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2018-TVT-Millimeter-Wave Slotted Waveguide Array WithUnequal Beamwidths and Low Sidelobe Levelsfor Vehicle Radars and Communications
2018-TVT-Millimeter-Wave Slotted Waveguide Array WithUnequal Beamwidths and Low Sidelobe Levelsfor Vehicle Radars and Communications
2018-TVT-Millimeter-Wave Slotted Waveguide Array WithUnequal Beamwidths and Low Sidelobe Levelsfor Vehicle Radars and Communications
Abstract—A low profile, high gain 32 × 64-slot array antenna expected detection range is around 200 m, and the beam-widths
with unequal beamwidths in the E- and H-planes and low sidelobes in the azimuth/elevation plane are normally suppressed into no
is proposed for vehicular applications in the 71–81 GHz band. The more than ±2°/±5°, which enhances the radar resolution [1].
antenna is composed of 512 (16 × 32) 2 × 2-slot subarrays ar-
ranged with equal spacing and excited by a nonuniform corporate- In unmanned aerial vehicle applications, the beam-widths in
feed-network. A two dimensional amplitude-tapering (complying azimuth/elevation plane are also usually unequal and even nar-
with Taylor distribution) is used to achieve the low sidelobe lev- rower. Additionally, no matter what kind of radar application, it
els (SLLs). Combined with the different dimensions of the array, is often highly desirable to have a low sidelobe level (SLL) to
the sidelobes and the beamwidths in the E- and H-planes are in-
minimize the effect of clutter and interference [3], [4]. So, it is
dependently controlled. A prototype slotted waveguide array is
fabricated to verify the array properties. Measurements show that crucially important to be able to control the beams in both the
the matching of the array is better than −14 dB over the entire azimuth and elevation planes.
bandwidth. The first SLL is lower than −18.9 dB/−24 dB with the Apart from vehicle radars, millimeter wave (MMW) is also
maximum 3-dB beamwidth of 2.3°/1.3° in the E-/H-plane, respec- considered one of the key enabling technologies for vehic-
tively. The peak gain of over 39.4 dBi and the cross-polarization
ular communications [5]–[8]. The E-band (71–76 GHz and
discrimination (XPD) of below −36.2 dB are also achieved. The
demonstrated features of high gain, low SLL, and independent 81–86 GHz), next to the popular radar band of 76–81 GHz, has
controllability of the beam in the E- and H-planes are most desir- attracted a lot of attention for communication systems [9], [10].
able for vehicular communications and radars. In this work, we choose the frequency range of 71–81 GHz to
Index Terms—Slotted waveguide array, low sidelobe, high gain, cover the interest from both radars and E-band communications.
2-D amplitude-tapering. We aim to demonstrat#e the capability of an antenna platform
that addresses the design challenges of high gain, low sidelobe,
I. INTRODUCTION low profile, and independently controllable beam-widths in the
E- and H- planes.
ADARS and communication systems in automobiles, un-
R manned aerial vehicles have undergone rapid development
in recent years [1]. 77 GHz radars have become the main stream
Weighting the power applied to the array elements (the so-
called amplitude tapering) is one major approach used to re-
duce sidelobes [11]. The weighting normally takes one of three
technology [2]. Different field of views are required for differ-
distributions: Binomial, Chebyshev and Taylor [12]–[15]. Bino-
ent detection scenarios. For the long range automotive radar, the
mial distribution could eliminate all sidelobes but increases the
Manuscript received February 21, 2018; revised June 13, 2018 and August beam-width. Chebyshev distribution offers the narrowest beam
8, 2018; accepted August 12, 2018. Date of publication August 20, 2018; date width under the same array sizes and SLL. However, the physi-
of current version November 12, 2018. This work was supported in part by cal implementation of this distribution is very challenging as it
the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Projects 61631012
and 61801252, in part by the Natural Science Foundation of Zhejiang Province requires large variation of the power amplitudes and therefore
under Project LQ17F010002, and in part by the K.C. Wong Magna Fund in power dividers need large power ratios. Taylor distribution ren-
Ningbo University. The work of Y. Wang was supported by the UK EPSRC ders less amplitude variation and the feed network is easier to
under Contract EP/M013529/1. The review of this paper was coordinated by
Prof. T. Kuerner. (Corresponding author: Yunlong Lu.) implement. It is still very effective in suppressing the sidelobes.
L. Qin, Q. You, and J. Huang are with the Faculty of Electrical Engineering Taylor distribution has been the choice of many previous works.
and Computer Science, Ningbo University, Ningbo 315211, China (e-mail:, Most of them were based on microstrip feed networks [16]–
531671771@qq.com; 576177657@qq.com; huangjifu@nbu.edu.cn).
Y. Lu is with the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, [19]. At MMW band, however, the losses of microstrip feed
Ningbo University, Ningbo 315211, China, and also with the State Key Labora- are relatively high for a high gain antenna. Since waveguide
tory of Millimeter Waves, Southeast University, Nanjing 210096, China (e-mail:, has much lower losses, waveguide- based arrays have been a
luyunlong@nbu.edu.cn).
Y. Wang and P. Gardner are with the Department of Electronic, Electrical and top choice for high performance MMW antennas. Among them
System Engineering, University of Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2TT, U.K. are slotted waveguide (SW) arrays [20], [21] and continuous
(e-mail:,y.wang.1@bham.ac.uk; P.GARDNER@bham.ac.uk). transverse stub (CTS) arrays [22]. The realization of amplitude
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org. tapering in waveguide structures is a more involved design chal-
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TVT.2018.2866245 lenge and very few works have been reported in the literature.
