This paper presents a novel artificial magnetic conductor (AMC) loaded dipole above FR4 substrate. The proposed AMC consists of two metal layers that shield the wave from the lossy substrate leading to a significant increase in the dipole efficiency over a wide bandwidth. The dipole is fed through vias that are connected to a wideband balun placed on the opposite side of the ground plane. The proposed assembly is fabricated and characterized. Measurements, which are in a very good agreement with the electromagnetic simulations, show that the operating fractional bandwidth achieves the value of 16.2%, 1.927–2.267 GHz, with peak radiation efficiency of 72.5%.

The paper researches a kind of wideband dual-polarized Vivaldi antenna with improved balun feed which consists of slot line and two bent coplanar strip lines. The whole of antenna structure is composed of two orthogonal Vivaldi antenna elements, and the mode of feeding adopts electromagnetic coupling from micro-strip line to slot line. The improved balun can avoid the intersection of transmission lines, reduce the size, and simplify the assembly. The electromagnetic simulation and optimization design of proposed antenna are carried out by using electromagnetic simulation software, CST. Simulation results show that the isolation between two polarized ports is more than 15 dB within working frequency range of 2–3.5 GHz and VSWRs of two ports are lower than 2.5 at the range of 2–3.5 GHz. The designed antenna is fabricated and measured. The measured results indicate that the designed antenna achieves anticipated patterns and feasible design of the dual-polarized Vivaldi antenna. The dual-polarized Vivaldi antenna with improved balun feed is suitable for some application fields, such as passive electronic reconnaissance, passive radar, and wideband communication and detection.