A Dual-Band Patch Antenna Employing a Folded Probe Feed for Non-Linear Radar Applications

In this work, a set of custom folded-probe-fed patch (FPFP) antennas are designed to improve the performance of a non-linear radar (NLR) system. To improve the system performance, the antennas are designed to have high gain, relatively narrow bandwidth, good linearity, and good size, weight, and power (SWaP) performance. Two FPFP antennas are built and tested, one each for transmit (TX) and receive (RX). The VSWR and gain of the antennas are measured. The measurements show good agreement with simulated results. The antennas are then compared to a pair of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) antennas that are currently used for NLR testing. The VSWR and gain of the FPFP antennas compare favorably with those of the COTS antennas, and suggest improved NLR performance. The performance of a NLR system using the two sets of antennas is evaluated. By replacing the COTS antennas with the FPFP antennas, signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) improvements as high as 20 dB are demonstrated. Lastly, the two FPFP antennas are integrated into a single compact, dual-band design.