A Compact Linear Tapered Slot Antenna with Integrated Balun for UWB Applications

A compact linear tapered slot antenna with wideband performance is proposed. The antenna consists of a microstrip to slotline transition and a linear tapered slot structure which is connected to the slotline. Due to the linear tapered slot, the antenna can realize unidirectional radiation in wideband band. The microstrip to slotline transition is implemented by using a tapered cross, which can easily obtain impedance transformation. Furthermore, this transition can be realized with a small size. The antenna is fabricated and optimized numerically. Both simulated and measured results validate the performance of the antenna in frequency and time domains. The results show that the antenna achieves a bandwidth up to 118% from 2.6 -10.1 GHz. The simulated time domain response of the antenna also shows its good performance in time-domain. The antenna can be well applied to ultra-wideband system.