IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL. 18, NO.

2, FEBRUARY 2019 363

Broadband Planar SIW Cavity-Backed Slot Antennas

Aided by Unbalanced Shorting Vias
Qi Wu , Student Member, IEEE, Jiexi Yin, Student Member, IEEE, Chen Yu, Member, IEEE,
Haiming Wang , Member, IEEE, and Wei Hong , Fellow, IEEE

Abstract—Two types of substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) three categories: 1) substrate removal [3]; 2) additional reso-
cavity-backed slot (CBS) antennas are proposed for bandwidth nant patch [4], [5]; 3) additional resonant cavity modes [6]–[8],
enhancement. First, a quad-resonance SIW CBS antenna is pro- [10], [16]. Considering both fabrication ease and bandwidth en-
posed using a cross-shaped slot and loading unbalanced shorting
vias. Additional half-TE1 2 0 mode is successfully excited along with hancement performance, the antenna with additional resonant
three other independent modes including half-TE1 1 0 and odd and cavity modes excited by slots and shorting vias has become
even TE2 1 0 modes. Next, a penta-resonance SIW CBS antenna more popular for broadband SIW CBS antennas. Using a simi-
with a cross-shaped slot is proposed, in which two pairs of short- lar geometry in [14], the fractional impedance bandwidth of the
ing vias are loaded. Two additional hybrid modes of half-TE2 1 0 antenna was improved up to 6.3% by simply utilizing two hybrid
and half-TE1 2 0 modes are introduced along with three other in-
dependent modes including half-TE1 1 0 and odd and even TE3 1 0 cavity modes in [16]. Using a bowtie-shaped slot, the SIW CBS
modes. Furthermore, the working mechanism of these two types of antenna achieved a bandwidth of 9.4% in [7]. In [6], a triangular
SIW CBS antennas is explained. Finally, prototypes of these two complementary split-ring slot is utilized to achieve a bandwidth
antennas are fabricated and measured at X-band. Their measured of 16.7%. In [8], shorting vias were introduced in the SIW cav-
fractional bandwidths are 20.0% and 20.8%, respectively. Simula- ity to realize triple- and quad-resonance SIW CBS antennas,
tion and measurement results agree very well, which confirms the
validity of the proposed designs. and achieved bandwidths of 15.2% and 17.5%, respectively. In
[10], a coupled half-mode/quarter-mode SIW CBS antenna was
Index Terms—Broadband antennas, cavity-backed antennas, proposed, and a measured fractional impedance bandwidth of
slot antennas, substrate integrated waveguide (SIW).
11.7% was achieved.
I. INTRODUCTION Many applications including, but not limited to, motion detec-
tion, terrestrial communications and networking, electron para-
UBSTRATE integrated waveguide (SIW)-like cavity-
S backed slot (CBS) antennas have been widely investigated
for various applications including satellite communications and
magnetic resonances, and amateur radio operation are using the
frequencies at X-band [20]–[22]. The proposed prototypes are
able to cover the required bandwidth of the above-mentioned
wireless communications recently because of their outstanding applications. Moreover, the proposed design strategies can be
advantages of easy integration with planar circuits, low profile, easily generalized to other frequency bands.
and excellent directional radiation performance [1]–[17]. Vari- In this letter, two types of SIW CBS antennas are proposed for
ous kinds of performance requirements, including broad band- broadband applications. First, using a cross-shaped slot and the
width [8], [10], [15], dual-band operation [12], [17], circularly load of unbalanced shorting vias, a quad-resonance SIW CBS
polarized radiation [9], [11]–[13], [18], [19], and miniaturiza- antenna is proposed. Additional half-TE120 mode is successfully
tion [9], [11], have been investigated for different applications. excited along with three other independent modes to broaden
Among the above-mentioned investigations, the SIW CBS an- the operating bandwidth. Second, based on a similar principle, a
tenna of bandwidth enhancement stands as an important research penta-resonance SIW CBS antenna is designed. Two additional
topic because of its application in broadband wireless commu- hybrid modes made of half-TE210 and half-TE120 modes are in-
nication systems [3]–[8], [10], [16]. The conventional SIW CBS troduced along with half-TE110 and odd and even TE310 modes.
antenna suffers from a narrow bandwidth of about 1.7% [14], in The antenna structures are designed and analyzed with the aid of
which only a single resonance exists. The strategies for forming the ANSYS High-Frequency Structure Simulator (HFSS) [23]
a broadband SIW CBS antenna can be generally divided into at X-band, to allow for better comparison and explanation of the
operating principle of the design. These two types of SIW CBS
Manuscript received October 29, 2018; revised November 30, 2018; accepted antennas are fabricated using a standard printed circuit board
December 18, 2018. Date of publication January 7, 2019; date of current version
February 1, 2019. This work was supported in part by the National Natural process, and their performances are evaluated. Simulation and
Science Foundation of China under Grant 61501111 and Grant 61671145, and measurement results agree very well.
in part by the Key R&D Program of Jiangsu Province of China under Grant
BE2018121. (Corresponding author: Haiming Wang.)
The authors are with the State Key Laboratory of Millimeter Waves,
II. QUAD-MODE SIW CBS ANTENNA
Southeast University, Nanjing 210096, China (e-mail:, [email protected]; In [11], the equivalence between the edge of the HMSIW
[email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; weihong@
seu.edu.cn). cavity and the longitude slot curved on the surface of the SIW
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/LAWP.2019.2891108 cavity is proposed to guide the miniaturization design process

