A wideband circularly polarized antenna with wide beamwidth for GNSS applications

A wideband circularly polarized antenna with wide half power beamwidth (HPBW) and 3 dB axial-ratio beamwidth (ARBW) is proposed in this paper. The circularly polarized (CP) radiation is realized by feeding two crossed printed dipoles through a wideband feeding network with broadband 90° phase shift. By adding a thick substrate layer and a notched-corner metal cavity around the antenna, the impedance bandwidth (VSWR < 2) is greatly enhanced. The HPBW of the proposed antenna is greater than 110° while the ARBW is greater than 130° in the operating band, simultaneously. The overall dimension of the antenna is only 70 × 70 × 36 mm3. The measured results show that the impedance bandwidth of the proposed antenna reaches 54.7% (1.06 GHz–1.86 GHz) while the AR bandwidth (AR < 3 dB) is 48.6% (1.08 GHz–1.78 GHz). As such, the proposed antenna can be widely used in various global navigation satellite system (GNSS) applications. © 2018, Electromagnetics Academy. All rights reserved.