AUGUST 2004 VOLUME 52 NUMBER 8 IETPAK (ISSN 0018-926X)

EDITORIAL
A Note From the Outgoing Editor-in-Chief . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A. W. Glisson 1926

PAPERS
Bandwidth Enhancement and Further Size Reduction of a Class of Miniaturized Slot Antennas. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . N. Behdad and K. Sarabandi 1928
Miniature Built-In Multiband Antennas for Mobile Handsets . . . . . . . . . . . . . Y.-X. Guo, M. Y. W. Chia, and Z. N. Chen 1936
Miniature Reconfigurable Three-Dimensional Fractal Tree Antennas. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . J. S. Petko and D. H. Werner 1945
Investigations on Miniaturized Endfire Vertically Polarized Quasi-Fractal Log-Periodic Zigzag Antenna . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . S. K. Sharma and L. Shafai 1957
Compact Wide-Band Multimode Antennas for MIMO and Diversity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C. Waldschmidt and W. Wiesbeck 1963
Ground Influence on the Input Impedance of Transient Dipole and Bow-Tie Antennas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A. A. Lestari, A. G. Yarovoy, and L. P. Ligthart 1970
Adaptive Crossed Dipole Antennas Using a Genetic Algorithm. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .R. L. Haupt 1976
Modeling and Investigation of a Geometrically Complex UWB GPR Antenna Using FDTD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .K.-H. Lee, C.-C. Chen, F. L. Teixeira, and R. Lee 1983
Radiation Properties of an Arbitrarily Flanged Parallel-Plate Waveguide . . . . . . D. N. Chien, K. Tanaka, and M. Tanaka 1992
Scan Blindness Free Phased Array Design Using PBG Materials. . . . . L. Zhang, J. A. Castaneda, and N. G. Alexopoulos 2000
Fractile Arrays: A New Class of Tiled Arrays With Fractal Boundaries . . . . D. H. Werner, W. Kuhirun, and P. L. Werner 2008
A New Millimeter-Wave Printed Dipole Phased Array Antenna Using Microstrip-Fed Coplanar Stripline Tee Junctions
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Y.-H. Suh and K. Chang 2019
Physical Limitations of Antennas in a Lossy Medium. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A. Karlsson 2027
Minimum Norm Mutual Coupling Compensation With Applications in Direction of Arrival Estimation . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .C. K. E. Lau, R. S. Adve, and T. K. Sarkar 2034
A Phase-Space Beam Summation Formulation for Ultrawide-band Radiation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A. Shlivinski, E. Heyman, A. Boag, and C. Letrou 2042

(Contents Continued on Page 1925)

(Contents Continued from Front Cover)

Theoretical Considerations in the Optimization of Surface Waves on a Planar Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . S. F. Mahmoud, Y. M. M. Antar, H. F. Hammad, and A. P. Freundorfer 2057
Generalized System Function Analysis of Exterior and Interior Resonances of Antenna and Scattering Problems . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . L. Li and C.-H. Liang 2064
MIMO Wireless Communication Channel Phenomenology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .D. W. Bliss, A. M. Chan, and N. B. Chang 2073
Service Oriented Statistics of Interruption Time Due to Rainfall in Earth-Space Communication Systems . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E. Matricciani 2083
Full-Wave Analysis of Dielectric Frequency-Selective Surfaces Using a Vectorial Modal Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A. Coves, B. Gimeno, J. Gil, M. V. Andrés, A. A. San Blas, and V. E. Boria 2091
On the Interaction Between Electric and Magnetic Currents in Stratified Media . . . . . D. Llorens del Río and J. R. Mosig 2100
Scattering by Arbitrarily-Shaped Slots in Thick Conducting Screens: An Approximate Solution . . . . . . . . . . J. R. Mosig 2109
Double Higher Order Method of Moments for Surface Integral Equation Modeling of Metallic and Dielectric Antennas
and Scatterers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . M. Djordjević and B. M. Notaroš 2118
Loop-Tree Implementation of the Adaptive Integral Method (AIM) for Numerically-Stable, Broadband, Fast
Electromagnetic Modeling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . V. I. Okhmatovski, J. D. Morsey, and A. C. Cangellaris 2130
A Single-Level Low Rank IE-QR Algorithm for PEC Scattering Problems Using EFIE Formulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . S. M. Seo and J.-F. Lee 2141
Accelerated Gradient Based Optimization Using Adjoint Sensitivities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . N. K. Nikolova, R. Safian, E. A. Soliman, M. H. Bakr, and J. W. Bandler 2147
A Theoretical Study of the Stability Criteria for Hybridized FDTD Algorithms for Multiscale Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . M. Marrone and R. Mittra 2158

COMMUNICATIONS
Full-Wave Analysis of a Waveguide Printed Slot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . G. Montisci and G. Mazzarella 2168
Dual Polarized Wide-Band Aperture Stacked Patch Antennas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .K. Ghorbani and R. B. Waterhouse 2171
Resonant Frequency of Equilateral Triangular Microstrip Antenna With and Without Air Gap. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .D. Guha and J. Y. Siddiqui 2174
Effect of a Cavity Enclosure on the Resonant Frequency of Inverted Microstrip Circular Patch Antenna. . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .D. Guha and J. Y. Siddiqui 2177
Design and Development of Multiband Coaxial Continuous Transverse Stub (CTS) Antenna Arrays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . R. Isom, M. F. Iskander, Z. Yun, and Z. Zhang 2180
Near-Field, Spherical-Scanning Antenna Measurements With Nonideal Probe Locations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . R. C. Wittmann, B. K. Alpert, and M. H. Francis 2184
Resonance Series Representation of the Early-Time Field Scattered by a Coated Cylinder. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . H. Vollmer and E. J. Rothwell 2186
High Order Symplectic Integration Methods for Finite Element Solutions to Time Dependent Maxwell Equations . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .R. Rieben, D. White, and G. Rodrigue 2190

CORRECTIONS
Corrections to “Phased Arrays Based on Oscillators Coupled on Triangular and Hexagonal Lattices” . . . R. J. Pogorzelski 2196

CALLS FOR PAPERS

Special Issue on Multifunction Antennas and Antenna Systems. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2197
 IEEE ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION SOCIETY
All members of the IEEE are eligible for membership in the Antennas and Propagation Society and will receive on-line access to this TRANSACTIONS through IEEE Explore upon payment of
the annual Society membership fee of $24.00. Print subscriptions to this TRANSACTIONS are available to Society members for an additional fee of $50.00. For information on joining, write
to the IEEE at the address below. Member copies of Transactions/Journals are for personal use only.
ADMINISTRATIVE COMMITTEE
J. L. VOLAKIS, President R. W. ZIOLKOWSKI, Vice President M. SHIELDS, Secretary-Treasurer
2003 2004 2005 2006
S. D. GEDNEY W. C. CHEW T. S. BIRD M. ANDO
J. S. HERD *T. MILLIGAN S. C. HAGNESS J. T. BERNHARD
A. Q. MARTIN J. ROCKWAY M. THORBURN *M. F. ISKANDER
*D. H. SCHAUBERT J. A. MOELLERS N. ENGHETA M. SALAZAR-PALMA
P. F. WAHID J. L. YOUNG *P. L. E. USLENGHI D. H. WERNER
Honorary Life Member: R. C. HANSEN
*Past President