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 364 IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL. 18, NO. 2, FEBRUARY 2019

Fig. 3. Simulated input resistance of the quad-mode antenna with varying

values of the offset l0 between the two vias.

Fig. 1. Geometry of the proposed quad-mode SIW CBS antenna.

l1 = 23.2, l2 = 6.0, l3 = 5.5, l4 = 5.2, l5 = 6.0, ls 1 = 19.05, ls 2 =
17.5, ls 3 = 12.5, lm = 3.2, w 1 = 20.15, w s 1 = 1.1, w s 2 = 1.1, w f 1 =
3.1, s1 = 2.3, gm = 1.7, d = 1.0, p = 1.5. Unit: mm.

Fig. 4. Electric field distributions from the HFSS for the quad-mode SIW
CBS antenna at (a) 8.9, (b) 9.3, (c) 10.2, and (d) 10.7 GHz.

To determine the resonance frequencies of the additional half-

TE120 mode and the three original modes, the following formula
[15] can be employed based on the corresponding equivalent
cavity size:
Fig. 2. Comparison of reflection coefficient |S 1 1 | for the proposed quad-mode  
SIW CBS antenna and the original tri-mode SIW CBS antenna in [8]. 2  2  
1 m n p 2
fm n p = √ + + (1)
2 μr εr Le We h
of the antenna. A similar equivalence is utilized in [10] to help where m, n, p are integers, μr and εr are the permeability and
with the bandwidth enhancement of the SIW CBS antenna. A permittivity of the cavity substrate, respectively, and Le and We
quad-mode SIW CBS antenna using unbalanced shorting vias are the equivalent length and width of the cavity, respectively.
and cross-shaped slot is presented here to realize the bandwidth The following formula can be utilized to calculate the length of
enhancement. The geometry of the proposed antenna is depicted the longitude slot:
in Fig. 1. Rows of metallic vias with diameter d are uniformly 1
arranged along the edges of the antenna to form an SIW cav- ls3 = √ (2)
2f2 μr εe
ity. A cross-shaped slot is etched on the ground plane of the
cavity. Two shorting vias with the same diameter d are located where εe = (εr + 1)/2 is the equivalent permittivity of the slot,
at the two sides of the symmetry plane of the SIW cavity. The and f2 is the resonance frequency of the inserted half-TE120
proposed quad-mode SIW CBS antenna can be seen as the com- mode. It should be noticed that ls3 instead of ls2 is utilized here
bination of the two HMSIW CBS antennas with different cavity because of the characteristic of the excited half-TE120 mode.
lengths and different shorting via locations. An additional mode Using (2), the initial length of ls3 is determined as 12.7 mm.
is successfully excited with the help of the unbalanced shorting The two loaded unbalanced vias are introduced here to
vias. Microstrip line of 50 Ω is utilized to feed the proposed achieve multimode excitation. First, similar with the approach
antenna for measurement purpose. Different from the dual-fed in [8], the two loaded vias are introduced to increase the reso-
geometry in [2], here, by applying the cross-shaped slot and the nant frequency of the half-TE110 mode. Second, by using the
unbalanced shorting vias, four separated modes are introduced unbalanced placement, the half-TE120 mode is successfully ex-
and, therefore, utilized to support the broadband radiation of the cited at 9.3 GHz. Defining the offset between the two vias along
single-fed proposed antenna. the x-axis as l0 = l5 − l4 , the variation of the input resistance
The reflection coefficients of the proposed quad-mode SIW along with l0 is shown in Fig. 3. It can be seen that the offset
CBS antenna and the original tri-mode SIW CBS antenna are between the two vias along the x-axis introduces the excitation
given in Fig. 2. Starting with the original tri-mode antenna, of the half-TE120 mode, while it does not dramatically affect
by modulating the first resonance mode downwards, and the the resonant of the other three modes.
second and third mode upwards, the additional half-TE120 mode The electric field distributions from the HFSS for the quad-
is then inserted between the original half-TE110 mode and the mode SIW CBS antenna are shown in Fig. 4. Half-TE110 mode
TE210 mode. The proposed quad-mode CBS antenna achieves at 8.9 GHz, half-TE120 mode at 9.3 GHz, and odd TE210 mode
a measured fractional bandwidth of 20.0% (8.77–10.72 GHz), at 10.2 GHz and even TE210 mode at 10.7 GHz are success-
with an increase of 5.1% when compared with the conventional fully excited. The resonance frequency of the first mode (half-
tri-mode CBS antenna. TE110 ) is tuned from 9.1 to 8.9 GHz by expanding the width of
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WU et al.: BROADBAND PLANAR SIW CAVITY-BACKED SLOT ANTENNAS AIDED BY UNBALANCED SHORTING VIAS 365

