Design of a Planar Slotted Waveguide Array Antenna for X-band Radar Applications

Abstract

A planar slotted waveguide array antenna has been designed at 9.37 GHz for X-band radar applications. The antenna consists of multiple branchline waveguides with broadwall radiating shunt slots and a main waveguide to feed the branch waveguides through a series of inclined coupling slots. The antenna feed point is located at the center of the main waveguide. Element weights in the array have been calculated bysampling a continuous circular Taylor aperture distribution at the 25 dB sidelobe level in both the E and Hplanes. A commercially available electromagnetic (EM) simulation tool has been used to characterize the individual isolated slot and that data hassubsequently been used to design the planar array. The array is finally analyzed in a CST Microwave studio and the measured and simulated results have been found to be in good agreement.