Smart Multi-Sensor Platform for Analytics and Social Decision Support in Agriculture

Dual-Polarized Multi-Channel 24 GHz Radar Sensor Antenna for High Channel-to-Channel Isolation

This article presents a dual-polarized, high gain multi-beam and high T/Rx channel-to-channel isolation antenna module for 24 GHz sensor applications. The proposed antenna is configured to support 2-Tx and 2-Rx channels with a pair of vertically polarized (VP) radiation pattern and a pair of horizontally polarized (HP) radiation pattern. Further, each linearly polarized T/Rx antenna is configured by 2 × 4 array with a multi-layer integrated feed network, resulting in four sets of 2 × 4 array antennas fabricated within a single printed circuit board (PCB). Since multiple RF channels must be ensured with minimal interference, high antenna-to-antenna, including Tx-to-Tx, Rx-to-Rx, and Tx-to-Rx port isolations in the proposed antenna are achieved by multi-layered feed network and four sets of T-shaped magnetic walls. To verify the performance of the proposed structure, a 2-Tx and 2-Rx antenna module was fabricated at 24 GHz. The fabricated antenna showed a measured maximum 10-dB impedance bandwidth of 3.9% with a maximum measured gain of 11.7 dBi, considering both Tx and Rx. Further, the measured channel-to-channel isolations were always better than 35.6 dB at 24 GHz.