Fig. 8. Simulated input resistance of the penta-mode antenna with varying

value of the offset l0 between the two vias.
Fig. 5. Geometry of the proposed penta-mode SIW CBS antenna. l1 = 33.0,
l2 = 5.8, l3 = 5.8, l4 = 5.5, l5 = 6.1, l6 = 16.4, ls 1 = 18.9, ls 2 = 16.0,
ls 3 = 10.7, lm = 3.5, w 1 = 19.9, w s 1 = 1.5, w s 2 = 1.5, w f 1 = 3.1,
s1 = 3.0, s2 = 1.2, s3 = 0.2, gm = 1.6, d = 1.0, p = 1.5. Unit: mm.

Fig. 9. Simulated reflection coefficient of the penta-mode antenna with vary-

Fig. 6. Comparison of reflection coefficients for the proposed penta-mode and ing values of s2 and s3 .
quad-mode SIW CBS antennas.

Fig. 10. Photographs of the two types of the proposed broadband SIW CBS
antennas. (a) Top view. (b) Bottom view.
Fig. 7. Electric field distributions from the HFSS for the penta-mode SIW
CBS antenna at (a) 8.9, (b) 9.4, (c) 9.8, (d) 10.6, and (e) 10.9 GHz.
electric field distributions from the HFSS for the penta-mode
the SIW cavity. By utilizing the unbalanced shorting vias and SIW CBS antenna are shown in Fig. 7. With the half-TE110
the longitude slot, the half-TE120 mode is excited at 9.3 GHz. mode excited at 8.9 GHz, and the odd TE310 mode at 10.6 GHz
The resonances of the two higher modes (odd TE210 mode and and even TE310 mode at 10.9 GHz, two hybrid modes are ex-
even TE210 mode) are also slightly tuned to expand the band- cited at 9.4 and 9.8 GHz because of the proposed longitude slot
width while maintaining the resonance performance, by using and the unbalanced vias. The two hybrid modes can be seen
the lengths from the cavity boundary to the transverse slot l2 as the combination of the half-TE210 mode and the half-TE120
and l3 . In addition, the whole operating band can be modulated mode, which are separated by offsetting the placement of the
based on the width of the SIW cavity w1 . two vias aside the longitude slot. As depicted in Fig. 8, by
offsetting the mentioned two vias along x-axis with parameter
l0 = l5 − l4 , the original half-TE210 mode will be replaced by
III. PENTA-MODE SIW CBS ANTENNA
two separated hybrid resonant modes. Then, l0 = 0.6 mm is uti-
To further enhance the operating bandwidth, a penta-mode lized to balance the tradeoff between the reflection performance
antenna is developed in this section based on a similar strategy. and the bandwidth. The placement of the second pair of the vias
The geometry of the proposed antenna is depicted in Fig. 5. is also modulated to achieve the best impedance performance,
Five cavity modes are excited by using two pairs of unbalanced as depicted in Fig. 9.
shorting vias along with the cross-shaped slot.
The comparison of the reflection coefficients of the proposed
penta-mode SIW CBS antenna and the quad-mode SIW CBS IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
antenna is shown in Fig. 6. The five cavity modes are excited As shown in Fig. 10, these two types of proposed SIW CBS
to enhance the −10 dB bandwidth of the proposed antenna antennas are fabricated using the single-layer Taconic TLY
to 20.8% (8.89–10.95 GHz), with an increase of 3.3% when substrate with thickness of h = 1 mm, dielectric constant of
compared with the conventional quad-mode antenna in [8]. The εr = 2.2, and loss tangent of 0.0009. Their measured impedance
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 366 IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL. 18, NO. 2, FEBRUARY 2019

