Low-Profile Dual-Polarized Multi-Beam Antenna Based on Pillbox Reflector and 3D-Printed Ridged Waveguide

In this article, a dual-polarized multibeam antenna is proposed. Two orthogonally polarized slotted waveguide antennas (SWAs) are cross-placed as the main radiator, which is designed based on ridged waveguides (RGWs) to reduce the width of the waveguides and obtain a wider steering range. The two SWAs are fed by two pillbox reflector beamforming networks (BFNs), and a special impedance transition is designed to reduce the reflection between the quasi-TEM wave in the parallel-plate waveguide (PPW) to the TE10 wave. By exciting different feeding patches in the focal planes of the pillbox reflectors, the SWA achieves different beams. In order to further increase the crossover level, the single-port excitation (SPE) and the dual-port excitation (DPE) method are used together to increase the equivalent source number in the compact area of the focal plane. Besides, the DPE method can also reduce the sidelobe level (SLL) of the beams excited by the side ports. A prototype is designed at the operating frequency of 10 GHz and fabricated by the 3-D-printed technology and computer numerical control (CNC) technology. The measured results show that the proposed antenna achieves +/- 36 degrees beam scanning in the multibeam plane with the minimum crossover level of -2.1 dB. The cross polarizations are below -20.0 and -15.9 dB for the horizontal polarization (H-P) and the vertical polarization (V-P), respectively. The advantages of dual polarization, high aperture efficiency, low cross polarization, wide beam scanning range, and low crossover level make this antenna a very appropriate choice in multibeam radars and communication systems.