ANALYSIS OF INFINITE ARRAYS OF SUBSTRATE-SUPPORTED METAL STRIP ANTENNAS

An electric field integral equation method for the analysis of three-dimensional composite conducting and dielectric structures is applied to a metal strip antenna on an electrically thick dielectric substrate of finite size in a uniform infinite array environment An efficient solution is found using the method of moments. Metal strip folded dipole antennas are analyzed both with and without a coplanar strip feed line, and the effects of the substrate and feed line are investigated. A technique for minimizing the effect of feed line scattering is presented, and arrays of these elements are shown to be capable of good scanning performance over a wide range of beam-steer angles. A phased array simulator experiment is described and the measured results show good agreement with those obtained by analysis. The class of antenna elements studied may be fabricated using monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) technology, and the analysis described in this paper illustrates the expected characteristics for millimeter-wavelength phased arrays of this type.