Committee Chairs and Representatives

Antenna Measurements (AMTA): E. S. GILLESPIE
Applied Computational EM Society (ACES):
A. F. PETERSON
Asian Representative: H. NAKANO
Awards and Fellows: A. SCHELL
CAEME Board: D. H. SCHAUBERT
Chapter Activities: D. R. JACKSON
Committee on Communications and Information Policy:
A. I. ZAGHLOUL
Committee on Man and Radiation: R. D. NEVELS
Computer Applications in EM Education (CAEME):
M. F. ISKANDER
Constitution and Bylaws: R. I. WOLFSON
Distinguished Lecturers: P. H. PATHAK
Education: S. R. RENGARAJAN
EAB/TAAC: E. K. MILLER
Energy Committee: J. F. LINDSEY, III
European Representatives: P. J. B. CLARRICOATS,
A. G. ROEDERER
Finance: M. SHIELDS R&D Committee—Aerospace: G. HYDE
Historian: K. STEPHAN R&D Committee—Defense: A. C. SCHELL
IEEE Magazine Committee: W. R. STONE R&D Committee—Engineering: A. C. SCHELL
IEEE Press Liaison: R. J. MAILLOUX Society of Social Implications of Technology:
IEEE Transactions Committee: P. L. E. USLENGHI M. J. PIKET-MAY
International Radio Consultative Cmte (CCIR): E. K. SMITH Standards Board: M. H. FRANCIS, D. V. THIEL
Institutional Listings: C. C. ALLEN Standards—Antennas: M. H. FRANCIS
Joint Committee on High-Power Electromagnetics: C. E. BAUM Standards—Propagation: D. V. THIEL
Long-Range Planning: A. C. SCHELL Superconductivity Committee: K. MEI, J. WILLIAMS
Magazine Editor: W. R. STONE TAB Magazines Committee: W. R. STONE
Meetings: S. A. LONG TAB New Technology Directions Committee:
Meetings Coordination: S. A. LONG A. I. ZAGHLOUL
Meetings Workshops: W. G. SCOTT TAB Public Relations Committee: W. R. STONE
Membership: S. D. GEDNEY TAB Transactions Committee: P. L. E. USLENGHI
New Technology: A. I. ZAGHLOUL USAB Aerospace Policy Committee: G. HYDE
Nominations: L. W. PEARSON USAB Defense R&D Committee: A. C. SCHELL
Professional Activities (PACE): J. MICHAEL JOHNSON USAB Enginerring R&D Committee: A. C. SCHELL
Publications: R. J. MARHEFKA Transnational Committee: J. MOSIG
RAB/TAB Transnational Committee Liaison: USNC/URSI: P. L. E. USLENGHI
P. S. KILDAL

AP Transactions web site: http://aps.ee.olemiss.edu AP Transactions Manuscript Central web site: http://tap-ieee.manuscriptcentral.com
Chapter Chairs
For current Chapter Chairs information, visit the APS website (http://www.ieee.aps.org) and look under “Local Chapters.”

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION

is a publication devoted to theoretical and experimental advances in antennas including design and development, and in the propagation of electromagnetic waves including scattering, diffrac-
tion, and interaction with continuous media; and applications pertinent to antennas and propagation, such as remote sensing, applied optics, and millimeter and submillimeter wave techniques.

See inside back cover for Editorial Board.

THE INSTITUTE OF ELECTRICAL AND ELECTRONICS ENGINEERS, INC.
Officers
ARTHUR W. WINSTON, President MICHAEL R. LIGHTNER, Vice President, Publication Services and Products
W. CLEON ANDERSON, President-Elect MARC T. APTER, Vice President, Regional Activities
MOHAMED EL-HAWARY, Secretary JAMES T. CARLO, President, IEEE Standards Association
PEDRO A. RAY, Treasurer RALPH W. WYNDRUM, JR., Vice President, Technical Activities
MICHAEL S. ADLER, Past President JOHN W. STEADMAN, President, IEEE-USA
JAMES M. TIEN, Vice President, Educational Activities
HAROLD L. FLESCHER, Director, Division IV — Electromagnetics and Radiation
Executive Staff
DANIEL J. SENESE, Executive Director
DONALD CURTIS, Human Resources MATTHEW LOEB, Corporate Strategy & Communications
ANTHONY DURNIAK, Publications Activities RICHARD D. SCHWARTZ, Business Administration
JUDITH GORMAN, Standards Activities W. THOMAS SUTTLE, IEEE-USA
CECELIA JANKOWSKI, Regional Activities MARY WARD-CALLAN, Technical Activities
BARBARA COBURN STOLER, Educational Activities SALLY A. WASELIK, Information Technology

IEEE Periodicals
Transactions/Journals Department
Staff Director: FRAN ZAPPULLA
Editorial Director: DAWN MELLEY Production Director: ROBERT SMREK
Managing Editor: WILLIAM A. COLACCHIO Associate Editor: DAWN L. MENENDEZ

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION (ISSN 0018-926X) is published monthly by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc.
Responsibility for the contents rests upon the authors and not upon the IEEE, the Society/Council, or its members. IEEE Corporate Office: 3 Park Avenue, 17th
Floor, New York, NY 10016-5997. IEEE Operations Center: 445 Hoes Lane, P.O. Box 1331, Piscataway, NJ 08855-1331. NJ Telephone: +1 732 981 0060.
Price/Publication Information: Individual copies: IEEE Members $20.00 (first copy only), nonmembers $50.00 per copy. (Note: Postage and handling charge
not included.) Member and nonmember subscription prices available upon request. Available in microfiche and microfilm. Copyright and Reprint Permissions:
Abstracting is permitted with credit to the source. Libraries are permitted to photocopy for private use of patrons, provided the per-copy fee indicated in the
code at the bottom of the first page is paid through the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923. For all other copying, reprint, or
republication permission, write to Copyrights and Permissions Department, IEEE Publications Administration, 445 Hoes Lane, P.O. Box 1331, Piscataway, NJ
08855-1331. Copyright © 2004 by The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. All rights reserved. Periodicals Postage Paid at New York, NY and at
additional mailing offices. Postmaster: Send address changes to IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, IEEE, 445 Hoes Lane, P.O. Box 1331,
Piscataway, NJ 08855-1331. GST Registration No. 125634188. Printed in U.S.A.

Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2004.835169

1926 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
A Note from the Outgoing Editor-in-Chief
I T HAS BEEN an honor and a privilege for me to serve as the
Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS
AND PROPAGATION for the past three years. I want to express
my sincere thanks to the Antennas and Propagation (AP) So-
ciety Administrative Committee for giving me the opportunity
to serve the Society in this capacity. Although I was initially
reluctant to accept the great responsibility that goes with this
position, it has been a unique and rewarding experience. The
TRANSACTIONS is the leading journal in its field and the AP So-
ciety is justifiably proud of it. I can only hope that we have been
successful during my tenure as Editor-in-Chief (EIC) in main-
taining the outstanding quality of the Transactions that APS
members expect and deserve.
During the last three years the annual number of pages
published in the TRANSACTIONS has been increased from 1,960
pages in 2001 to 3,400 pages in 2003 to decrease the publi-
cation backlog. Page budgets that are required to be set far in
advance along with an increasing number of submissions have
made it difficult to reduce the publication backlog. A special
thanks is due to the APS AdCom for authorizing an extraor-
dinary expenditure of funds to increase the number of pages
published in 2003 to help reduce the backlog. Additionally, the
IEEE has recently approved more flexible rules with regard to
page budgets that will hopefully make it easier to avoid large
backlogs in the future.
The transition to an all-electronic process from submission to
publication is also well underway. Galley proof delivery to au-
thors has become electronic. Corrections can be noted on the
galley proof files with Adobe Acrobat software and returned
electronically as well. A new electronic copyright form has re-
cently been included in Manuscript Central. The promise of a
completely paper-free process is expected to be achieved soon,
possibly within the next year. When you have the chance, please
thank Wilson Pearson, the previous EIC, and Anthony Martin
for leading the way in implementing the electronic submission
process.
As I turn over the reins to the new Editor-in-Chief, Dr. Trevor
S. Bird, I want express my deepest thanks to all of you who
have served as reviewers for the TRANSACTIONS over the past
three years. The review process is critical to maintaining the
quality of the Transactions. I also particularly want to thank all
the Associate Editors who have worked so hard. Their names
are still listed on the inside back cover in this issue, but I list
them here again to emphasize their outstanding service:
• Jørgen Bach Andersen
• Yahia Antar
• Jennifer Bernhard
• Trevor Bird
• Filippo Capolino
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2004.834953
0018-926X/04$20.00 © 2004 IEEE
• Lawrence Carin
• Christos Chrisodoulou
• Cynthia Furse
• Stephen Gedney
• George Hanson
• Michael Jensen
• Leo Kempel
• Chi Chung Ko
• Karl Langenberg
• Louis Medgyesi-Mitschang
• Kathleen Melde
• Krzysztof Michalski
• Eric Michielssen
• Michal Okoniewski
• Hsueh-Yuan Pao
• Sembiam Rengarajan
• Antoine Roederer
• Kamal Sarabandi
• Ari Sihvola
• Rainee Simons
• Parveen Wahid
Thanks are also due to the Editors of the special issues
that have appeared and are currently in preparation: Magdy
Iskander and Jim Mink, for the Special Issue on Wireless
Information Technology and Networks; Rick Ziolkowski and
Nader Engheta, for the Special Issue on Metamaterials; and
Per-Simon Kildal, Ahmed Kishk, and Stefano Maci, for the
upcoming Special Issue on Artificial Magnetic Conductors,
Soft/Hard Surfaces, and other Complex Surfaces.
Special thanks are also extended to former Associate Ed-
itor Roena Rabelo Vega and current Associate Editor Dawn L.
Menendez at IEEE Headquarters who have worked hard on pro-
ducing a quality product. Dawn, in particular, has done a tremen-
dous job in getting our publication schedule back on track.
Finally, I want to give a special thanks to Sharon Martinez,
who has served admirably as my Editorial Assistant. She has
kept us organized, worked to keep Reviewers and Associate Ed-
itors on schedule, answered author questions, and generally kept
things running efficiently. Without her help your Editor’s Office
would have dissolved into chaos after the first few months.
In closing, I again thank the AP Society for the opportunity
to serve, and I hope that you will all support Trevor as he takes
on his new role. He has done a superb job as an Associate Editor
and I know he is committed to serving the AP Society and the
TRANSACTIONS. There is no doubt that the TRANSACTIONS will
be in good hands.
ALLEN W. GLISSON, Outgoing Editor-in-Chief
The University of Mississippi
Department of Electrical Engineering
University, MS 38677-1848 USA
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004 1927

