2017 3rd International Conference on Electrical Information and Communication Technology (EICT), 7-9 December 2017, Khulna, Bangladesh
A Compact Modified Antipodal Vivaldi Antenna for
Imaging Application
M.A.A. Syeed1,a, M . Samsuzzaman1,b, M. Z. Mahmud2,c and M. T. Islam2,d
1 Patuakhali Science and Technology University, Patuakhali, Bangladesh
2
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Malaysia
a
shovon11@cse.pstu.ac.bd, bsobuz@pstu.ac.bd, czulfikerm@siswa.ukm.edu.my, dtariqul@ukm.edu.my
Abstract—In this paper, a modified compact and directive
antipodal Vivaldi antenna is presented for the microwave imaging
purposes. The modification is done on the radiating fins of the
antipodal Vivaldi antenna by etching three slots on both planes.
The increase of gain and efficiency with stronger radiation pattern
are achieved by this modification. Simulation for this modified
antenna is done on both simulation software named HFSS and
CST. The overall electrical dimension of this antenna is
0.401Ȝ×0.401Ȝ×0.016Ȝ at the lowest frequency 3.01 GHz.
Simulated results show that this modified antenna operates at the
frequency of 3.01 to 6.80 GHz which is suitable for microwave
imaging techniques. Because of the antenna radiating fins, it shows
the average efficiency of 94% with a peak gain of 5.90 dBi.
Characteristics of this modified proposed antipodal Vivaldi
antenna fulfill the requirements needed for microwave imaging
techniques.
Keywords—Antipodal Vivaldi antenna; microwave imaging;
modified plane.
I. INTRODUCTION
Nowadays for biomedical application one of the most
promised methods for scanning the human body in search of
malignant tissues is the microwave imaging technique. In recent
years a huge interest is increasing the design of microwave
imaging system. The advantages of microwave imaging system
are low complexity, low cost, and high data rate. During these
recent years’ remarkable developments is going on the
microwave imaging technology. A challenge is still there for
developing this kind of imaging technology. For microwave
imaging purposes different types of antennas are widely used.
For the purpose of accurate microwave imaging system with
dynamic range and high resolution, the antenna used for
transmitting and receiving should be compact, directive planar
with the efficiency of high radiation. In this case, a valuable tool
used for microwave imaging system is the antipodal Vivaldi
antenna because of its high directive patterns, low cost, compact
size and end-fire radiation.
Recently microwave imaging is being used for breast cancer
detection which has become a major issue for unwanted death
all over the world for women. Presence of malignant call is the
main due which remains inside the breast tissue[1]. Early
detection and treatment of breast cancer can enrich the survival
rate up to 97% for which a highly reliable requirement is needed
having efficient methods for early detection of breast cancer [2].
For that microwave, imaging is the complementary tool to x-ray
mammography which is being used currently for breast cancer
detection [3]. Detecting malignant cells in the human body,
978-1-5386-2307-7/17/$31.00 ©2017 IEEE
microwave imaging is the most promising method [2]. Low
spectral power density, high data rate, low cost, low complexity
are the advantages of microwave imaging system. For impinging
microwave signals on the human body antenna is being used as
a transceiver in an imaging system [4]. On the various electrical
properties of human body tissues, the principle of microwave
imaging is based on the dielectric constant property. The
