Radiative properties in planar printed vivaldi antenna array

An array of three Vivaldi antennas, also called a planar horn design, is constructed using standard planar printing technology. The frequency range studied is between 2 and 12 GHz. The advantage of these structures is the design simplicity, cheap cost, small size, low weight, and portability for mobile applications. The characteristics of the pattern in the E and H planes for the individual antenna element and the array structure are presented here. For array structure, the separation between elements is a critical parameter that determines the mutual coupling and the overall array pattern in the far field due to the phase difference between antenna elements. The dependency of the beamwidth on the distance of separation between antenna elements is presented.