Allen W. Glisson (S’71–M’78–SM’88–F’02) received the B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in elec-
trical engineering from the University of Mississippi, in 1973, 1975, and 1978, respectively.
In 1978, he joined the faculty of the University of Mississippi, where he is currently a
Professor and Chair of the Department of Electrical Engineering. His current research interests
include the development and application of numerical techniques for treating electromagnetic
radiation and scattering problems, and modeling of dielectric resonators and dielectric resonator
antennas. He has been actively involved in the areas of numerical modeling of arbitrarily
shaped bodies and bodies of revolution with surface integral equation formulations. He has
also served as a consultant to several different industrial organizations in the area of numerical
modeling in electromagnetics.
Dr. Glisson is a Member of Sigma Xi Research Society and the Tau Beta Pi, Phi Kappa Phi, and
Eta Kappa Nu Honor Societies. He is a Member of several professional societies within the IEEE,
Commission B of the International Union of Radio Science (URSI), and the Applied Computa-
tional Electromagnetics Society. He was a U.S. delegate to the 22nd, 23rd, and 24th General Assemblies of URSI. He was selected
as the Outstanding Engineering Faculty Member in 1986, 1996, and 2004. He received a Ralph R. Teetor Educational Award in
1989 and the Faculty Service Award in the School of Engineering in 2002. He received a Best Paper Award from the SUMMA
Foundation and twice received a citation for excellence in refereeing from the American Geophysical Union. He is the recipient
of the 2004 Microwave Prize awarded by the Microwave Theory and Techniques Society. He has served as a member of the IEEE
Antennas and Propagation Society Administrative Committee and is currently a member of the IEEE Press Liaison Committee.
He currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Applied Computational Electromagnetics Society and has recently served as
Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Applied Computational Electromagnetics Society Journal. He has also served as an Associate Editor for
Radio Science and as the Secretary of Commission B of the U.S. National Committee of URSI. From August 2001 to July 2004
he was the Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION.
1928 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
Bandwidth Enhancement and Further Size Reduction
of a Class of Miniaturized Slot Antennas
Nader Behdad, Student Member, IEEE, and Kamal Sarabandi, Fellow, IEEE
Abstract—In this paper, new methods for further reducing
the size and/or increasing the bandwidth (BW) of a class of
miniaturized slot antennas are presented. This paper examines
techniques such as parasitic coupling and inductive loading to
achieve higher BW and further size reduction for this class
of miniaturized slot antennas. The overall BW of a proposed
double resonant antenna is shown to be increased by more than
94% compared with a single resonant antenna occupying the
same area. The behavior of miniaturized slot antennas, loaded
with series inductive elements along the radiating section is also
examined. The inductive loads are constructed by two balanced
short circuited slot lines placed on opposite sides of the radiating
slot. These inductive loads can considerably reduce the antenna
size at its resonance. Prototypes of a double resonant antenna at
850 MHz and inductively loaded miniaturized antennas at around
1 GHz are designed and tested. Finally the application of both
methods in a dual band miniaturized antenna is presented. In all
cases measured and simulated results show excellent agreement.
Index Terms—Slot antennas, electrically small antennas, para-
sitic antennas, multifrequency antennas.
I. INTRODUCTION
C URRENT advancements in communication technology
and significant growth in the wireless communication
market and consumer demands demonstrate the need for
smaller, more reliable and power efficient, integrated wireless
systems. Integrating entire transceivers on a single chip is
the vision for future wireless systems. This has the benefit of
cost reduction and improving system reliability. Antennas are
considered to be the largest components of integrated wireless
systems; therefore antenna miniaturization is a necessary task
in achieving an optimal design for integrated wireless systems.
The subject of antenna miniaturization is not new and has been
extensively studied by various authors [1]–[4]. Early studies
have shown that for a resonant antenna, as size decreases,
bandwidth (BW) and efficiency will also decrease [1]. This is a
fundamental limitation which, in general, holds true indepen-
dent of antenna architecture. However, research on the design
of antenna topologies and architectures must be carried out
to achieve maximum possible BW and efficiency for a given
antenna size. Impedance matching for small antennas is also
challenging and often requires external matching networks;
Therefore antenna topologies and structures which inherently
Manuscript received May 22, 2003; revised September 30, 2003. This work
was supported in part by the Engineering Research Centers program of the Na-
tional Science Foundation (NSF) under Award EEC-9986866 and by the U.S.
Army Research Office under Contract DAA-99-1-01971.
The authors are with The Radiation Laboratory, Department of Electrical En-
gineering and Computer Science, The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
48109-2122 USA (e-mail: behdad@engin.umich.edu).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2004.832330
0018-926X/04$20.00 © 2004 IEEE
allow for impedance matching are highly desirable. The funda-
mental limitation introduced by Chu [1] and later re-examined
by McLean [4] relates the radiation Q of a single resonance
antenna with its BW. However, whether such limitation can
be directly extended to multiresonance antenna structures or
not is unclear. In fact, through a comparison with filter theory,
designing a relatively wideband antenna may be possible using
multipole (multiresonance) high Q structures. In this paper we
examine the applicability of multiresonance antenna structures
to enhance the BW of miniaturized slot antennas.
Different techniques have been used for antenna miniaturiza-
tion such as: miniaturization using optimal antenna topologies
[5]–[7] and miniaturization using magneto-dielectric materials
[8], [9]. In pursuit of antenna miniaturization while main-
taining ease of impedance matching and attaining relatively
high efficiency, a novel miniaturized slot antenna was recently
presented [6]. Afterwards, a similar architecture in the form
of a folded antenna geometry was presented in order to in-
crease the BW of the previously mentioned miniaturized slot
antenna [7]. Here we re-examine this topology [6] and propose
modifications that can result in further size reduction or BW
enhancement without imposing any significant constraint on
impedance matching or cross polarization level. In Section II,
a dual-resonant antenna topology is examined for BW en-
hancement. This miniaturized antenna shows a BW which is
94% larger than that of a single-resonant miniaturized antenna
with the same size.
Using series inductive elements distributed along the antenna
aperture results in the increase of inductance per unit length of
the line. Therefore the guided wavelength of the resonant slot
line is shortened. Thus, the overall length of the antenna is de-
creased. In Section III, this technique is first demonstrated using
a standard resonant slot antenna and then incorporated in the
miniaturized antenna topology of [6] to further reduce the res-
onant frequency without increasing the area occupied by the
antenna.
The aforementioned techniques for BW enhancement and
further size reduction can be used individually or in combina-
tion. The combined application of the techniques of Sections II
and III is presented in Section IV by demonstrating the design
of a dual band miniaturized slot antenna.
II. MINIATURIZED SLOT ANTENNA WITH ENHANCED BW
A. Design Procedure
In this section the design of coupled miniaturized slot an-
tennas for BW enhancement is studied. The configuration of
the proposed coupled slot antenna is shown in Fig. 1(b) where
BEHDAD AND SARABANDI: BW ENHANCEMENT AND FURTHER SIZE REDUCTION
Fig. 1. Geometry of single- and double-element miniaturized slot antennas. (a) Single-element miniaturized slot antenna. (b) Double-element miniaturized slot
antenna.
two miniaturized slot antennas are arranged so that they are
parasitically coupled. Each antenna occupies an area of about
[Fig. 1(a)] and achieves miniaturization by the
virtue of a special topology described in detail in [6]. However,
this antenna demonstrates a small BW (less than 1%). A close
examination of the antenna topology reveals that the slot-line
trace of the antenna only covers about half of the rectangular
printed-circuit board (PCB) area. Therefore another antenna,
with the same geometry, can be placed in the remaining area
without significantly increasing the overall PCB size. Placing
two antennas in close proximity of each other creates strong
coupling between the antennas which, if properly controlled,
can be employed to increase the total antenna BW.
As seen in Fig. 1(b), only one of the two antennas is fed by
a microstrip line. The other antenna is parasitically fed through
capacitive coupling mostly at the elbow section. The coupling
is a mixture of electric and magnetic couplings that counteract
each other. At the elbow section, where the electric field is large,
the slots are very close to each other; therefore, it is expected that
the electric field coupling is the dominant coupling mechanism
and the electric fields (magnetic currents) in both antennas will
be in phase and thus the radiated far field is enhanced.
The two coupled antennas are designed to resonate at the
same frequency, , where is the center fre-
quency and and are the resonant frequencies of the two
antennas. In this case the spectral response of the coupled
antenna will show two nulls, the separation of which is a func-
tion of the separation between the two antennas, , and their
overlap distance . In order to quantify this null separation a
coupling coefficient is defined as
(1)
where and are the frequencies of the upper and lower nulls
in . Hence can easily be adjusted by varying and
[Fig. 1(b)], and decreases as is increased and is decreased.
A full-wave electromagnetic simulation tool can be used to ex-
tract as a function of and in the design process. BW maxi-
mization is accomplished by choosing a coupling coefficient (by
choosing and ) such that remains below dB over the
1929
entire frequency band. Here the resonant frequencies of both an-
tennas are fixed at MHz and is used as the
tuning parameter. However, it is also possible to change and
slightly, in order to achieve a higher degree of control for
tuning the response.
The input impedance of a microstrip-fed slot antenna, for a
given slot width, depends on the location of the microstrip feed
relative to one end of the slot and varies from zero at the short
circuited end to a high resistance at the center. Therefore an
off-center microstrip feed can be used to easily match a slot an-
tenna to a wide range of desired input impedances. The optimum
location of the feed line can be determined from the full-wave
simulation. In the double antenna example the feed line consists
of a 50 transmission line connected to an open-circuited 75
line crossing the slot [Fig. 1(b)]. The 75 line is extended by
beyond the strip-slot crossing to couple the maximum
energy to the slot and also to compensate for the imaginary part
of the input impedance. Using this 75 line as the feed, allows
for compact and localized feed of the antenna and tuning the
location of the transition from 50 to 75 provides another
tuning parameter for obtaining a good match.
B. Fabrication and Measurement
A double-element antenna (DEA) and two different single-
element antennas (SEAs) (SEA 1 and SEA 2) were designed,
fabricated, and measured. SEA 1 is the constitutive element of
DEA and SEA 2 is an SEA with the same topology as SEA 1
[see Fig. 1(a)] but with the same area as the DEA. SEA 2 is used
to compare the BW of the double resonant miniaturized antenna
with that of the single-resonant miniaturized antenna with the
same size. All antennas were simulated using IE3D [12] which
is a full wave simulation software based on method of moments
(MoM) and fabricated on a Rogers RO4350B substrate with
thickness of 500 m, a dielectric constant of , and a
loss tangent of with a copper ground plane of
33.5 23 cm . The return losses of the SEAs as well as the
DEA are presented in Fig. 2. SEA 1 shows a BW of 8 MHz or
nearly 0.9% and SEA 2 shows a BW of 11.7 MHz or 1.31%
whereas the BW of the DEA is 21.6 MHz (2.54%) which in-
dicates a factor of 1.94 increase over a SEA (SEA) with the
1930 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004

