A high-gain and broadband printed array
antenna consisting of seven hexagonal
compound air-fed sub-arrays
X. He1, W.X. Zhang2, Z.H. Wu
State Key Lab of Millimeter Waves
Southeast University
Nanjing, China
1
tkoslp@yahoo.com.cn, 2wxzhang@ieee.org
Abstract—A high-gain and broadband printed antenna
together with its feed network is developed, which consists
of seven hexagonal sub-arrays as cells, each one is a
hexagonal compound air-fed array (CAFA), arranged in a
beehive-like shape. After choosing an optimal feeding-
voltage ratio of the central cell to the circumjacent cells as
0.42, the corresponding feed network is carefully designed.
The measured results of a fabricated prototype are of
common bandwidth (for VSWR d 2.0:1 & gain-drop d 3
dB & SLL d 15 dB) 8.28 % and maximal gain 22.51 dBi,
while the simulation results are 9.63 % and 22.87 dBi.
Keywords-printed array antenna, compound air-fed
array, Fabry-Perot resonator, broadband antenna.
I. INTRODUCTION
The compound air-fed array (CAFA) proposed by
Zhang et al[1] is a new member of printed antennas
family, it can be considered as a Fabry-Perot resonator
(F-PR) antenna[2-3] with almost uniform phase
distribution on the array aperture by means of phase
compensation for the reflection from both cover and
base respectively, as well as adopted in reflectarray (RA)
and transmitarray (TA) design. The obvious merit of
CAFA is quite low profile with thickness in wavelength
even sub-wavelength, especially comparing to the
conventional air-fed RA and TA with a towering feed.
However, it limits the applications of CAFA that for
almost all the CAFAs designed by the author’s group
before [4-7], the peak gain is less than 20 dBi. A method
for enhancing the peak gain by increasing the space
between cover and base of half a wavelength is
attempted. Unfortunately, a quite narrow common
bandwidth (less than 2 %) is obtained though the peak
gain has been increased by ~5 dB, due to the
contradiction between gain and bandwidth. In order to
obtain a high-gain CAFA while keeping a moderate
bandwidth, an array antenna using CAFA as sub-arrays
(or cells) is conceived and realized. For the convenience
of assembling this array antenna, the CAFA used as
cells are designed in hexagonal shape; its FSS-cover and
AMC-base are arranged in a hexagonal grid; and a
stacked-patch radiator is used for keeping symmetry in
radiation pattern. Then a high-gain and broadband array
This work is supported by Natural Science Foundation of China
(No. 60671016), and also International Sci. & Tech. Cooperation
Project of Jiangsu Province (No. BZ2007601).
___________________________________
978-1-4244-4076-4/09/$25.00 ©2009 IEEE

antenna together with its feed network is developed,
which achieves a common bandwidth (VSWR d 2.0:1 &
gain-drop d 3 dB & SLL d 15 dB) of 8.28/9.63 % and
peak gain of 22.51/22.87 dBi in measurement and
simulation respectively.
II. DESIGN OF THE CAFA CELL
As the array antenna is combined by seven identical
CAFA cells, so it is necessary to describe the structure
of a CAFA cell first.
The CAFA cell is in hexagonal shape which is
convenient for forming the array antenna in a beehive-
like shape. A stacked-patch radiator (Fig.1) with broad
impedance bandwidth and almost axial-symmetric
pattern is employed as the feed of CAFA. Where a
narrow slot with sizes (lS u wS) crossed to the
polarization was cut in a lower-layer rectangular patch
with sizes (l f u w f) placed on the central part of the base
for extending bandwidth toward the lower bound. An
upper-layer parasitical patch with sizes (lp u wp) having
the center offset doffset along the polarization from the
center of lower-layer was used for improving the
symmetry in pattern. The substrate of upper-layer has
sizes (l up u w up), and the spacing hp apart from the
lower-layers, it is supported by rectangular plastic
cushion under the two edges of upper-layer substrate.
The position of feeding point is fy apart from the patch
edge.
An assembly of CAFA cell (Fig.2) consists of feed,
base and cover. Where the central part of base occupied
by feed is surrounded by the AMC elements with same
period PAMC involving square-patches arranged as 5
loops in hexagonal grid, the patch sizes are identical in
the same loop, but inversely tapered from inner to outer
in order as {d j}. On the down-face of the cover, the FSS
elements with same period PFSS square-patches are
arranged as 8 loops in hexagonal grid too, the patch
sizes are identical in the same loop, but tapered from
inner to outer in order as {e i}. Both the cover and base
with ground are in hexagonal shape with same side-
length R and thickness h, the spacing between cover and

