Design of continuous long slot leaky-wave antenna for millimeter wave application

A simple and efficient design scheme of the continuous long slot leaky-wave antenna is developed. The key steps involved in the scheme are summarized. First, the cut-off frequencies of slot waveguides with different slot offsets are obtained by 3D finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method. Second, the attenuation function α _ra is estimated by the aperture distribution, and the attenuation function α _rs is determined by the slot radiation. Finally, the attenuation function α _ra is combined with the attenuation function α _rs by the coefficient K. And an example in Ka band is presented. Moreover, the return loss of the E-plane Tee-junction (ET) and the radiation pattern of leaky-wave antenna are simulated. The scheme is verified by comparing with the experimental result.