Investigation of planar antennas for submillimeter receivers

A frequency-scaled model of a tapered slot antenna has been investigated. The antenna consists of a dielectric substrate which serves as a carrier for a tapered slotline. The width and the shape of the slotline and the dimensions of the substrate (including the value of the permittivity) have been varied to investigate the radiation patterns. The result is a planar antenna with a symmetrical beam in the E and H planes and a beam efficiency of almost 50%. The substrate thickness is the most important limiting factor for scaling the model to submillimeter frequencies. Taking away parts of the dielectric substrate in the front area of the antenna allows a relatively large substrate thickness. The variations of the half-power beam width versus slot parameters, versus the dielectric thickness of the substrate, and versus the length and the width of the substate are presented. In addition the beam efficiency has been measured for various frequencies, and the radiation pattern has been calculated for comparison     

一种小尺寸高效率加载小环天线的研究

对电抗元件加载的小环天线的工作原理、设计参数及其对电性能的影响进行了研究。电容加载感性小环可以极大地缩小天线尺寸及改善与馈电网络的匹配;镂空介质板、增加辐射次环和反射器是提高天线辐射性能的有效措施。通过综合运用以上措施和最优化设计,实现了一种尺寸较小且辐射效率较高的新型天线形式,并使用3D电磁仿真软件HFSS验证了该方案的可行性。     

The effect of various parameters of circular microstrip antennas on their radiation efficiency and the mode excitation

The numerical solution of circular microstrip antenna is carried out using the method of moment. The effect of the probe position, The dielectric permittivity of the substrate, and the substrate thickness on the radiation pattern and the mode excitation efficiency are studied. It is found that the probe position and the patch size can be used to control the mode excitation efficiency, and heigher order modes can be generated using only one feed location. Also, the finite ground plane can be used to improve the symmetry of the radiation patterns. The technique is general and can be used to investigate other scattering and antenna problems involving axisymmetric geometries.     

Input impedance and radiation pattern of cylindrical-rectangularand wraparound microstrip antennas

The radiation from a cylindrical microstrip antenna excited by a probe is analyzed. Both the cylindrical-rectangular and the wraparound elements are discussed. The current distribution on the patch is rigorously formulated using a cylindrically stratified medium approach. A set of vector integral equations is derived which governs the current distribution on the patch. The set of equations is then solved using a moment method. The input impedance and the radiation pattern are derived both exactly and in the small substrate thickness limit     

Electromagnetic characteristics of superquadric wire loop antennas

The analysis of antenna configurations in the form of a generalized superquadric loop, which includes circular, elliptical and rectangular loop geometries, is presented in this paper. Use of a Galerkin form of the moment method with piecewise sinusoidal subsectional basis and testing functions provides rapid numerical convergence and accurate representation of the antenna current. A convenient parametric representation for the superquadric curve is developed to allow a subsectional formulation using curved wire segments, rather than the commonly employed piecewise linear segments, to construct the geometry. Both magnetic frill and delta gap source models are implemented to allow a detailed study of input impedance, directivity, radiation pattern and current distribution as a function of various geometrical parameters. The results are shown to compare well with previous results for the special case of a circular loop antenna. Some useful curves are presented to aid in the design of practical superquadric loop antennas     

Low Profile Miniaturized Planar Antenna With Omnidirectional Vertically Polarized Radiation

A novel miniaturized cavity-backed composite slot loop antenna (CBCSLA) with low profile and omnidirectional radiation similar to a short dipole is presented. The antenna displays vertical polarization while having less than lambda/100 dimension in height. The geometry of the antenna is inspired from a small magnetic loop which is realized using a slot configuration on metallic ground. Since a small slot loop antenna cannot be impedance matched, a composite geometry is devised that acts like as a small slot loop and can easily be impedance matched using this configuration. The diameter of the CBCSLA can be made as small as lambda/10 or smaller. The feeding mechanism is designed in a manner to create a circumferentially-constant current distribution around the composite loop while effectively matching to a 50 Omega coaxial feed from the antenna center. Additional methods are discussed to further enhance the bandwidth and achieve a dual-band response. The antennas are designed, fabricated, and measured. It is shown that despite their small lateral dimension and extremely small height, the miniaturized cavity-backed slot loop features extremely well input impedance match, uniform radiation pattern, low cross-polarization levels and expected gain.     

