Vivaldi/exponential tapered slot construction

I have seen Vivaldi antennas constructed using various structures.

1) A slot cut into a sheet, sometimes supported with a sheet of dielectric creating a coplanar structure.

2) Mirrored conductors on opposite sides of a dielectric sheet (I believe this is referred to as "antipodal"). If the dielectric sheet was transparent the exponential slot would easily be seen between the two edges.

3) A stripline like structure with identical slots on both sides and an internal feed (stripline).

Do any of you have experience with the relative merits of each style? The design goals are to reduce cost and size while retaining good performance (e. g. Don't screw up the antenna too badly!).




I have a current need for a Vivaldi antenna operating around S-band but anticipate taking one into X-band in the not too distant future. I am looking for modest gain, in the 8 to 12 dBi range. I built a Ku band Vivaldi array a long time ago, based on (3) and it worked reasonably well in a 4x 8 array configuration.

Hi

I'm interested in your design of the Ku-Band Vivaldi Array, do you have any literature on that?

-Sam

That design was done for Cubic Defense Applications about 15 years ago. You could contact them about the details of the design.