Abstract
A broadband aperture coupled microstrip short backfire antenna is described herein. It consists of a feed part (a microstrip feed line and a coupling slot in a metal ground) and a radiating part with two radiators: a patch antenna and a backfire antenna. The bandwidth widening of the antenna is achieved by use of two resonances: a patch resonance and a backfire resonance. The antenna is designed to operate within the Ku-band. It has a frequency bandwidth of about 15% and a maximum gain of 11.5 dBi. Within the antenna bandwidth the gain and the radiation efficiency have values more than 9 dBi and 82.1%, respectively. The designed antenna has a simple and compact construction and high mechanical and electrical characteristics. It can be used as a single antenna or as an element of microstrip antenna arrays with various applications in the contemporary communication systems.