Active microstrip antenna design with the simplified real frequency technique

Presents a new approach for the design of amplifier-type active microstrip antennas by employing the concept of combining passive radiating patches and active devices for microwave signal transmission or reception. The simplified real frequency technique (SRFT) is introduced to design the lossless matching networks of active antennas. With this technique, there is no need to determine any form of equivalent circuit or analytical impedance function for the antennas and generators; the calculated or experimental data of the antennas and generators are processed directly. Furthermore, the need for choosing an algebraic transfer function as a measure of performance and the assumption of a topology for the matching networks in advance, which are common in most matching techniques, is avoided. The final results are optimised, physically realizable, normalized reflection coefficients that describe the matching networks. The matching networks are generally simpler and give superior gain properties compared to structures obtained by the analytic procedures