Abstract
In this communication, the author presents an eight-element sequentially rotated (SR) circularly polarized (CP) dielectric resonator antenna (DRA) for operation in the IEEE 802.11a standard. A novel resonating element composed of a crescent slot (CS) used to excite a rectangular dielectric resonator (RDR) is proposed that has two orthogonal modes TE1 delta 1y and TE delta 21x as required for CP radiation. An SR series-parallel geometry is used to prototype the array feed network to allocate the array elements to symmetrical positions. The phase progression of each element was 45 degrees along the array, and the signal magnitude was distributed evenly based on the binomial theory to enhance the antenna performance. The prototyped SR array had a size of 46 x 46 x 0.813 mm(3) and was measured and characterized in order to authenticate the design. The resonance bandwidth (S-11 < -10 dB) was found to be 14.28% with a 3 dB axial ratio (AR) of 17.7% for right-hand CP. The gain varied from 15.71 to 16.26 dBi within the operating band. The size, gain, and impedance bandwidth of the proposed array make it a potential candidate for devices operating in the IEEE 802.11a band.