2018 3rd International Conference on Microwave and Photonics (ICMAP 2018), 9-11 February, 2018

A Flexible Corrugated Vivaldi Antenna for Radar and

See-Through Wall Applications
Pratul Nijhawan Arvind Kumar Yashashchandra Dwivedi3*
School of Material Science and Nanotechnology Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering Department of Physics
pratul_31609116@nitkkr.ac.in arvind_sharma@nitkkr.ac.in yashjidwivedi@nitkkr.ac.in
National Institute of Technology, Kurukshetra -136119 , Haryana , India
Corresponding author*

Abstract—A Tapered Slot Flexible Corrugated Vivaldi (FCV)
antenna has been designed for the radar and see-through wall
applications, using CST Microwave Studio. It has been designed
over a flexible polyimide substrate, having thickness 0.25mm, by
depositing 0.01mm silver film. Corrugations with constant width
and spacing, with a constant decreasing rate are cut throughout
the exponential section. Also, silver metal strips are being
employed periodically over the substrate. In the spacing between
the grating elements, the circular silver metal portions are
applied so as to further enhance the antenna performance. The
parameters of the antenna are optimized so as to get an efficient
antenna.
Keywords—Flexible Corrugated Vivaldi (FCV) antenna, Radar,
See-through Wall.
radiating structure is exponentially tapered having a radiation
along the direction of tapering. The tapered profile is similar to
[3] having r as the rate of tapering, which is calculated in the
same way as [4] and then optimized further. All the parameters
are optimized having optimum values as shown in Table I.
The corrugations with uniform decreasing factor (Cd),
having, width (Wc), length (Lc) and a uniform spacing (Sc)
between them and depth of corrugation is same as silver film
thickness, i.e. 0.01mm. Also, the silver metal strips are
employed in the end-fire direction, having length (Ml), width
(Mw) and spacing (Ms) between them of thickness same as
silver metal. Also, circular silver metal portions are kept in the
empty space between metal strips of diameter (Dcm). The
schematic layout of proposed FCV antenna is shown in Fig.1:

I. INTRODUCTION
Vivaldi Antenna is an Ultra Wide Band (UWB) Antenna.
Vivaldi antenna was first introduced by P.J. Gibson in 1979
[1]. For enhancing performance of Vivaldi antenna, many
modifications are employed as in [2],[3]. Vivaldi antenna
possesses properties of ease of impedance matching, ultra-wide
bandwidth etc. which are desirable for see-through wall [4],
microwave imaging [2],[3], radar systems [3], applications etc.
The FCC has allocated bandwidth of 3.1 - 10.6 GHz for the
UWB applications [5]. The present article describe simulation
results of a newly designed flexible corrugated high gain
multiband Vivaldi Antenna using Microwave Studio module of
CST studio suite. The considered parameters of antenna were
optimized in the range of 2-8 GHz. To improve overall
performance of antenna, uniform corrugations on the top and
bottom sides of the slot are sliced. Further improvement is Fig.1 Schematic layout of proposed Vivaldi antenna (dark Silver coloured part
made by employing the silver metal strips in the end-fire indicates microstrip line, at the back side of the antenna of width Wms)
direction and circular silver metal portions are applied in the
spacing between these metallic strips.
TABLE I. OPTIMIZED SIMULATED PARAMETER VALUES OF VIVALDI
ANTENNA (SYMBOLS ARE DISPLAYED IN FIG.1)
II. DESIGN OF PROPOSED ANTENNA Value Parameter Value (mm)
Parameter
The proposed FCV antenna has been designed by Lant 58.9 mm Wc 1.33
depositing 0.01mm of silver over a flexible Polyimide Want 48 mm Sc 1.195
substrate, having dielectric constant 3.5 and loss tangent a 0.25 mm Ml 7.05
0.0027 of dimensions Lant×Want×h as 58.9×48×0.25mm3. The 0.1161 Mw 0.21
r
length(Lant) and width(Want) of FCV antenna are optimized,
Al 45.3 mm Ms 2.59
silver thickness(h) is taken fixed as 0.25mm. The exponentially
tapered aperture has a length La. The antenna is fed by a Sl 12 mm Dcm 1.32
microstrip line through microstrip to slotline transition [6], rem 1.6 mm Wms 0.538
where, length(Lms) and width(Wms) of microstrip are optimized Lc 17.785mm Lms 32
to achieve 50Ÿ impedance. Sl is the length of slotline. The Cd 0.99 mm -------------- -------------

978-1-5386-0933-0/18/$31.00 ©2018 IEEE