Bandwidth enhancement of circularly polarized dielectric resonator antenna

Abstract

Axial-ratio (AR) bandwidth enhancement is achieved for a circularly polarized (CP) cylindrical dielectric resonator antenna (DRA) using a wideband hybrid coupler (WHC) combined with dual probe feed. The presented WHC, comprised of a Wilkinson power divider and a wideband 90° shifter, delivers good characteristics in terms of 3 dB power splitting and consistent 90° (±5°) phase shifting over a wide bandwidth. In turn, the proposed CP DRA, for the employment of the WHC, in place of conventional designs, provides a significant enhancement on AR bandwidth and impedance matching. The antenna prototype with the WHC exhibits a 3 dB AR bandwidth of 48.66%, an impedance bandwidth of 52.5% for voltage standing wave ratio (VSWR) ≤ 2, and a bandwidth of 44.66% for a gain of no less than 3 dBi. Experiments demonstrate that the proposed WHC is suitable for broadband CP DRA design.