An Aperture Coupled NRD Feed Structure for Dielectric Rod Antennas

Dielectric rod antennas exhibit very high gain, possess narrow beamwidth, and belong to the group of surface wave antennas. They have been extensively used as the parabolic reflectors' feed in radars. They are rarely used as arrays, because of the complexity of the feed structure and lack of appropriate transition to the printed circuit. The scaling of microstrip microwave circuits to operate at millimeter and optical frequencies has led to the investigation of a new feed structure for DRA. This paper covers the design of a novel NRD feed structure for dielectric rod antennas, which is also compatible to planar structures.