Performances analysis of capillary plasma antenna array

Simulations using Computer Simulation Technology (CST) have been done on different pressure (10 Torr and 20 Torr) of Hg-Ar capillary tubes plasma antenna. The tubes which is small enough in diameter are designed as capillary plasma antenna, as well as a monopole antenna and also as an antenna arrays. They have been arranged into three different arrays with two different gap distances. The characteristics and performance of this kind of plasma antenna such as return loss, gain and directivity are analyzed and compared. In terms of gas pressure, the lower pressure (10 Torr) shows a better results for gain at all kind of arrays while not much different for results of directivity. In terms of gap distance between the plasma elements, shorter distance (4 mm) shows a better results while the more numbers in plasma element in array gives high value of antenna gain. In terms of return loss, it shows a significant values especially in range from 3 GHz to 4 GHz. From the results, gas pressure of plasma antenna and array distance between the capillary tubes give a significant effect to the antenna performance in range of 10 GHz and below.