Fig. 2. Return losses of DEA and SEA 2: SEA with the same size as DEA. (a) Return losses of the DEA and SEA of the same size (SEA 2). (b) Return loss of
the SEA that constitutes the DEA (SEA 1).

same area. Choosing a different substrate with different thick- TABLE I

ness and dielectric constant, can increase the overall BW of both COMPARISON BETWEEN THE DEA AND ITS CONSTITUTIVE SEAS
SHOWN IN FIG. 1
antennas. However, it is also expected that the BW ratio of the
DEA to the SEA remains the same. The overall size of the DEA
is which shows a 25% increase in area when
compared to the size of the SEA 1 . The Q
of each antenna has also been calculated using the method pre-
sented in [10] and compared with the fundamental limit on the
Q of small antennas [4] in Table II. Demonstrably the quality
factors of both SEAs are well above the minimum theoretical TABLE II
limit. Since Q is only defined for single resonant structures, no COMPARISON BETWEEN MEASURED Q AND THE MINIMUM ATTAINABLE Q. 3
value for Q is reported for the DEA in Table II. In calculating the CALCULATED USING THE FOSTER REACTANCE THEOREM [10]. 33 CALCULATED
USING THE CHU-MCLEAN FORMULA FOR A SINGLE-RESONANT ANTENNA [4]
minimum Q for the slot antennas using the Chu limit, it is nec-
essary to find the radius of the smallest sphere than encloses the
antenna. At first, it may not be clear whether this sphere should
only cover the aperture or, in addition to that, some portion of
the ground plane too (because of the electric currents that exist
in the ground plane). This becomes clear by applying the equiv-
alence theorem to this problem, which shows that the magnetic
currents responsible for radiation, exist only on the aperture and
according the the derivation of the Chu limit, the smallest sphere H-Plane pattern. Table I shows the radiation characteristics of
that encloses these radiating magnetic currents should be used. the DEAs and SEAs. It is seen that the gain-BW product of the
The gain of the double resonant antenna was mea- proposed double-antenna is significantly higher than that of the
sured at three different frequencies and is presented in single antenna.
Table I. Radiation patterns of the antenna were measured
at MHz and found to be similar to each III. IMPROVED ANTENNA MINIATURIZATION USING
other. Fig. 3 shows the co- and cross-polarized E- and H-plane DISTRIBUTED INDUCTIVE LOADING
radiation patterns at MHz. The E- and H-plane radi- A. Design Procedure
ation patterns of this antenna are expected to be dual of those
of a short electric dipole. Fig. 3(a) shows the H-Plane radiation A microstrip-fed slot antenna has the length of , where
pattern which is similar to the E-Plane radiation pattern of is the wavelength in the slot, at its first resonance. The electric
an electric dipole with deeps instead of nulls at . current distribution can be modeled by the voltage distribution
This can be attributed to the finiteness of the ground plane over a transmission line short circuited at both ends. The
where some radiation comes from the electric currents on the resonant length of a transmission line can be made smaller
antenna ground plane at the edges of the substrate. Fig. 3(b), if the inductance per unit length of the line is increased. This can
however, does not show a uniform radiation pattern like the be accomplished by inserting a number of series inductors in the
H-Plane radiation of a short electric dipole. This is because of transmission line. For slot-lines, insertion of series lumped el-
the 180 difference in phase between the normal component of ements is not possible. Besides, series lumped elements have a
the electric fields at the top and bottom of the antenna ground low Q which adversely affects antenna efficiency (gain). To re-
plane. The H-Plane pattern is expected to have deep nulls at alize a slot line with higher inductance per unit length, an array
these angles; therefore, this does not significantly affect the of distributed, short circuited, narrow slot-lines can be placed
BEHDAD AND SARABANDI: BW ENHANCEMENT AND FURTHER SIZE REDUCTION 1931

Fig. 3. Far field radiation patterns of the double-element miniaturized slot antenna at 852 MHz. (a) H-plane and (b) E-plane.

Fig. 4. Loaded and unloaded straight slot antennas. (a) Geometry of a microstrip-fed straight slot antenna. (b) Geometry of a microstrip-fed straight slot antenna
loaded with an array of series inductive elements.

along the radiating segment of the slot antenna as shown in

Fig. 4(b). The impedance of a short circuited slot line is ob-
tained by

(2)

where is the propagation constant, is the characteristic

impedance, and is the length of the short circuited slot-line.
The characteristic impedance of a slot-line is inversely propor-
tional to its width [11] therefore by using wider series slots,
more inductance can be obtained for a fixed length of short cir-
cuited transmission line. The best location to put series induc-
tors in a slot is near its end where the amplitude of magnetic
current is small. Putting them at the center of the slot where the
magnetic current is at its maximum, strongly degrades radiation
efficiency. It can easily be seen that by increasing the number
and value of inductors, the length of transmission line neces- Fig. 5. Geometry of a miniaturized slot antenna loaded with series distributed
inductors (slits).
sary to satisfy the boundary conditions at both ends of the slot
decreases.
The size reduction may also be explained by considering the perpendicular to it. The latter is described by the continuity
electric current distribution in the conductor around the slot. of the electric current and displacement current at the slot
There are two components of electric current in the ground plane discontinuity. Putting a discontinuity (a slit) normal to the
of the slot, one that circulates around the slot and one that is circulating current path forces the current to circle around
1932 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004

Fig. 6. Simulated and measured return losses of the straight slot antennas and miniaturized slot antennas with and without inductive loading. (see Figs. 4 and 5).
(a) Return losses of straight loaded and unloaded slot antennas. (b) Return losses of ordinary and loaded miniaturized slot antennas.

