a gradually widening radiating port. The microstrip is very close to the open port of the slot-line. At the end of the microstrip, a shorting pin, which is also close to the slot-line, is connected to the ground plane. In this way, all reflecting waves from the open port of the slot-line and the shorting pin, along with the original waves, radiate at almost the same time towards the wide radiating port of the antenna.