Title :
Analysis of planar microstrip antennas using the finite element method
Author :
Hestand, Rue ; Christodoulou, C.
Author_Institution :
Dept. of Electr. & Comput. Eng., Central Florida Univ., Orlando, FL, USA
Abstract :
The popularity and usefulness of microstrip antennas has made it increasingly necessary to find a method to accurately determine the radiation patterns of these antennas through the modeling process. One such tool studied was MSC/EMAS and MSC/XL, which are programs that utilize the finite element method. In this paper, these programs are used to construct and analyze several microstrip antennas such as a patch antenna, a square spiral antenna and an equiangular spiral antenna (the spiral antennas have become popular due their very large bandwidth and circular polarization). The far-field patterns were obtained and verified with a suitable reference, such as experimental data and/or theoretical data. The current density distributions on the radiating conductors were also examined to provide insight into the radiation of these antennas
Keywords :
antenna radiation patterns; conformal antennas; current density; current distribution; finite element analysis; microstrip antennas; spiral antennas; MSC/EMAS; MSC/XL; current density distribution; equiangular spiral antenna; far-field patterns; finite element method; patch antenna; planar microstrip antennas; radiating conductors; radiation patterns; square spiral antenna; Aerospace electronics; Antenna radiation patterns; Differential equations; Finite element methods; Maxwell equations; Microstrip antennas; Microwave antennas; Moment methods; Patch antennas; Spirals;
Conference_Titel :
Southeastcon '96. Bringing Together Education, Science and Technology., Proceedings of the IEEE
Conference_Location :
Tampa, FL
Print_ISBN :
0-7803-3088-9
DOI :
10.1109/SECON.1996.510043