Miniature aperture-coupled microstrip antenna of very highpermittivity

A miniature aperture-coupled microstrip antenna of very high permittivity designed at 1.66 GHz is described. Superstrates of appropriate thickness are added on the substrate for gain enhancement. Its size is dramatically reduced and the electrical performance remains almost the same as compared with the conventional microstrip antenna of low dielectric constant. Experimental data for the return loss, radiation pattern and measured antenna gain are presented to validate the design     

Space wave radiation efficiency of a wraparound antenna and theeffect of surface wave radiation due to the dielectric substratetruncation

A theoretical study of the problem of excitation of surface waves in wraparound microstrip antennas is presented. The surface waves are obtained by using a contour integral in the complex plane. The surface-wave energy loss in the antenna truncation region is partially radiated and interfaces with the space wave. The radiation efficiency and the effect of the dielectric substrate truncation of the antenna radiation pattern are shown as functions of antenna dimensions and for two values of substrate dielectric constants     

金属基座对微带天线特性的影响

针对放置于柱形金属基座的普通圆极化微带天线,利用HFSS仿真分析了金属基座厚度对天线的驻波、增益、轴比等特性的影响,结果表明柱形基座的厚度变化不会对驻波产生显著影响,对增益会产生一定影响.但对轴比会产生比较显著的影响,通过选择合适的基座厚度可以在一定程度上改善天线的增益特性和轴比特性,同时进行了实验验证,该结果可以为实际设计微带天线提供参考依据.     

Ultra-Wideband L-Strip Proximity Coupled Slot Loaded Circular Microstrip Antenna for Modern Communication Systems

An analysis and design of a novel ultra wideband L-strip proximity coupled slot loaded circular microstrip antenna is proposed. The theoretical model is developed using circuit theoretic approach and obtained results are validated by MoM based IE3D simulation software. Theoretical results show a good agreement with simulated results. The patch is designed on a thick substrate of thickness 11 mm for a design frequency of 3.74 GHz and provides ultra wide band operation. The parametric study is carried out for return loss, radiation pattern, antenna efficiency, radiation efficiency and gain. It is observed that the bandwidth of the antenna depends on slot parameter and L-strip feed dimensions. An ultra bandwidth of 2.82 GHz is achieved with consistent radiation characteristics.     

Broadband microstrip patch antenna

The characteristics of a rectangular microstrip antenna with an L-shaped probe are investigated. A foam layer with a thickness of around 10% of the wavelength is used as the supporting substrate. An impedance bandwidth of 35% and an average gain of 7.5 dBi can be achieved. The radiation pattern is stable across the passband     

A numerical study of a dielectric disk antenna above groundeddielectric substrate

An antenna made of a dielectric disk with a high permittivity mounted on top of a grounded dielectric substrate of low permittivity is analyzed. A numerical procedure based on surface integral equations, derived from the equivalence principle, is used to compute the natural resonant frequencies for the HEM₁₁ mode from which the radiation Q factor of the antenna is obtained. Then the radiation pattern of the antenna, operating at the resonant frequency evaluated previously, is computed with an electric dipole excitation located within the dielectric substrate under the dielectric disk. The effect of various parameters on the radiation characteristics of the antenna is studied, and presented in the form of diagrams. The low values of the radiation Q, combined with the high values of the dielectric Q and conductor Q, indicate that this antenna promises to be more efficient then the microstrip antenna     

Asymptotic Green's function of a surface magnetic current elementon a perfect electric conductor plane covered by a lossy dielectricsubstrate

Published analyses of radiation modeling for slot structures on dielectric substrate are empirical or numerical. This paper proposes exact analytical asymptotic expressions of the far-field Green's functions of a surface magnetic current element on a perfect electric conductor plane covered by a lossy dielectric substrate of finite thickness. From these expressions, the radiation pattern of both the space wave and surface wave far away from an arbitrary shaped-slot antenna structure can be calculated, provided the source distribution across the slot is known. The potentials used in the analysis are defined and their boundary conditions are expressed. The Helmholtz equation is solved in the Laplace domain and the solutions are transformed into the space domain using the inverse Hankel transform and steepest descent method. The influences of the substrate thickness and dielectric constant are analyzed using the calculated expressions. The model is validated by comparison with surface wave and space wave measurements and with numerical results obtained from a commercial electromagnetic simulator     

Millimeter-wave tapered-slot antennas on synthesized lowpermittivity substrates

This paper presents 30-GHz linear-tapered slot antennas (LTSA) and 94-GHz constant-width slot antennas (CSWA) on synthesized low dielectric constant substrates (ϵ_r=2.2). The performance of tapered-slot antennas (TSA) is sensitive to the effective thickness of the substrate. We have reduced the effective thickness by selectively machining holes in the dielectric substrate. The machined substrate antenna radiation patterns were significantly improved independent of the machined hole size or lattice as long as the quasi-static effective thickness remained the same, even if the hole/lattice geometry is comparable to a wavelength. The method was applied at 94 GHz on a CSWA with excellent radiation pattern improvement, making it suitable for f/1.6 imaging array applications     

