International Presentation

Presentation Title: Transmission Enhancement for Radial Line Slot Antennas in

Non-Far Region Using a Feeding Slot with Better Rotating Mode
Session: 3C1 Wireless Power Transfer Technologies (9.00-10.40)
25 January 2020, ISAP 2020, Osaka, Japan
By Tuchjuta Ruckkwaen 18D10440
1 Introduction

Near-field transmission has been proposed as a main feature in both wireless

communication and power transmission applications. Researches on short range
communication system, are intended for high speed data transfer application. The important
characteristics of near field communication is the field intensity mainly confined in a certain
volume (antenna beam) and the field intensity is quasi-uniform in this region where stable
communication is realizable. In a similar sense, wireless power transmission has been in a
spotlight for charging electric vehicles and drone. There are mainly two types of wireless
power transmission: the non-radiative type in which the power is transferred over short
distances using techniques, e.g.: magnetic/electric couplings, magnetic/electric resonances.
The radiative type in which power is transferred by beams of electromagnetic radiation over
longer distances using microwaves or laser. However, the efficiency of the radiative type is
often limited by the divergences of beams (radiated fields). On the contrary, the several
techniques of the non-radiative type are generally applicable over short distances. Taking the
trade-off between transmission efficiency and distance into consideration, a beam-type
technique is introduced. With the electrically large aperture/array antennas and their non-far
region, high efficiency power transfer over longer distances can be realized. In similar
fashion to the short range communication, radiated power in non-far region is stored in the
vicinity of antennas.
A radial line slot antenna (RLSA) was originally designed for satellite
communication. A following work includes it as a candidate for the compact-range
communication system, see Fig. 1. One issue of the previous design is high transmission
fluctuation, which is not a desired quality for wireless power transfer (WPT). Fig. 2 (b) shows
the simulation result of transmission in Fig. 2 (a). The cause of the ripples is multiple
reflections.
The uniformity in the aperture field excitation is crucial for general RLSAs. The
degradation in the aperture field excitation contribute to the impairment of signal to
interference ratio in short range communication systems, as well as a reduction in wireless
power transmission. To excite rotating mode in the radial waveguide of RLSA, a straight
cross slot is used for coupling power from the feeding waveguide. A dog-bone cross slot was
proposed in to reduce the amplitude ripple of field distribution in the phi direction in the
radial waveguide.
In this presentation, we propose the design methodology of a dog-bone cross slot.
We also demonstrate that the dog-bone cross slot improves the data and power transmission
using RLSAs. This study utilizes 5.8 GHz band, the industry science and medical (ISM) band.
 4 turn RLSA
Fig. 1 Radial line slot antenna

T. Tomura, et al., IEICE Tech. Report.,

AP2018-156, pp. 29-32, Jan. 2019.
Fig. 2 (a) Wireless power transfer using identical RLSAs
 Fig. 2 (b) Transmission characteristics obtained by HFSS

2 Antenna Structure

The proposed RLSA is composed of two parts: 1) feeding part in the lower layer 2)
radiating part in the upper layer, as shown in Fig. 3. The feeding part is composed of an air-
filled rectangular feeding waveguide and an air-filled dog-bone cross slot. Conventionally,
radial waveguide is fed by a coaxial feeder or a cavity resonator. A rectangular feeding
waveguide was developed as the physical size of the coaxial feeder becomes small in
millimeter wave band and high accuracy in manufacturing becomes difficult. An advantage
of the waveguide feeder is its high-power handling capability which makes suitable for the
wireless power transfer application. The dog-bone cross-slot is used to couple waves from
the feeding waveguide and excites the rotating mode in the radial waveguide. The radiating
part is composed of a poly tetra fluoro ethylene (PTFE)-filled radial waveguide and an array
of radiating slot pairs. PTFE has a dielectric constant of 2.16 and a loss tangent of 0.001. The
slot pair is designed to excite circularly-polarized fields. The array radiates pencil-beamed
pattern when the slot pairs exited by the rotating mode fields. The feeding waveguide, dog-
bone cross slot, and radial waveguide are of aluminum with bulk conductivity of 3.8 107
S/m and the radiating slots are of copper with bulk conductivity of 5.8 107 S/m.
In this presentation, we focus mainly on the design of the dog-bone cross slot.

3 Design

This section presents a design method for the RLSA as detailed in section 2. In
subsection 3.1, a dog-bone cross slot including the feeding waveguide is designed using
electromagnetic simulator (HFSS). The design of the radiating part is given in section 3.2.
Finally, the full antenna structure is analyzed using the same software and some of simulation
results are given.
3.1 Feeding Part

We start the design with the initial model shown in Fig.4; a single dog-bone slot over
a rectangular feeding waveguide and the equivalent model of radial waveguide over the dog-
bone slot. The design frequency is 5.8 GHz. The initial dimension of the dog-bone slot is
determined using the method of moment (MoM). By properly scaling the length of the dog-
bone slot (while keeping the ratio between the length of the center part of the dog-bone slot
and the length of the edge parts), the characteristics of E-field at the position of the maximum
direction, see Fig.5., can be obtained for various slot lengths in terms of amplitude and phase
as shown in Fig. 6. In Fig. 6, the resonant frequency is found at the position where the
amplitude of the E-field is maximum. In order to create a cross-slot which can generate a
rotating mode, two slot lengths are determined: the amplitudes of the two slot length are equal
and the phases are 90-degree difference. Fig. 7 show the E-field distribution in the radial
waveguide by combining two slot range. The rotating mode is realized.
Fig. 8 (a) and (b) show the parameters of the feeding parts for two types of cross
coupling slots: Fig. 8 (a) is a straight cross-slot and Fig. 8 (b) is a dog-bone cross-slot. Both
were designed using the aforementioned method. Fig. 9 shows the comparison of the E-field
in the phi-direction within the radial waveguide for the previous and new designs. It is clear
that the amplitude ripples are about 2 dB lower than that of the previous design.

