High-gain V - band Dielectric Lens Antenna for Communication and Direction Finding Systems

A highly-directional spherical lens antenna system operating from 40 GHz to 50 GHz (V band) is proposed. The antenna consists of a Luneburg inspired lens, which is fed by a 16-element array of septum horns with circular aperture. The septum horn antenna with circular aperture has a rotationally symmetric radiation pattern with the ability to generate both righthanded and left-handed circular polarizations. A single septum horn antenna has a gain of 8 dBi with −13 dB side lobe level (SLL). The return loss of each septum horn antenna is below −10 dB over the entire frequency range of operation. Using a lens together with a 16-element array of septum horns makes it permissible to increase the overall gain to 26 dBi and simultaneously decrease the SLL to −21 dB. The proposed system can be used for direction finding and satellite communications in the V band. The design procedure together with the simulated results with CST software are presented in this paper.