Figure 1. Structure of the feed of CAFA cell
(a) AMC and feed on the up-face of base
(b) FSS on the down-face of cover
(c) Front-view of CAFA assembly
Figure 2. Structure of the CAFA cell
TABLE I. STRUCTURAL SIZES OF THE CAFA CELL (MM)
Cell AMC FSS Feeding Parasitical
Profile on Base on Cover Patch Patch
R =45.0 PAMC=5.9 PFSS =5.3 lf =9.7 lp =9.1
h =1 d1,2,3 =2.8 e1,2 =4.8 wf =7.0 wp =8.0
hc =16.3 d4 =3.0 e3 =4.7 fy =8.7 lup =11.1
hp =0.8 d5 =3.2 e4,5,6 =4.6 dslot =3.2 wup =18.0
e7 =4.5 ls =1.1 doffset=1.4
e8 =4.3 ws =4.0
base is hc , the relative permittivity of all dielectric
sheets used are the same as H r =2.2 . The parameters’
values of the CAFA cell are listed in Table 1.
III. ASSEMBLY OF THE ARRAY ANTENNA
The array antenna (Fig.3) consisting of seven
identical CAFA cells is arranged in a beehive-like shape
(One in the middle and surrounded by the other six).
Obviously, the components of base/cover/parasitical-
patches are fabricated respectively.
As the global model of the array antenna in
CST2006B is too large, the optimized feeding-voltage
ratio of the central cell to the circumjacent cells is
impossible to be searched directly; fortunately, it can be
decompounded by using the pattern multiplication
theorem [8]. Thus the optimal value as 0.42 of feeding-
voltage ratio is solved, which becomes the designing
goal of the feed network (the phase of the seven cells are
required to be the same).
IV. DESIGN OF THE FEED NETWORK
The feed network (Fig.4) consists of six Wilkinson
Power Dividers [9-10] (one is 2:1 power divider, and
others are 1:1 power dividers). The input power is firstly
divided into two equal output powers by 1:1 power
divider as the Level I, one of the output power is directly
fed into the central cell; another output power is divided
into six equal output powers by the power dividers as
Level II to Level IV and successively fed into other six
circumjacent cells.
By a global simulation over the required bandwidth,
the simulated feeding-voltage ratio varies within 0.488:1
to 0.357:1, with a maximal relative error of 16.2 % from
the ideal ratio 0.42:1; also the maximal difference of
simulated phase at the feeding-points is 40.4o. That feed
network can be recognized approaching to the designing
goal.
V. SIMULATED AND MEASURED RESULTS
The designed hexagonal sub-arrays used as cells for
the array antenna are of common bandwidth (for VSWR
d 2.0:1& gain-drop d 2 dB & SLL d 15 dB)
8.2/7.54 % and maximal gain 17.11/16.59 dBi in
simulation/measurement respectively.
After that, an array antenna prototype was fabricated
and measured for verifying the simulation; both the
simulated/measured results are drawn in Fig.5 & 6, and

 abstracted in Table 2. From Fig.5, a peak-gain Gpeak
=22.87/22.51 dBi which corresponds to an aperture-
efficiency Kpeak =37.7/34.7 %; within the common
bandwidth BW= 9.63/8.28 % for satisfying {VSWR d
2.0:1, Gain-drop d 3 dB, and SLL d 15 dB}; the half-
power-beam-width HPBW=8.3q/8.6q; and the measured
cross-polar-level X-PL < 30 dB inside the main-beam
are achieved. Fig.6 abstracts a set of typical pattern in E-
and H-planes at 10 GHz. These results validate the
design principle.

(a) the AMC and feed on the base of the array antenna
VI. CONCLUSION
The array antenna consists of seven hexagonal
CAFA cells arranged in beehive-like shape is a good
scheme for achieving both high-gain and broadband
simultaneously. The stepped feeding-voltage ratio from
central cell to circumjacent cells reduces the SLL in
radiation patterns, however, the cost of aperture
efficiency decreasing has been paid due to a
contradiction between SLL and aperture efficiency. The
future work may be dedicated in the reduction of SLL
while keeping better aperture efficiency.

TABLE II. PERFORMANCES OF ARRAY ANTENNA PROTOTYPE

Performance Simulated Measured
Gpeak (dBi) 22.87 at 22.51 at
at frequency 9.6 GHz 9.7 GHz
Kaper (%) 37.7 34.7
BW (GHz) 9.38~10.33 9.49~10.31
% (9.63) (8.28)
BWVSWR (GHz) 9.33~10.42 8.99~11.53
BWGain (GHz) 9.38~10.33 9.46~10.73
BWSLL (GHz) 9.36~10.48 9.49~10.31
(b) the FSS on the cover of the array antenna HPBW (q) 8.1~8.5 8.4~8.8
X-PL /   30.0 dB


(c) the assembled array antenna

Figure 3. Prototype of the array antenna excluding feed network

Figure 4. the simulated model of the feed network


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Figure 6. Radiation pattern of typical planes at 10 GHz