Finite ground plane effects on the radiation patterns of a rectangular microstrip antenna

摘要

Microstrip antennas are popular for their low profile and light weight. They have been analyzed using a number of analytical and numerical techniques [1-3]. Most of the investigations have been based on antennas with infinitely large ground planes. Microstrip antennas may, however, be applied with finite ground plane in some cases such as feed elements in reflector antennas. In such cases, the radiation characteristics of the microstrip antennas with finite ground plane is very important in order to predict the performance of the reflector antenna. Moreover, from the practical point of view, the dimensions of the ground plane of a commercial antenna cannot be made infinitely large, and therefore the knowledge of radiation characteristics with finite ground plane is very important to an antenna designer.