On the modeling of metal strip antennas contiguous with the edge ofelectrically thick finite size dielectric substrates

A solution to the problem of radiation by a narrow metal strip antenna contiguous with the edge of a dielectric substrate is presented where the substrate has parameters such that its electrical thickness is appreciable. Such an antenna may be useful at millimeter wavelengths as an integrated phased array element forming a part of a monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC). A suitable geometry for this application is illustrated and an efficient computational procedure developed. Comparisons with experimental results for the input impedance and far-field radiation patterns show excellent agreement. The influence of the dielectric substrate on the performance of an antenna designed to operate at approximately 60 GHz is discussed. Two examples, the first involving the analysis of a coplanar strip transmission line fed antenna and the second involving impedance matching and control of cross-polarized radiation using a folded strip dipole, are given to illustrate practical applications of the analytical method to design problems     

用时域有限差分法对缝隙渐变天线的瞬态电磁场分析

本文用时域有限差分（ＦＤＴＤ）法分析缝隙渐变天线，分析中对天线缝隙边缘场和薄天线衬底采取了特殊的处理方法，求天线的远区辐射场采用了ＦＤＴＤ中近场到远场的变换方法。本文计算出的缝隙渐变天线的辐射方向图和远区辐射场与实验结果比较一致。本文给出了超短电磁脉冲在天线上传播和辐射过程的瞬态直观图象，同时还研究了这种天线衬底厚度、几何尺寸及介电常数对其辐射特性及频带的影响。     

Radiation pattern of an open-ended waveguide covered by plasma layers

A method of calculating the radiation fields of a multilayer plasma-clad slot antenna using discrete waveguide modes has been formulated. The fields of a plasma-covered slot radiating into a large waveguide are computed several wavelengths from the antenna. For large guides these fields represent the radiation pattern of an open structure.     

Patch antennas on externally perforated high dielectric constantsubstrates

Smaller physical size and wider bandwidth are two antenna engineering goals of great interest in the wireless world. To this end, the concept of external substrate perforation is applied to patch antennas in this paper. The goal was to overcome the undesirable features of thick and high dielectric constant substrates for patch antennas without sacrificing any of the desired features, namely, small element size and bandwidth. The idea is to use substrate perforation exterior to the patch to lower the effective dielectric constant of the substrate surrounding the patch. This change in the effective dielectric constant has been observed to help mitigate the unwanted interference pattern of edge diffraction/scattering and leaky waves. The numerical data presented in this paper were generated using the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) technique. Using this numerical method, a patch antenna was simulated on finite-sized ground planes of two different substrate thicknesses, with and without external substrate perforation. The computations showed the directivity drop in the radiation pattern caused by substrate propagation was noticeably improved by introducing the substrate perforation external to the patch for the case of a patch antenna on a relatively thick substrate without any loss of bandwidth. Measurements of a few patch antennas fabricated on high dielectric constant substrates with and without substrate perforation are included for completeness. Good correlation between the computed results and measurements is observed     

Radiation characteristics of a source in a thin substrate mountedover a dielectric medium

The radiation pattern of a line source is calculated for the case in which the source is lying on the top or the bottom surface of a lossless dielectric substrate that is mounted on the top of semi-infinite dielectric medium. It is found that in both cases the pattern along the interfaces has a null; that the pattern in the upper semi-infinite medium has a single lobe; and that the pattern in the lower semi-infinite medium has many lobes, the number of which varies with the substrate thickness. In both cases, the power radiated into the lower medium is more than that radiated into the upper medium. Applications of this calculation to remote sensing, microstrip antenna technology, and antenna arrays are discussed     

Analysis of microstrip wraparound antennas using dyadic Green's functions

The radiation pattern of microstrip wraparound antennas was obtained here using a theory based on dyadic Green's functions for concentric-cylindrical layered media. The dielectric layer that is usually neglected as a first-order approximation was considered here. An asymptotic expression for the dyadic Green's function that takes into account only the space wave is first obtained. Radiation patterns for various radii, permittivities, and thicknesses of the dielectric layer of a microstrip wraparound antenna were obtained using as a source a uniform annular magnetic current obtained by means of a cavity model with conducting magnetic walls. The calculated values of the percent pattern coverage decreases as the thickness and the permittivity of the dielectric layer increase. The influence of the dielectric layer is more pronounced for radiation direction near that of the axis of the cylindrical surface. It is also shown that the radiation patterns at a frequency of 2.0 GHz are not much dependent on the diameter of the antenna for values from 3 to 120 in.