Textured Surface Slot Antenna

In this paper, we provide numerical and experimental verification of the size reduction and polar pattern modification that can be achieved by using a slot excited textured surface antenna as compared to a conventional slot antenna constructed from a flat perfectly conducting metal sheet, PEC. Excitation is provided via a coaxial conductor positioned between a slot etched into the untextured, i.e. PEC ground plane side of the antenna, with the upper surface of the structure textured. We show that a size reduction of 48% and a gain improvement of nearly 9 dBi can be achieved in comparison to a conventional slot antenna.