Design of a miniaturized ultrawideband and low scattering antipodal vivaldi antenna array

Abstract This paper presents a miniaturized ultra-wideband (UWB) antipodal Vivaldi antenna (AVA) array with low-scattering characteristics integrated a hybrid diffusive-absorptive metasurface. Periodic elliptical slots at the outer edges and a dielectric lens are utilized for antenna element to improve performances including miniaturized size, wide bandwidth, and high gain. The optimized element is fabricated and measured, the results demonstrate that the − 10 dB impedance bandwidth is 4.5–50 GHz with a ratio bandwidth ( f H / f L ) of 11.1:1, and the maximum gain at 35 GHz is 12.7 dBi, which are in good agreement with simulation. By loading an optimized Minkowski-shaped metasurface as the ground reflector, which combines the multielement phase cancellation (MEPC) and EM absorption technology, the 4 × 4 array realizes a low radar cross section (RCS) without the radiation performance degradation. Simulated and measured results show that the proposed low-scattering array has a 10-dB RCS reduction band ranging from 5 to 50 GHz at normal incidence for both polarizations. Furthermore, the array structure shows extremely low-observable capability, which is larger than 15 dB of the RCS reduction from 7.1 to 50 GHz with a ratio bandwidth of 7.0:1. The results verify the feasibility of improving the performance of antenna and the UWB low-scattering functionality.