ANALYTICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATIONS OF APERTURE-COUPLED UNIDIRECTIONAL DIELECTRIC RADIATOR ARRAYS (UDRA)

In this paper, experimental and analytical investigations of unidirect ional dielectric radiator arrays (UDRA) are presented for the first ti me, Attractive electrical performance due to the use of nonradiating d ielectric waveguide (NRD) structures is demonstrated, A numerical mode l based on a cavity-resonator approximation is developed for predictio n of radiation properties of the UDRA's. Good agreement between measur ements and calculations shows the validity of the modeling approach, O n the other hand, the feed technique for the UDRA by microstrip line a nd coupling-aperture is experimentally investigated, Measurement resul ts show high coupling and radiation efficiencies of the proposed excit ation method, Such a circuit configuration allows the combination of p lanar millimeter-wave M(H)MIC's and NRD components in one system for t he best use of different technologies.