Comparative Investigation of Half-mode SIW Cavity and Microstrip Hybrid Antenna Using Different Patch Shapes

A set of hybrid microstrip patch and semi-circular cavity antennas is introduced. The semi-circular cavity is implemented using Half-mode Substrate Integrated Waveguide (HMSIW) technique. Different shapes of the patch including rectangular, semi-circular and equilateral triangular are excited using proximity effect by the semi-circular SIW cavity at its TM010 mode. The proposed antenna structures have been excited using an inset 50 Ω microstrip line that leads to a facility of planar circuit integration. The inherent limited bandwidth of the conventional microstrip patch antenna and SIW cavity-backed slot antenna is improved about 6 to 10% depending on the type of the patch using the proposed structure. Additionally, the proposed hybrid antenna enhanced the antenna gain by about 1.5 dB in comparison with the half-mode cavity without patch. Meanwhile, the proposed hybrid antennas made on a single-layer substrate has a low fabrication cost using printed circuit board (PCB) process. Three hybrid antennas are numerically and experimentally investigated. A comparative study between the three different structures contains gain, bandwidth, Cross Polarization Level (CPL ) and Front to Back Ratio (FBR ) is presented.