Vivaldi antenna

A Vivaldi antenna or Vivaldi aerial[1] or tapered slot antenna[2] is a co-planar broadband-antenna, which can be made from a solid piece of sheet metal, a printed circuit board, or from a dielectric plate metalized on one or both sides.

From the open space, the signal traverses an exponentially tapered pattern via a symmetrical slot line.

Printed circuit technology makes this type antenna cost effective for microwave frequencies 1 GHz or higher.

Advantages of Vivaldi antennas are their broadband characteristics (suitable for ultra-wideband signals [3]), their easy manufacturing process using common methods for PCB production, and their easy impedance matching to the feeding line using microstrip line modeling methods.

An example is the Palm Tree Vivaldi Antenna, with greater gain and directivity, used in Near-Field Microwave Biomedical Imaging Applications.