A Compact Ku-Band Active Electronically Steerable Antenna with Low-Cost 3D T/R Module

Abstract

This paper presents a novel compact Ku-band active electronically steerable antenna array design with a low-cost and integrated T/R 3D module employed for airborne synthetic aperture radar (SAR) systems. The entire system adopts 3D multilayer technology with vertical interconnection to construct the hermetically packaging RF modules. By assembling different multifunctional modules into a whole multilayer board, the 3D T/R technique greatly improves the system integration and reduces implementation cost and size. Besides, a wideband circular polarized antenna array was designed in LTCC and connected to the proposed T/R modules to form a complete AESA. The whole proposed antenna system has been fabricated and experimentally investigated. Measurement results showed very good phased array performances in terms of gain, axial ratio, and radiating patterns. The low-cost, lightweight, and low-power features exhibited by the proposed design validate its applicability for weight and power constrained platforms with great electronic steering ability.