Installed Radiation Pattern of Patch Antennas: Prediction based on a novel equivalent model.

A simple but efficient equivalent model of patch antennas is proposed for predicting the radiation pattern of patch antennas on large platforms. The equivalent model is constructed based on the radiation mechanism of a patch antenna. Only three design parameters need to be optimized, making the model more computationally efficient than those equivalent dipole models for general problems. After the equivalent model is optimized with a differential evolution (DE) algorithm, it is further installed on a platform to compute installed radiation patterns. Simulation results show that the installed radiation patterns of both a single element and an array can be accurately predicted using the equivalent model, where the root-mean-square errors (RMSEs) are less than 0.94%. The proposed equivalent model method does not require detailed geometry information of the patch antennas. Furthermore, it avoids direct modeling of antenna structures, leading to a drastic reduction in computation and storage costs.