Advances in low-profile Fabry-Perot cavity base station antennas using passive periodic surfaces

Recent research progress on planar and conformal Fabry-Perot type resonant cavity antennas is presented. The proposed antennas are based on the use of multi-layer passive periodic surfaces that act as partially reflective surfaces (PRS) and significantly enhance the directivity of simple primary sources. Profile reduction techniques based on high impedance (HIS) ground planes are reported. An efficient periodic full-wave analysis has been applied to planar as well as cylindrical cavity antennas, providing physical insight in the antenna operation by identifying the supported modes. Measurements of final prototypes are presented validating the analysis techniques.