TABLE I
COMPARISONS OF THE PROPOSED ANTENNAS WITH PREVIOUSLY REPORTED SIW CBS ANTENNAS

∗: Simulated radiation efficiency.

Fig. 12. Gains and efficiency of the SIW CBS antennas in the broadside.
Fig. 11. Simulated and measured radiation patterns of the SIW quad-mode (a) Quad-mode antenna. (b) Penta-mode antenna.
CBS antenna at (a) 9.3 and (b) 10.2 GHz, and the SIW penta-mode CBS antenna
at (c) 9.6 and (d) 10.4 GHz.
at X-band to allow for better comparison and explanation of its
operating principle. Following the same design principle, the
bandwidth is 20.0% and 20.8%, respectively, as shown in Figs. 2 SIW CBS antennas operating at millimeter-wave band are ex-
and 6. pected to have similar performance, which will be addressed in
The measured radiation performance of these two types of future work.
antennas is shown in Fig. 11. The radiation patterns of the two
types of antennas show excellent similarity with the simula-
V. CONCLUSION
tion results. The gain performance at the broadside is shown
in Fig. 12(a) and (b), with peak gain of 4.93 and 5.72 dBi, For broadband applications, two types of planar slot anten-
3 dB gain bandwidths of 20.6% (8.7–10.7 GHz) and 21.3% nas based on SIW cavities have been proposed. First, a quad-
(8.8–10.9 GHz), and radiation efficiency larger than 86.3% and resonance SIW CBS antenna has been proposed by combining
84.7% within the operating bandwidth, respectively. two coupled unbalanced via-loaded HMSIW CBS antennas to
Comparisons between the proposed SIW CBS antennas and achieve the bandwidth of 20.0%. Second, a penta-resonance
previously reported ones are given in Table I. These two types SIW CBS antenna has been designed with the bandwidth of
of proposed SIW CBS antennas achieve 5.1% and 3.3% band- 20.8%. Additional modes excited by the cross-shaped slots and
width enhancement by using the additional half-TE120 mode the loading vias have been investigated, manipulated, and uti-
when compared with those in [8], respectively, under the condi- lized to support the broad operating bandwidth of the proposed
tion of same SIW cavity size. To summarize, the proposed SIW antennas. Prototypes of these SIW CBS antennas have been fab-
CBS antennas exhibit simple geometry, low profile of 0.03λ0 , ricated and measured for X-band applications. Simulation and
high radiation efficiency, broad impedance bandwidth, broad measurement results show that the proposed SIW CBS anten-
gain bandwidth, and stable radiation within the operating band- nas provide excellent features, including broad bandwidth, low
width. It is worth noticing that the proposed design is evaluated profile, and fabrication ease.
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WU et al.: BROADBAND PLANAR SIW CAVITY-BACKED SLOT ANTENNAS AIDED BY UNBALANCED SHORTING VIAS 367

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