3.2 Radiating Part.

The radiating part can be design using a basic unit model as demonstrated in Fig. 10. The
periodic boundary wall is set to account for the coupling effect from neighboring slot pairs.
The slot length is determined to control the amount of coupling power. For the present
antenna, 4-turn-slot-pair configuration is used. To realize the uniform amplitude excitation,
the percentages of coupling power for first turn, second turn, third turn, and forth turn slot
pairs are 25%, 33%, 50% and 100% respectively. Next, the slot spacing xs ,i and ys ,i , in
Fig. 11, are adjusted to suppress the axial ratio and reflection respectively. The theoretical
value for the slot spacing is a quarter guide wavelength. The spacing between each slot pair
is about a guide wavelength to realize the uniform phase excitation. Finally, the complete
radiating part is formed using parameters of the unit model as shown in Fig. 10.

3.3 Complete Structure

The full antenna structure as shown in Fig. 3 is the combination of the designed
feeding part and the radiating part. The design of radiating part is detailed [5]. The frequency
characteristics of reflection is shown in Fig. 12. The reflection below -25 dB at the design
frequency. The bandwidth is approximately 5% of the design frequency. The amplitude
ripples for various frequencies are shown in Fig. 13. The result suggest that amplitude ripples
are lower than 6 dB for frequencies in the range [5.7 GHz, 5.9 GHz]. Fig. 14 shows the
aperture field distribution at quarter wavelength over the radiating slots. The maximum
amplitude ripples of E-field in the phi direction is 4 dB. The improvement in the uniformity
of aperture field excitation is confirmed.

Radiating Slot

Copper

Radial Waveguide
(PTFE)
Aluminum

Coupling Slot

Feeding Waveguide
(Air-filled Aluminum)
Fig. 3 Antenna structure

Fig. 4 Single slot

 Field is extracted

Single slot

Fig. 5 Position of the maximum direction

Slot length is varied at 5.8 GHz

[dB]

Slot length [mm]

Phase [Deg.]

Slot length [mm]

Fig. 6 Amplitude and phase of the E-field for various slot lengths
 Cross-slot

Fig.7 Rotating mode

Straight cross-slot

22.0 mm

1.5 mm
6.25 mm
19.90 mm
47.14 mm

76.97 mm

Fig. 8 Straight cross-slot

Dog-bone cross-slot
17.0 mm
3.88 mm
3.39 mm
1.5 mm

6.25 mm
15.70 mm
47.14 mm

77.72 mm

Fig. 9 Dog-bone cross-slot

 Radiation
Rad
PBWPeriodic Boundary Wall

Fig. 10 Unit model

Fig. 11. Slot pair

Reflection [dB]

Frequency [GHz]
Fig. 12 Reflection
Relative Amplitude [dB]

Angle [Deg.]
Fig. 13 Amplitude ripples for various frequencies
 (a) Old Cross-Slot (b) New Cross-Slot

Fig. 14 Aperture field distribution

4 Transmission

By adopting the new slot designs, the comparison of transmission (S21) between the
Tx and Rx RLSAs using each design is illustrated in Fig. 15. The result in Fig. 15 indicates
that the transmission level of the RLSAs adopting the new cross-slot and the dog-bone one
increases by approximately 2 dB from that using the old cross-slot ([1], [2], and [3]).
Moreover, the transmission ripples for the RLSAs using the new cross-slot and the dog-bone
one reduce by 2.15 dB and 2.25 dB respectively. The result points out that the lower the
amplitude ripples of E-field in the phi-direction in the radial waveguide, the lower the
transmission ripples.

5 Conclusion

The new feeding slots have been proposed to reduce the amplitude ripples of E-field
in the phi-direction in the radial waveguide. This improves the uniformity in the aperture
field distribution of the antenna. By adopting the new cross-slot and the dog-bone one, the
transmission increases by 2 dB from the RLSA using the old cross-slot and the transmission
ripples reduce to 1.14 dB and 1.04 dB for the antennas using the new cross-slot and the dog-
bone one respectively. Fig. 16 show a table comparison for the relevant works.

References
[1] T. Tomura, J. Hirokawa, M. Furukawa, and T. Fujiwara, “Study on 5.8 GHz band
Beam-Type Wireless Power Transmission by Radial Line Slot Antennas,” IEICE Tech.
Report., AP2018-156, pp. 29-32, Jan. 2019.
[2] T. Tomura, J. Hirokawa, M. Furukawa, and T. Fujiwara, “Radial Line Slot Antennas
for 5.8 GHz band Beam-Type Wireless Power Transmission,”, IEICE General. Conf., B-1-
48, Mar. 2019.
[3] T. Ruckkwaen, T. Tomura, and J. Hirokawa, “The Effect of Rotational Dependence
on Transmission Characteristics of Radial Line Slotted Array Antennas,”, IEICE Commun.
Conf., B-1-96, Sep.
2020.
[4] K. Sudo, T. Oizumi, J. Hirokawa, and M. Ando, “Reduction of Azimuthal Amplitude
Ripple in the Rotating-Mode Feed to a Radial Waveguide by Using a Crossed-Dogboned
Slot,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat, vol. 51, no. 9, pp. 2618-2622, Sep. 2007.
S21 [dB]

Distance [mm]
Fig. 15 Transmission comparison for various distances