Waveguide Slot Antennas for Circularly Polarized Radiated Field

Abstract

We present a new waveguide slot configuration able to radiate a circular polarization with a very low axial ratio. This configuration is mainly intended as a circularly polarized radiating element to be used in an array. Both left-hand and right-hand circular polarization can be independently obtained and therefore this configuration could be used to realize a polarization agile antenna. The proposed configuration consists of two very closely spaced radiating slots, so a specialized method of moments code has been developed to analyze, in a very effective way, the near-field interaction between such slots. Our method of moments code has been validated against a commercial finite-element method code, and then used to design a number of different circularly polarized radiating elements.