Metamaterial antenna designs for a 5.8-GHz Doppler radar

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to investigate applicability and the effectiveness of the metamaterial-based antennas for a 5.8-GHz Doppler radar. Thus, a double negative index metamaterial structure is designed as a transmitter antenna and a near-zero index medium is integrated with a patch antenna for the receiver. Significant improvements in bandwidth for the transmitter, slight improvements in gain and in directivity for the receiver, and typically size reduction for both antennas are obtained. It is shown that return loss, radiation pattern, and gain measurement results of the newly designed antennas agree well with the simulations for a desired frequency band. The last part of the study is devoted to express the adaptation of the antennas for a low-power radar system whose aim is to reconstruct the velocity of the human, indoor as well as behind the wall, from the shift in the received frequency. The accuracy of the velocity measurements and field test results of the radar with the metamaterial antennas are reported.