unwanted tumor cells of the human body can be identified from
the reflected scattered signal from antenna[5] which shows
higher dielectric constant than normal breast tissue [6]. Recently
different techniques have been proposed by several researchers
to enhance the radiation properties at higher frequencies [4]. The
several techniques which are being used like the use of lenses
[7], zero index material[8] , high permittivity material [9] to
guide the energy in the aperture flare in the end-fire direction.
There are several types of antennas for microwave imaging,
among them, the advantageous antenna is tapered slot Vivaldi
[10] because of its end-fire radiation, low cost, ease of feeding
technique, directional radiation pattern [1, 11]. The Vivaldi
antenna challenging issues is the directivity, radiation pattern
stability over frequency. At low frequencies, the antenna
operates like a resonant antenna and at high frequencies. On each
arm, the traveling wave current phases should be 180o apart from
each other for having maximum radiation which is the direction
of end-fire [12]. The radiation performance and the bandwidth
are affected by some different factors when the frequency
increases. A very compact antipodal Vivaldi antenna is
presented in [13] which has the wide operating bandwidth and
good fractional bandwidth but the efficiency and gain are
respectively 70% and less than 5 dBi. In [12] a method is used
for improving the performance of an antipodal Vivaldi antenna
by adding a parasitic ellipse but the antenna overall size is
(140mm×60mm) which is large and also lower frequencies can’t
be obtained. Also with planar directors, an antipodal Vivaldi
antenna is presented in [14] which size (110mm×260mm) is also
too large and voltage standing wave ratio is also non-contiguous.
Another tapered slot Vivaldi antenna is presented in [15] which
has an overall size is (75mm×75mm). It has directional radiation
pattern but at higher frequency resonance is not obtained.
In this paper, a 40mm×40mm×1.6mm modified antipodal
Vivaldi antenna is presented operating at the bandwidth of 3.01
to 6.80 GHz. FR4 substrate is used in both HFSS and CST
simulation software. Both patch and ground of this antipodal
antenna are etched by six side slots which make this antenna
directive and suitable for microwave imaging application.
 II. ANTENNA DESIGN STRUCTURE
The proposed modified antipodal Vivaldi antenna structure
and configuration is represented in Fig. 1. Step by step the total
design is presented in this figure with annotation of different
position size of this proposed antenna. The proposed antipodal
Vivaldi antenna consists of patch and ground facing 180o to each
other. The substrate used for simulation is an FR4 substrate
having a thickness of 1.6 mm with a relative permittivity of 4.6
and loss tangent 0.02. In the ground plane, there is also a
rectangle shaped plane attached to the ground which length and
width are sequentially denoted by RL and RW. The proposed
antenna has a dimension of 40 × 40 mm2. The modified proposed
antenna patch and ground is slotted three times in both denoted
by SW. By changing this fins width and used times, the results
can be changed. The optimized proposed antenna dimension is (d)
Figure 1. (a) Front view; (b) Back view; (c) Side view and (d) Total view
given in this following Table I.
TABLE I: PROPOSED ANTENNA PARAMETERS
Parameters mm Description
L 40 Length
W 40 Width
FW 1.4 Feed line width
PW 9 Patch width
PL 12 Patch length
GW 9 Ground width
GL 12 Ground length
SW 0.5 Slot width
RW 35 Rectangle width
RL 8 Rectangle length
h 1.6 Height

