Waveguide Design Considerations in Annular Waveguide Slot Antennas (AWSA) S. Ebadi*, K. Forooraghi Tarbiat Modares Univ. (TMU), P. O.

Box 14155-1186, Tehran, Iran

Introduction Recently, the concept of an annular waveguide slot antenna (AWSA) for possible application in planar circular boundary array antennas was introduced in [1]. The motivation for the idea of this kind of slotted waveguide is derived from [2-5]. Using the similarity with broadwall rectangular waveguide slot, it was initially shown that this kind of annular slot depicted in Fig. 1 could be modeled as a shunt conductance in the annular transmission line. Detailed procedure of setting these parameters in order to achieve the desired performance could be found in [1] In this paper, recent achievements of the authors on the annular waveguide theory used in AWSA design are presented. It will be shown that by exact exploration of the propagating modes in the short-ended annular waveguide, the resonant frequency could be tuned to any desired value. Then, a resonant slot length at the same frequency could be implemented and the total resonant performance of the structure at the desired frequency will be achieved. To be precise, it will be shown that how an annular waveguide in the AWSA could be designed to contain the desired standing wave at the design frequency. This procedure will be verified at 9.3GHz by fabricating a single slotted waveguide and the results will be compared with those of simulation and measurement.

(a) (b) Fig. 1 (a) Top view of a single slot AWSA with the design parameters (b) different 3-D views of the same structure

978-1-4244-2042-1/08/$25.00 2008 IEEE

Annular Waveguide Theory To analyze the annular waveguide we have deeply investigated the total possible modes propagating in the structure. The modes are divided to two general TEz and TMz modes in cylindrical coordinate and proper boundary conditions are applied. For the WR-90 cross section waveguide and for TEz modes, it can be shown that the first resonant mode happens at 14.76GHz and could not be used for our Xband design. For TMz modes, after applying the boundary conditions, vector potential Az could be found as in (1) and all electric and magnetic field components could be easily derived consequently. These fields will show interesting geometrical harmony with rectangular TE10 mode. The first modes will happen if n=0 and for our special case, with the design parameters found in [1], the desired resonant frequencies could be calculated as in (2) for (n,p)=(0,4).
A z = A np [ Y ( a ) n = 0,1, 2, ... J ( b ) +Y ( b )] [cos( z z )] [sin( )], (1) J ( a ) p = 1, 2,3, ...

(n , p ) = (0, 4) = 2 p = 8 T = J ( b )Y ( a ) J ( a )Y ( b ) = 0 = 194.9 n = 0 z = 0 2 2 2 2 2 z + = r r = + z = 194.9 r = 2 / r = 0.0322 f r = c / r = 9.3058GHz

(2)

The same procedure is followed for other modes with the resonant frequency prior to our design frequency and the results are compared with HFSS simulation of the structure. The results of this comparison are provided in Table 1. As could be found from the table, at the design frequency the deviation of our theoretical and simulated values regarding the centre frequency (9.3GHz) are about 0.16% which is quite acceptable. To conclude, it was shown that by proper design of an annular waveguide we could achieve the resonant characteristic of our transmission line at our desired design frequency and follow the rest of the conventional slotted waveguide design procedure [6] by cutting a 0 / 2 slot on the desired wall of the waveguide.
Table 1 X-band annular waveguide resonant frequencies; theory and simulation

p 1 2 3 4

(Theory)
141.5 153.7 172.2 194.9

fr (Theory) 6.75 7.34 8.22 9.3058

fr (HFSS) 6.71 7.30 8.19 9.2905

Simulation and Measurement Results Using the derived propagating mode in the annular waveguide described in the previous section, a single slot AWSA is designed and simulated using Ansoft HFSS and CST microwave studio [7-8] at 9.3GHz. As shown in Fig. 2 the slot admittance at the design frequency is purely real and the forward and backward scattering coefficients are equal which verify the proposed shunt model. The designed antenna is fabricated and measured and the results are provided in Fig. 3. Good agreement is observed between the design and measurement results.
1
10

Slot Admittance: Imaginary Part (B)

0.8
5

Slot Admittance: Real Part (G)

0.6
Slot Scattering Coefficients (B & C) [dB]
0

Normalized Slot Admittance Y/G0

0.4

-5

0.2

Slot Scattering Coefficient: forward

Slot Scattering Coefficient: Reverse

-10

-0.2

-15

-0.4
-20

-0.6

-0.8

-25

8.5

9.5 9.3 frequency (GHz)

10

10.5

11

8.5

9.5 9.3 frequency (GHz)

10

10.5

11

(a)

(b)

Fig. 2 (a) simulated slot admittance (b) simulated slot scattering coefficient

-5

-10

S11 (dB)

-15

CST - Time domain analysis

HFSS - Frequency domain analysis
Measurement Theory - Circuit Model

-20

-25

-30 8

8.5

9.3

9.5

10 Frequency(GHz)

10.5

11

11.5

12

(a)
0

(b)
0

-5

-5

-10

-10

G
Normalized Gain (dB)
-15

-15

-20

Normalized Gain (dB)

-20

G HFSS

G HFSS

G HFSS

-25

G HFSS

-25

G CST

G CST

G CST

-30

G CST

-30

G Measurement

G Measurement

G Measurement

-35

G Measurement

-35

-40 -200

-150

-100

-50

50

100

150

200

-40 -200

-150

-100

-50

50

100

150

200

(deg)

(deg)

(c)

(d)

Fig. 3 (a) Fabricated AWSA (b) S11 (c) Phi=0o patterns (d) Phi=90o patterns

Conclusion and future works In this paper, modal considerations for design of an annular waveguide for application in Annular Waveguide Slot Antennas (AWSA) were considered. It was shown that such cavity could be designed to have resonant characteristics at our operating frequency. Based on this result, resonant half wavelength slot could be drilled in various waveguide faces and a novel slotted antenna (AWSA) is achieved. The structure is fabricated and simulation and measurement results are compared with those of theory. A possible AWSA array configuration is depicted in Fig. 4. Such planar array of the presented AWSA could be employed to improve the performance of planar waveguide slot arrays in terms of polarization, gain, aperture efficiency and discretizing error in the future.

(a) (b) Fig. 4. (a) Conventional circular boundary waveguide slot array (b) proposed AWSA array

References:
[1] S. Ebadi and K. Forooraghi, "An annular waveguide slot antenna," IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters, Volume 6, Issue 99, 2007 Page(s):525 - 528 [2] K. Kelly and F. Goebels Arbitrary polarization from annular slot planar antennas, Antennas and Propagation, IEEE Transactions on [legacy, pre - 1988] Volume 9, Issue 4, Jul 1961 Page(s):342 349. [3] W.Croswell, C. Knop and D. Hatcher A dielectric-coated circumferential slot array for Omni directional coverage at microwave frequencies Antennas and Propagation, IEEE Transactions on [legacy, pre 1988] Volume 15, Issue 6, Nov 1967 Page(s):722 727. [4] a quasi Omni directional slot array antenna for spacecraft use at microwave frequencies NASA technical report TN D-4362, March, 1968. [5] A. Ishimaru, Electromagnetic wave propagation, radiation and scattering, PrenticeHall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1991. [6] R. S. Elliott, Antenna Theory and Design, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey, 2003. [7] HFSS Version 10.0 Software, Ansoft Co. [Online]. Available: http://www.ansoft.com. [8] CST Microwave Studio Version 5.0.0 Software, CST Computer Simulation Technology, [Online]. Available: http://www.cst.com.