DESIGN OF ANTIPODAL VIVALDI ANTENNA WITH PERIODIC CROSS SLOTS FOR IMPROVING GAIN PERFORMANCE

In this paper a printed antipodal Vivaldi antenna with pairs of cross slots is proposed to improve the antenna gain by reducing the side lobe levels of the radiation pattern. This is a new approach for applications like radar and ultra-wide band (UWB). While designing the proposed antenna with slots, initially an antipodal Vivaldi antenna is presented. Further proposed antenna designed by introducing periodic cross slots, which results in improvement in gain significantly along with increased directivity. To describe effectiveness of the proposed antenna the results are simulated and compared. Simulation results show that the proposed antenna has a return loss |S11| < −10 dB, with a range from 6 to 18 GHz with a compact size 60(L)×30(W)×1.6(h)mm3. Good unidirectional radiation characteristic also achieved with the proposed antenna.