Broadband Circularly Polarized Magnetoelectric Dipole Antenna by Loading Parasitic Loop

A broadband circularly polarized (CP) magnetoelectric (ME) dipole antenna loaded with parasitic loop is presented in this communication. The proposed ME dipole antenna is fed through the slot-coupled feeding method, in which a microstrip line is used to couple the energy to the antenna by the slot etched on the ground plane. By introducing a parasitic loop coplanar with the horizontal patch, extra CP modes are generated due to the coupling with the radiation patch. Combining with the original CP mode, the simulated 3 dB axial-ratio (AR) bandwidth is enhanced from 12.2% to 45.8% with an increment of 33.6%. The measured results show that the 10 dB impedance bandwidth is 55.3% (3.4–6.0 GHz) and the 3 dB AR bandwidth is 42.1% (3.62–5.55 GHz). Moreover, the proposed antenna owns flat gain and stable unidirectional radiation patterns within the designated frequency band.