CHARACTERIZATION OF VIVALDI ANTENNAS

UTILIZING A MICROSTRIP-TO-SLOTLINE TRANSITION

Burrell*
Motorola
Paging and Wireless Data C.roup
Boynton Beach, F1. 33426-E292
D.A.

J.T. Abarlo
Telecommunications Research :enter
Arizona State Universit-{
Tempe, AZ. 85287-7206

Introduction

The tapered slot antenna (TSA) consists of a tapered

slot cut into a thin film of metal which may be
supported by an electrically thin substrate on one side
of the film. These antennas exhibit a wide beamwidth
and moderately high (10-17 dB) directivity for a given
cross section. Applications of antennas with these
traits include but are not limited to satellite
communications, remote sensing, and radio astronomy. To
take maximum advantage of integrated circuit techniques,
completely planar geometry should be chosen for tapered
slot antennas. This is the reason that the transition
used in this study is microstrip-to-slotline instead of
finline to slotline or some other non-planar transition.
In this presentation we investigate the microstrip-toslotline transition and report on experimental results
for Vivaldi antennas of various lengths and output
widths.
MiCrO8fr~p-tO-SlOtlineTransition

Most microwave integrated circuits(M1Cs) are realized in

microstrip transmission medium. However, the
transmission medium best suited for feeding the TSA is
slotline. In order to couple microwave signals to the
antenna from a planar microstrip circuit, a transition
between the microstrip and slotline transmission media
is needed. When a slotline and a microstrip cross each
other at right angles and extend approximately onequarter wavelength beyond the crossing point, coupling
is very strong and a transition covering approximately
3 0 percent bandwidth can be achieved [l]. In all the
previous literature, only transitions fabricated on high
dielectric constant substrates have been considered [21.
However, in order to maximize the anterna radiation a
low dielectric constant substrate is highly desirable.
Therefore, we decided to design and optimize a
transition for this case. Figs. 1 and 2 show the
0-7003-1246-5193/$3.00 Q 1993 IEEE.

21

optimized microstrip-to-slotline transitions' return

loss and insertion loss respectively. I t - should be
noted that since the fabricated circuit consists of both
input and output microstrip-to-slotline transitions, the
insertion loss should be significantly less for the
antenna because it has only one transition.
Description of the Antenna

The Vivaldi antenna, Fig. 3, has an exponential shape

defined by [ 3 ]
y(x) = 2 A*ePX

where
A

+ B

- amplitude of the antenna

- shaping factor of the antenna profile

B - constant

The Vivaldi antenna is essentially frequency

independent, since at a given wavelength only a section
of the exponential actually radiates efficiently. As
the wavelength varies, radiation occurs from a different
section which is scaled in size in proportion to the
wavelength, and has the same relative shape. This
translates into an antenna with a large bandwidth. From
Ffg. 3 it can be seen that the Vivaldi antenna is
divided into two areas:
- a propagating area defined by WE < W < WA
- a radiating area defined bl? WA c W < WO

where

W - slot width
WE - input width
WA - slot width at radiating area
WO - output width

Results and Conclusion

The Vivaldi antennas were designed to operate at 10 GHz

and fabricated on Duroid 5870 which has a dielectric
constant of 2 . 3 3 and a thickness of 30 mils. Figs. 3
and 4 show the directivity in the E- and H-plane
respectively for the optimized antenna. The values for
the directivity compared favorably to the curves
produced by Zucker [ 4 ] which are the standards for
determining whether tapered slot antennas behave as well
optimized traveling-wave antennas or not. The slight

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discrepancies in the directivity value. could be due to

the loss experienced from the microstrip-to-slotline
transition as well as tolerances in the, fabrication
process.

References
[l]

Mariani, C.P. Heinzman, J . P . Agrios, and S.B.

Cohn, "Slot line characteristics,"IEEE T r a n s .
Microwave Theroy and T e c h . , vol. MTT-17, pp. 1091
- 1096, Dec. 1969.

[2]

Jeffrey B. Knorr, "Slot-line trarsitions, IEEE

T r a n s . Microwave Theory and T e c h . , vol MTT - 22,
pp. 548 - 554, May 1974.

[31

M. Helier, P Lartigue, and D. Lecointe, "Analysis

of the non-uniform slot-line antennas," Service
d ' Electromagnetism
CNRS - EST:, pp. 194 - 197
June 1987.

E.A.

"

, ' I

[41

F.J. zucker, "Surface- and leaky-waveantennas,

in A n t e n n a E n g i n e e r i n g Handbook. H. Jasik, Ed. New
York: McGraw Hill, 1961, pp. 16-34 - 16-16.

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Fig. 4

Eplane directivity of Vivaldi antenna

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