SWAN™ allows the design and analysis of slotted waveguide arrays based on the following technologies:
Rectangular Waveguide
Slotted waveguide arrays realized on rectangular waveguides are widely employed in applications requiring high performance in terms of gain, side-lobe level, power handling, flat profile, and mechanical robustness. These antennas are typically found in airborne, ground, and maritime radar systems, though their use has also extended to various terrestrial and satellite communication systems.
Substrate Integrated Waveguide (SIW)
Substrate Integrated Waveguide (SIW) technology is an attractive approach for designing high-performance microwave and millimeter-wave antennas and components, as it combines the advantages of planar technology, such as low fabrication costs, with the low loss and high power handling features typical of waveguide solutions. SIW technology allows the design of compact, lightweight, and low-profile devices fully integrated into the substrate, with the further advantage of being a hermetic solution, unaffected by unwanted external electromagnetic interactions.
Single-ridge Waveguide
A ridge loading an empty waveguide lowers its cutoff frequency and ensures a wider unimodal bandwidth. These features, together with its high power handling capability and low loss, make this technology appealing for high-performance broadband microwave antennas, which are key components of any data-link and radar system. Single-ridge waveguide technology can also be effectively employed for the implementation of beam-steering flat plate antennas.
Ridge Gap Waveguide
Ridge gap waveguide technology features a metal ridge on a metamaterial surface, covered by a metallic plate at a small height above it. This design is easy to manufacture, especially at millimeter and sub-millimeter wave frequencies, and allows a confined gap wave to propagate along the ridge by cutting off normal global parallel-plate modes. This technology is particularly effective for slotted waveguide array antennas, providing a low-loss feed network and enabling high-efficiency, high-gain applications, especially in millimeter-wave frequencies.
NOTE: All pictures are SWAN™ outputs.