Fig. 7. Far field radiation patterns of loaded straight slot antenna shown in Fig. 4(b). (a) H-plane and (b) E-plane.

the discontinuity. Hence the electric current traverses a longer
path length than the radiating slot length which in turn lowers
the resonant frequency. Fig. 4(b) shows a slot antenna loaded
with a number of narrow slits which act as an array of series
inductors. These slits are designed to have a length smaller
than and carry a magnetic current with a direction normal
to that of the main radiator. Placing them only on one side of
the radiating slot results in asymmetry in phase and amplitude
of the current along the slot which could create problems in
matching and worsen cross polarization. In order to circumvent
this problem, two series slits are placed on the opposite sides
of the main slot. These slits carry magnetic currents with equal
amplitudes and opposite directions. Since the lengths of these
narrow slits are small compared to the wavelength and since
they are closely spaced, the radiated fields from the opposite
slits cancel each other and they do not contribute to the radiated
far field. Matching is performed by using an off-centered open
circuited microstrip feed. The optimum location and length
of the microstrip line are found by trial and error, using full
wave simulations. For both straight slots (with and without
series inductors) the lengths of the extended microstrip lines
are found to be , where is the wavelength in the
microstrip lines at their respective resonance frequencies.
Fig. 5 shows a miniaturized slot antenna (similar to the
topology in [6]) loaded with series inductive slits to further
reduce its resonant frequency. The antenna without the series
inductors is already small, and adding series inductive elements
further reduces the resonant frequency or equivalently the
electrical dimensions of the antenna. Instead of using identical
inductive elements along the radiating slot, differently sized
inductive slits are used to cover most of the available area on
the PCB in order to maintain the area occupied by the antenna.
The antenna is matched to a microstrip transmission line in
a manner similar to the straight slots described earlier. The
feed line is composed of a 75 open-circuited microstrip line
connected to a 50 feed line. In this case, the open circuited
BEHDAD AND SARABANDI: BW ENHANCEMENT AND FURTHER SIZE REDUCTION 1933

Fig. 8. Far field radiation patterns of loaded miniaturized slot antenna shown in Fig. 5. (a) H-plane and (b) E-plane.

B. Fabrication and Measurement

The straight slots with and without series inductors were
simulated using IE3D and fabricated on a 500 m thick Rogers
RO4350B substrate. Fig. 6(a) shows the simulated and measured
return losses for the slot antennas with and without inductive
loading. This figure shows the resonance frequency and dB
BW of 2.2 GHz, and 235 MHz (10.7%) for the straight slot.
The loaded slot with the same length as that of the unloaded slot
has a resonance frequency of 1.24 GHz and a BW of 63 MHz
(5%). This result indicates a 44% reduction in the resonant
frequency and a similar reduction in the BW, as expected.
The overall size can still be reduced by using longer short
circuited slits, if they could be designed in a compact fashion.
The radiation patterns of the small slot antenna were measured
Fig. 9. Geometry of the dual band inductively loaded miniaturized slot antenna in the anechoic chamber of the University of Michigan and
of Section IV.
are presented in Fig. 7. It is seen that the cross polarization
components in the far field region in both E- and H-planes are
negligible, thereby confirming the fact that the radiation from
the magnetic currents in the inductive loadings with opposite
directions cancel each other in the far field region.
The miniaturized loaded and unloaded slot antennas were
also fabricated using RO4350B substrate. Fig. 6(b) shows the
simulated and measured return losses of the loaded and un-
loaded miniaturized antennas. It is shown that, by inserting the
series inductors, the resonant frequency of the antenna shifts
down from 1116 to 959 MHz (14% reduction). In this design, the
overall PCB size is unchanged. Fig. 8 shows the E- and H-plane
co- and cross-polarized radiation patterns of the loaded minia-
turized antenna. It is seen that the cross polarization level is
negligible at broadside. The gains of the loaded and unloaded
miniaturized slot antennas (antenna in Fig. 5) were also mea-
Fig. 10. Measured and simulated return losses of the miniaturized dual band sured in the anechoic chamber using a standard log-periodic
slot antenna of Section IV.
reference antenna and were found to be 0.8 and 0.7 dB, respec-
tively. Table III shows a comparison between Q of the minia-
microstrip line is extended beyond the slot-strip crossing by turized antennas presented in this section and the fundamental
and for the miniaturized antenna and the loaded limit on Q of small antennas with the same size [1], [4]. It is ob-
miniaturized antenna respectively. served that the Q of these antennas are well above the Chu limit.
1934 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004