0018-9545 © 2018 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
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QIN et al.: MILLIMETER-WAVE SLOTTED WAVEGUIDE ARRAY WITH UNEQUAL BEAMWIDTHS AND LOW SIDELOBE LEVELS 10575
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10576 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON VEHICULAR TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 67, NO. 11, NOVEMBER 2018
N
−1
In (zn ) = 1 + 2 S (m) cos (mp) (1a)
m =1
S (m)
⎧ ⎧ ⎫
2
⎪
⎪ N − 1 ! N−1 ⎨ m 2 ⎬
⎪
⎨ 1−
,m ≤ N − 1
= N − 1 + m ! N − 1 − m ! n =1 ⎩ σ 2 A2 + (n − 1/2)2 ⎭ (1b)
⎪
⎪
⎪
⎩
0, m ≥ N
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QIN et al.: MILLIMETER-WAVE SLOTTED WAVEGUIDE ARRAY WITH UNEQUAL BEAMWIDTHS AND LOW SIDELOBE LEVELS 10577
TABLE I
DIMENSIONS OF THE 2 × 2- ELEMENT SUBARRAY (UNIT: MM)
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10578 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON VEHICULAR TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 67, NO. 11, NOVEMBER 2018
Fig. 10. (a) Effect of rid_l on power ratio. (b) Simulated S-parameters and
phase imbalance of the 4.1 dB power divider.
From Fig. 10(a), it can also be seen that the phase imbalance
increases with increasing power ratios. This is mainly due to the
unequal length of the metal ridges at the output ports. For the
5.5 dB power divider, the phase imbalance increases to −7.2°
at the center frequency with a variation of ±5°. To reduce this
phase imbalance, a phase compensation technique is applied.
Fig. 9. (a) Basic T-junction unequal power divider. (b) Modified unequal T- As shown in Fig. 9(b), this is achieved by staggering the output
junction power divider with phase compensation (rid_l = 0.55, dis = 0.3, unit: ports by a certain distance, dis. Fig. 11(a) demonstrated the
mm). Note that the blue parts (grey in black and white print) are metal, showing
the structures inside the waveguide. For clarity, the waveguide walls are only effects of dis on the output phase imbalance. Fig. 11(b) shows
shown using frame lines. the simulated results of the 5.5 dB unequal power divider after
phase compensation. With dis = 0.3 mm, the phase imbalance
is reduced from 7.2° ± 5° to 0° ± 2.7°, while the transmission
by single-ridge H-plane T-junctions. One is shown in Fig. 9(a). and reflection coefficients remain good.
A capacitive metal plate is embedded in each of the H-plane T- The simulation results of the desired nine power ratios are
junction to achieve a wideband impedance matching. The power shown in Fig. 12. Over the frequency range of 71–81 GHz,
division ratio can be controlled by the amount of the extrusion the maximum amplitude variation is ±0.09 dB occurring at the
of the ridge at one of the output branches, rid_l. The variation of power ratios of 3.8 dB and 4.1 dB.
the power ratio with rid_l is shown in Fig. 10(a) together with
III. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
corresponding phase imbalance between the outputs. Fig. 10(b)
shows the simulated S-parameters of a 4.1 dB unequal power The five layers of proposed antenna are fabricated separately
divider. Over the entire operating bandwidth, the power ratio is out of aluminum by CNC machining and assembled by means
kept within 4.1 ± 0.09 dB. The reflection coefficient is better of screws. The radius of the rounded corners, as defined by the
than −33 dB. milling tool, is 0.2 mm. During assembly, a set of screws are
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QIN et al.: MILLIMETER-WAVE SLOTTED WAVEGUIDE ARRAY WITH UNEQUAL BEAMWIDTHS AND LOW SIDELOBE LEVELS 10579
Fig. 12. Simulation power ratios of the nine types of power dividers.
Fig. 11. (a) Effect of dis on the phase imbalance. (b) Simulated phase im-
balance and S-parameters of the 5.5 dB unequal power divider with phase
compensation.
A. Reflection Coefficient
The reflection coefficient is measured using AV3672B vector
network analyzer, is shown in Fig. 14. A reasonable agreement
is obtained on the return loss level between the simulations
and the measurements. The reflection coefficient is better than
−14 dB between 71 GHz and 81 GHz (a fractional bandwidth
of 13%). The large ripple in the simulated reflection coefficient
is due to the multiple reflections in the feeding network. In the Fig. 14. Measured S11 of the proposed array in comparison with simulation.
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10580 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON VEHICULAR TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 67, NO. 11, NOVEMBER 2018
Fig. 15. Normalized co-pol and cross-pol radiation patterns in E-plane and H-plane at 71, 77 and 81 GHz.
TABLE II
MEASURED PERFORMANCE OF THE PROPOSED ANTENNA IN COMPARISON
WITH SIMULATIONS
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QIN et al.: MILLIMETER-WAVE SLOTTED WAVEGUIDE ARRAY WITH UNEQUAL BEAMWIDTHS AND LOW SIDELOBE LEVELS 10581
TABLE III
COMPARISON OF AMPLITUDE TAPERING ARRAYS
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