Abstract
A low-cost membrane antenna arrays based on FR4 and thin flexible Pyralux substrate for high speed 60 GHz communication systems are proposed. The thin substrate used for making the antenna helps for the easy integration with millimeter wave components and circuits. The low-cost thin Pyralux substrate with a thickness of 75m, relative permittivity of epsilon r=2.4 and tan =0.002 is used. In this article, we are proposing a slot coupled single patch with substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) technology, 1 x 4 antenna array with (a) a combination of SIW and microstrip feed network and (b) SIW complete feed network, and finally a 1 x 16 array of patch antennas fed by complete SIW feed technology. Measurements of the prototypes show good results in terms of impedance bandwidth and antenna gain around 60 GHz. The measured results are in agreement with the numerical simulations. (c) 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 55:1746-1752, 2013