TABLE III
COMPARISON BETWEEN BW, MEASURED Q AND THE MINIMUM ATTAINABLE Q OF THE MINIATURIZED ANTENNAS IN SECTION III

TABLE IV
COMPARISON BETWEEN BW, MEASURED Q AND THE MINIMUM ATTAINABLE Q OF THE DUAL BAND MINIATURIZED ANTENNA

IV. DUAL BAND MINIATURIZED SLOT ANTENNA
In this section the techniques introduced in the previous
sections are used in the design of a dual band miniaturized
slot antenna. The geometry of this antenna is shown in Fig. 9.
The resonant frequencies of the slot antennas ( and ) is 5.73 cm 5.94 cm or equivalently
and the value of the coupling coefficient are used as
design parameters to achieve the desired response. Increasing
the vertical displacement, , and decreasing the horizontal
separation, , causes to increase or equivalently result in
a larger separation between the two frequency bands. Small
changes in the resonance lengths of the slots result in slight
changes in and which can be used as a means of fine-
tuning the response. Note, however, that resonant frequencies
, and should be close to each other so that coupling
takes place. The separation between the two bands is limited
by practical values of . Large values cannot be obtained
easily, since both electric and magnetic couplings are present
and add destructively. In addition to this problem, matching
the antenna at the two bands becomes increasingly difficult
as the separation increases. A parameter is defined as a
measure of separation between the two frequency bands
(3)
where is the center frequency. In practice by changing , ization techniques to further decrease the size of the radiating
and , values of up to 10% can easily be obtained. This ar-
chitecture is particularly useful for wireless applications that use
two separate frequency bands (different bands for transmit and
receive for example) that are close to each other but still cannot
be covered with the available BW of these types of miniaturized
antennas.
In order to achieve a higher miniaturization level for the given
size, series inductive elements are also placed along slots to re-
duce the resonance frequencies of each element. Fig. 10 shows
the simulated and measured return losses of this dual band an-
tenna. The discrepancies between the simulated and measured
results are due to the finiteness of the ground plane as described
in [6]. The measured results indicate an MHz and
MHz or equivalently a %. A good match at
both bands is obtained by using an off center open-circuited mi-
crostrip feed where the microstrip line is extended by 7 cm over
the slot-strip transition. Table IV shows a comparison between
the antenna size, dB BW, measured Q, and minimum at-
tainable Q for the two bands. It is seen that the Q of both bands
are well above the Chu limit. The overall size of the structure
at the
lowest frequency of operation. Radiation patterns of the antenna
at the two bands are measured and found to be similar to those
of the SEA topology (Fig. 8).
V. CONCLUSION
Two approaches are introduced for increasing the BW and
reducing the size of miniaturized slot antennas. Placing two
similar slot antennas in close proximity of each other creates a
double resonant structure, the response of which is a function of
relative spacing between the two antennas. The coupled minia-
turized antenna can be designed to have a BW which is larger
by 94% than the BW of a single resonant antenna with the same
area or to behave as a dual band antenna.
For a fixed resonant frequency, adding series inductive el-
ements to a slot antenna reduces its size. The size reduction
is a function of number and values of the inserted inductive
elements. Using series inductive elements does not adversely
affect impedance matching and the cross polarization level.
This technique is also used in combination with other miniatur-
structure. The technique is applied to a straight as well as a
miniaturized slot antenna and for a given antenna size, sig-
nificant reduction in resonant frequencies are observed.
Finally, both techniques are applied to the design of a minia-
turized dual band antenna. Series inductors are used to reduce
the resonant frequencies of each resonator. A large coupling co-
efficient is used to achieve a large separation between the two
nulls in the response of the parasitically coupled antenna.
The values of , and are used as design parameters in
order to obtain a miniaturized dual band slot antenna with rela-
tively good simultaneous matching.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for
their constructive comments.
BEHDAD AND SARABANDI: BW ENHANCEMENT AND FURTHER SIZE REDUCTION 1935

REFERENCES Kamal Sarabandi (S’87–M’90–SM’92–F’00)

