Linearly polarized small patch array fed by corporate SIW network

In this article, a linearly polarized 2 × 2 patch array uniformly fed by a corporate substrate integrated waveguide network for Ku band is presented. Undesired main beam steering is avoided by means of a fully corporate feeding network, although grating lobes may appear due to greater separation between radiating elements. Moreover, a reduced patch separation to avoid grating lobe appearance leads to an antenna matching coefficient degradation due to the proximity of antenna discontinuities. In consequence, a tradeoff approach has been developed, achieving a measured 4.1% matching bandwidth and a measured gain of 13.27 dBi, which corresponds to an 86% radiation efficiency. Good agreement between simulated and measured results is observed in all cases.