A K-band aperture-coupled microstrip leaky-wave antenna

Microstrip leaky-wave antenna fed bf an aperture-coupled microstrip operati ng at K-band is presented. Using the aperture-coupled microstrip as a feedi ng structure can fully exploit the wideband characteristic of the microstri p leaky-wave antenna. The dimensions of the antenna are obtained from the c alculation of the propagation characteristics. Measurement shows a bandwidt h of 22% for VSWR < 2 : 1 and a peak power gain of 12 dBi at 22 GHz for one element. Four-element array is developed with a gain of 18.7 dBi and the f requency-scanning feature is exhibited. The waveguide model is verified by measuring the 3-D, radiation pattern of the microstrip leaky-wave array.