III. RESULT AND DISCUSSION

The proposed antenna performance is being optimized and
(a)
analyzed using both HFSS and CST simulation software. HFSS
is based on finite element method (FEM) and CST is based on
finite integration technique (FIT). Because of their different
calculation techniques, the proposed antenna results show some
distortions. All the results are being plotted by using the
scientific data analysis and graphing software Origin pro. Fig 2.
Represents different modifications on patch and ground of the
basic antipodal Vivaldi antenna. First of all three slots are etched
from the patch and then three times same size slots are also
etched from the ground. Afterwards, the antenna results are
being studied. At the last both patch and ground both are etched
and the obtained results are the fulfillment of the characteristics
of the microwave imaging technique.

TABLE II. COMPARISON OF RESULTS ON DIFFERENT MODIFICATIONS

(b)
Different structure Operating bandwidth (GHz) Peak Gain (dBi)
Normal 3.01-5.31 2.15
Patch cropped 2.90-5.12 3.20
Ground cropped 3.01-5.36 3.36
Proposed 3.01-6.80 5.90

(c)
 Figure 4. Different gain results

The modified antipodal Vivaldi antenna has three slots in

both patch and ground. This modification makes the antenna
radiation pattern stable and directional. Fig 5 represents the
Figure 2. Different modifications on patch and ground (a) Basic (b) Patch reflection coefficient (S11) which is obtained from both HFSS
cropped (c) Ground cropped (d) Proposed. and CST simulation software. Because of their different
calculation technologies, their results show some difference. But
Because of different modifications on the antenna, it shows in both, the result shows return loss from 3.01 GHz to 6.80 GHz.
different reflection coefficients. Parametric study on different In CST there is a little bit distortion. The operating bandwidth
reflection coefficient is done and is represented in Fig 3. From between 3 to 6 GHz is suitable for microwave imaging for
the figure, it can be observed that the proposed antenna detection of breast cancer.
reflection coefficient is better than the other modifications. In
Fig 4. Different antenna gain is represented by different
modifications. From this figure, it can be easily observed that the
proposed antenna has the highest gain than any other
modifications. Different modifications show different results in
both reflection coefficient and gain. The parametric study on this
modifications shows that the proposed antenna operates at the
required bandwidth with high gain than any other modifications.
The results are represented in this following Table I. From this
parametric study on the differently shaped antenna, it is
observed that the proposed antenna shows the best result
fulfilling the microwave imaging characteristics.

Figure 5. Reflection coefficient in HFSS and CST.

Figure 3. Different reflection coefficient results

Figure 6. Simulated gain in HFSS and CST Software

 Figure 7. Simulated efficiency in HFSS and CST software

The proposed antenna has the highest gain of 5.90 dBi with
an average gain of 3.66 dBi which is between 3 to 6 GHz
frequency bandwidth. This gain of the proposed modified
antipodal Vivaldi antenna is suitable for microwave imaging
application. The gain result of both HFSS and CST simulator is
represented in Fig 6. The Fig. 7 shows the efficiency result of
the proposed antenna simulated in both HFSS and CST
simulator software. In HFSS it represents the efficiency of
average 94% and maximum efficiency of 95%. In between the
operating bandwidth, it is observed that the efficiency is stable
in the operating frequency range. By observing the current
distribution of the proposed antenna, the electromagnetic
behavior can be easily understood. The current distribution of
the antipodal fin-shaped patch is shown in Fig 8. Fig (a)
represents current distribution at 3.28 GHz. Fig (b) shows the
current distribution at 4.24 GHz. At the last resonance frequency
of 6.16 GHz, the current distribution is shown in figure (c). From
the current distribution it can be observed that current supply
through the feed line is being distributed over the antipodal fins
and at higher current supply through the circle shaped edge is
increasing and so the proposed antenna fulfills the required
characteristics. At these frequencies, the patch and ground plane
is observed. Fig 9 represents the two major planes simulated
radiation pattern specifically the –XZ and –YZ plane for
Figure 8. Simulated Surface Current Distribution Results at (a) 3.28 GHz,
resonant frequencies of 3.29, 4.24 and 6.16 GHz. The red and (b) 4.24 GHz, and (c) 6.16 GHz
black color is denoted the co-pol and cross-pol, respectively.
Actually, cross pol radiation is comparatively low as co-pol
radiation. From the radiation pattern for the low frequency of
3.28 GHz, it can be observed that the radiation pattern is
directional. At the medium frequency of 4.24 GHz, the radiation
pattern still shows directional radiation. At last at a higher
frequency of 6.16 GHz, the radiation pattern shows
directionality but some side lobes are created. This proposed
antenna shows directionality to the 90o axis of this antenna.

(a)
 peak gain of 5.90 dBi. It also shows the average efficiency of
94%. Because of the modification on the patch and ground
plane, this proposed antenna shows a stable directional radiation
pattern which is the main requirement for directional for
directional microwave imaging. The observed performance of
this proposed modified antipodal Vivaldi antenna is suitable for
microwave imaging system application for detecting unwanted
malignant tissues in human body.
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