Wideband circularly polarized dielectric bird-nest antenna with conical radiation pattern

A wideband circularly polarized (CP) antenna with a conical radiation pattern is investigated. It consists of a feeding probe and parasitic dielectric parallelepiped elements that surround the probe. Since the structure of the antenna looks like a bird nest, it is named as bird-nest antenna. The probe, which protrudes from a circular ground plane, operates in its fundamental monopole mode that generates omnidirectional linearly polarized (LP) fields. The dielectric parallelepipeds constitute a wave polarizer that converts omnidirectional LP fields of the probe into omnidirectional CP fields. To verify the design, a prototype operating in C band was fabricated and measured. The reflection coefficient, axial ratio (AR), radiation pattern, and antenna gain are studied, and reasonable agreement between the measured and simulated results is observed. The prototype has a 10-dB impedance bandwidth of 41.0% and a 3-dB AR bandwidth of as wide as 54.9%. A parametric study was carried out to characterize the proposed antenna. Also, a design guideline is given to facilitate designs of the antenna. © 2012 IEEE.