A Low-profile Wideband Wide-Angle Scanning Tightly Coupled Dipole Array Antenna

A low-profile wideband array antenna with wide-angle scanning is presented. The proposed antenna is based on tightly coupled dipole array (TCDA) backed with metal ground plane. A parasitic strip and an integrated Marchand balun are incorporated within each element to further broaden the bandwidth. A metasurface layer is utilized as wide-angle impedance matching (WAIM) superstrate of the array to enhance its scanning performance. The simulated results of the designed infinite array model show that it can achieve 8.06:1 bandwidth (1.87-15.08 GHz for VSWR < 3) for boresight radiation. Maximum angle of 75 degrees and 65 degrees can be obtained for the E- and D-planes scanning cases, respectively, although 45 degrees is observed for scanning in the H-plane. A finite array with 10 x 10 elements is demonstrated with simulation results of radiation performance. The profile of the presented array above ground plane is only 0.08 lambda(l), where lambda(l) is the wavelength in open space at the lowest operating frequency.