Wideband and Compact Fabry-Perot Resonator Antenna Using Partially Reflective Surfaces With Regular Hexagonal Unit

A wideband and compact Fabry-Perot resonator antenna (FPRA) employing two layers of partially reflective surfaces (PRSs) is presented in this letter. The proposed PRSs with regular hexagonal units are used in wideband FPRA for the first time. Based on the compact arrangement of regular hexagon units and the addition of tripod branches, the size of FPRA is greatly reduced. Furthermore, the regular hexagonal units are arranged periodically along three directions on the 2-D plane, which means that one regular hexagon unit has six identical units around it. Therefore, there is a strong coupling between the PRS units, and units obtain a positive phase gradient in a wide range of 9.1-13.5 GHz, which is the basis for the formation of the wideband FPRA. The FPRA with dimensions of (2.2x2.2x0.6) lambda(3)(0) (lambda(0) is the wavelength of the center frequency) has a 3 dB gain bandwidth over 9.2-13 GHz, relatively 34.2%, with a peak gain of 14.2 dBi. The prototype has been fabricated and tested, and validate the simulated results.