A circularly polarized phased array antenna with 60° scanning in the D-plane using a top-loaded patch

The requirements for circularly polarized (CP) phased array antennas are growing with the rapid development of electronic systems. To achieve a low-profile, wideband, and large scanning-angle CP, we constructed a novel CP unit cell with a two-layer folded coupling patch and a top-loaded patch. The design of the folded coupling patch was based on the principle of reverse current cancellation. Compared with the single-layer coupling patch, the folded coupling patch suppressed the occurrence of strong in-band resonance and obtained a wider axial ratio (AR) bandwidth. To solve the problem of AR performance deterioration in the D-plane scanning, we introduced the top-loaded patch to replace the thick wide-angle impedance matching layer, which improved the difference in co-polarization components and reduced cross-polarization level. Thus, a large scanning angle of more than 60° in the D-plane was obtained. An 8 × 8 planar array based on the proposed CP unit cell was designed. The array achieved a 3.9:1 (3.2–12.5 GHz) AR bandwidth and up to 60° scanning angle in the D-plane and 70° in the E-/H-plane; an AR smaller than 3 dB was demonstrated over the entire scanning range.