Low-Cost Broadband Circularly Polarized Printed Antennas and Array

This paper presents the design, simulation, and measurements of two low-cost broadband circularly polarized (CP) printed antennas: an element and an array at 2 GHz. To realize the broadband circularly polarized antenna element, a circular microstrip patch is electromagnetically coupled by crossed slots cut in the ground plane, which is fed by an L-shaped microstrip feed. Two orthogonal modes in the patch are excited by using the crossed slots, and a single L-shaped feed provides a 900 phase shift between two orthogonal slots. The antenna element achieves a 9.6% bandwidth for an axial ratio (AR) below 3 dB and a voltage standing wave ratio (VSWR) below 1.5. To further improve the performance, a sequentially rotated feed network is designed for a 2 x 2 array. The axial ratio value of the array is below 3 dB within a 27.2% bandwidth, from 1.75 GHz to 2.3 GHz. The return loss is above 10 dB within a 41 % bandwidth, from 1.62 GHz to 2.45 GHz. Details of the proposed antenna element and the array design are described, and both the simulation and the experimental results are presented and discussed.