received the B.S. degree in electrical engineering
[1] L. J. Chu, “Physical limitations on omni-directional antennas,” J. Appl.
from Sharif University of Technology, Tehran,
Phys., vol. 19, pp. 1163–1175, Dec. 1948. Iran, in 1980, the M.S. degree in electrical engi-
[2] H. A. Wheeler, “Fundamental limitations of small antennas,” in Proc.
neering/mathematics, and the Ph.D. degree in elec-
IRE., vol. 35, Dec. 1947, pp. 1479–1484. trical engineering from The University of Michigan,
[3] R. C. Hansen, “Fundamental limitations in antennas,” Proc. IEEE, vol. Ann Arbor, in 1986 and 1989, respectively.
69, pp. 170–182, Feb. 1981.
He is Director of the Radiation Laboratory and
[4] J. S. McLean, “A re-examination of the fundamental limits on the radia- a Professor in the Department of Electrical Engi-
tion Q of electrically small antennas,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat.,
neering and Computer Science, The University of
vol. 44, pp. 672–676, May 1996. Michigan. He has 20 years of experience with wave
[5] H. K. Kan and R. B. Waterhouse, “Small square dual-spiral printed an-
propagation in random media, communication channel modeling, microwave
tennas,” Electron. Lett., vol. 37, pp. 478–479, Apr. 2001. sensors, and radar systems and is leading a large research group consisting
[6] K. Sarabandi and R. Azadegan, “Design of an efficient miniaturized
of four research scientists, ten Ph.D. students, and two M.S. students. Over
UHF planar antenna,” in Proc. IEEE Int. Antennas Propagat. & URSI the past ten years he has graduated 15 Ph.D. students. He has served as the
Symp., Boston, MA, July 8–13, 2001. Principal Investigator on many projects sponsored by NASA, JPL, ARO, ONR,
[7] R. Azadegan and K. Sarabandi, “Miniaturized folded-slot: An approach
ARL, NSF, DARPA, and numerous industries. He has published many book
to increase the bandwidth and efficiency of miniaturized slot antennas,” chapters and more than 105 papers in refereed journals on electromagnetic
in Proc. IEEE Int. Antennas Propagat. & URSI Symp., San Antonio, TX,
scattering, random media modeling, wave propagation, antennas, microwave
June 16–21, 2002. measurement techniques, radar calibration, inverse scattering problems, and
[8] K. Sarabandi and H. Mosallaie, “Antenna miniaturization with enhanced
microwave sensors. He has had more than 220 papers and invited presentations
bandwidth and radiation characteristics: A novel design utilizing peri- in national and international conferences and symposia on similar subjects. His
odic magneto-dielectric,” in Proc. IEEE Int. Antennas Propagat. & URSI research areas of interest include microwave and millimeter-wave radar remote
Symp., San Antonio, TX, June 16–21, 2002. sensing, electromagnetic wave propagation, and antenna miniaturization.
[9] T. Ozdemir, P. Frantzis, K. Sabet, L. Katehi, K. Sarabandi, and J. Harvey, Dr. Sarabandi is a Member of the International Scientific Radio Union (URSI)
“Compact wireless antennas using a superstrate dielectric lens,” in Proc.
Commission F and of The Electromagnetic Academy. He received the Henry
IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat. & URSI Symp., Salt Lake City, Utah, Russel Award from the Regent of The University of Michigan (the highest honor
July 2000.
the University of Michigan bestows on a faculty member at the assistant or
[10] W. Geyi, P. Jarmuszewski, and Y. Qi, “The foster reactance theorem for associate level). In 1999, he received a GAAC Distinguished Lecturer Award
antennas and radiation Q,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 48, pp.
from the German Federal Ministry for Education, Science, and Technology. He
401–408, Mar. 2000. also received a 1996 Teaching Excellence Award from the Department of Elec-
[11] J. J. Lee, “Slotline impedance,” IEEE Trans. Microwave Theory and trical Engineering and Computer Science, and the 2003/2004 College of Engi-
Techniques, vol. 39, pp. 666–672, Apr. 1991.
neering Research Excellence Award, The University of Michigan. He is a Vice
[12] Electromagnetic Simulation and Optimization Software. IE3D. President of the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society (GRSS), a past
Chairman of the Awards Committee of the IEEE GRSS from 1998 to 2002, and a
Member of the IEEE Technical Activities Board Awards Committee from 2000
Nader Behdad (S’97) was born in Mashhad, Iran, to 2002. He is an Associate Editor of the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS
in 1977. He received the Bachelor of Science degree AND PROPAGATION and the IEEE SENSORS JOURNAL. He is listed in American
from Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Men & Women of Science, Who’s Who in America, and Who’s Who in Electro-
Iran, and the Master of Science degree from the magnetics.
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in 2000 and
2003, respectively, where he is currently working
toward the Ph.D. degree on bandwidth enhancement
and miniaturization of printed antennas in the De-
partment of Electrical Engineering and Computer
Science.
From 2000 to 2001, he was with the Electronics
Research Center, Sharif Unviersity of Technology, as an antenna design En-
gineer working on design of antennas for wireless local loop (WLL) systems.
Since January 2002, he has been working as a Research Assistant in the Radia-
tion Laboratory, University of Michigan.
Mr. Behdad is the recipient of the Best Student Paper Award in the Antenna
Applications Symposium held in Monticelo, IL, in September 2003 and winner
of the Second Prize in the student paper competition of the USNC/URSI Na-
tional Radio Science Meeting, Boulder, CO, in January 2004.
1936
Miniature Built-In Multiband Antennas for
Mobile Handsets
Yong-Xin Guo, Member, IEEE, Michael Yan Wah Chia, Member, IEEE, and Zhi Ning Chen, Member, IEEE
Abstract—In this paper, we propose a new design for built-in
handset antennas in that metal strips as additional resonators are
directly connected with a feed strip. With the new design scheme,
a quad-band antenna for covering GSM900, DCS1800, PCS1900,
and UMTS2000 bands and a five-band antenna for covering
GSM900, DCS1800, PCS1900, UMTS2000, and ISM2450 bands
for use in mobile built-in handsets are experimentally carried out.
Compared with the parasitic form with a shorted strip placed
away from the main radiator in the open literature, the size of the
proposed antennas can be reduced by an order of 10 20%, which
is desirable since the size of mobile phones is becoming smaller
according to consumer preferences. Moreover, the impedance
matching for each band of the new antennas becomes easy. The
new quad-band and five-band built-in handset antennas are
developed within the limits of a 36 16 8 mm3 volume. The
antennas are also analyzed using the finite-difference time-domain
technique. A good agreement is achieved between measurement
and simulation.
Index Terms—Antennas, built-in antennas, handset antennas,
planar inverted-F antennas (PIFAs) antennas, small antennas.
I. INTRODUCTION
T HE SIZES AND weights of mobile handsets have rapidly
been reduced due to the development of modern inte-
grated circuit technology and the requirements of the users.
Conventional monopole-like antennas have remained relatively
large compared to the handset itself. Thus, built-in antennas
are becoming very promising candidates for applications in
mobile handsets. Most built-in antennas currently used in
mobile phones include microstrip antennas, inverted-F shaped
wire-form antennas (IFAs), and planar inverted-F antennas
(PIFAs). Microstrip antennas are small in size and light in
weight. However, at the lower band for mobile applications
such as GSM900, half-wavelength microstrip antennas are
too large to be incorporated into a mobile handset. Basic IFA
and PIFA elements, which have a length equal to a quarter
wavelength of the center frequency in the operating band, are
narrow in bandwidth. In addition to reduced antenna sizes, it is
envisaged that next generation mobile phones will require the
capability to tune to a number of frequency bands for cellular
applications, wireless local area networks (WLAN) and other
wireless communications. The trend in the development of
wireless personal communication systems has been in the
pursuit of a single system that can accommodate the needs of
all users. To develop compact, highly efficient and broadband
Manuscript received February 24, 2003; revised November 2, 2003.
The authors are with the Institute for Infocomm Research, Singapore 117674,
Singapore (e-mail: yxguo@ieee.org).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2004.832375
0018-926X/04$20.00 © 2004 IEEE
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
antennas, which are well suited for integration with multiband
multifunctional personal communication transceiver systems,
is a big challenge for antenna engineers.
Currently, many mobile telephones use one or more of the fol-
lowing frequency bands: the GSM band centered at 900 MHz,
the DCS band centered at 1800 MHz, and the PCS band centered
at 1900 MHz. Many interesting designs based on the IFA and
PIFA concepts for achieving dual-band operations have been
available in open literatures [1]–[11]. Triple-band built-in an-
tennas to operate at GSM900, DCS1800, and PCS1900 bands
were demonstrated [12]–[14]. These tri-band antennas consist
of a main radiator operating at a low frequency band and a
first high band and a shorted parasitic radiator operating at a
second high band. The parasitic radiator lies in a plane par-
allel to and away from the main radiator and therefore occupies
valuable space in mobile phones that are constantly shrinking
in size. Moreover, the parasitic-feed technique used for intro-
ducing one more mode may have problems in tuning of the an-
tenna. More recently, some customers may need the designed
mobile antennas can also include the UMTS2000 band for 3G
mobile applications or 2450 MHz ISM band for indoor cord-
less phones, WLAN and Bluetooth applications. Antenna de-
signs for covering GSM900, DCS1800, and ISM2450 bands can
be found in the literatures [15], [16]. Furthermore, a quad-band
built-in antenna for covering GSM900, DCS1800, GSM1900,
and UMTS2000 was reported in [17].
In this paper, we propose a new design in that metal strips as
additional resonators are directly connected with a feed strip.
With this direct-feed scheme, the forgoing problems relating
to the parasitic-feed technique for an additional resonance in
a conventional multiple-band antenna can be alleviated. As
an example, a quad-band antenna for covering the GSM900,
DCS1800, PCS1900, and UMTS2000 was achieved, which
was initially presented in [18], [19]. Herein, we would like to
report extensive results on this quad-band antenna. Further,
by the addition of a second metal strip, a five-frequency band
operation to cover GSM900, DCS1800, PCS1900, UMTS2000,
and ISM2450 can be implemented. In the wireless industry,
there are several ways to fabricate handset antennas, such
as: 1) molded intrusion design (MID) technology; 2) using a
conductive pattern, screen-printed on an adhesive flexible film;
3) thin film technology; and 4) metal cutting. It is possible to
fabricate our newly designed antennas using MID technology or
metal cutting. The simulations were performed using Remcom
software XFDTD5.3, which is based on the FDTD method.
This paper is organized as follows. Section II presents a
simple and efficient measurement setup, which is very impor-
tant for measuring small handset antennas. In Section III, a
GUO et al.: MINIATURE BUILT-IN MULTIBAND ANTENNAS FOR MOBILE HANDSETS 1937

Fig. 1. Geometry of the test bed.

starting point for the quad-band and five-band antennas is pro-

vided. After that, the built-in quad-band handset antenna design
and parametric study are extensively described in Section IV.
Then, Section V shows the built-in five-band handset antenna.
Finally, the entire work is summarized in Section VI.

II. MEASUREMENT SETUP

The measurement methods of mobile handset antennas are

of much concern by many investigators [20]–[23]. During the
development of such a handset antenna, the antenna under test
(DUT) is connected to a network analyzer via a coaxial cable.
Errors in the measured resonant frequency, bandwidth, radia-
tion pattern, and antenna gain can be expected owing to the Fig. 2. (a) Existing dual-band internal handset antenna and (b) dual-band
internal handset antenna with a fine-tuning stub.
feed cable placed in the near field of the antenna and the coaxial
cable acting as a secondary radiator driven by the surface cur-
length of and a width of . The sub-
rents flowing on its outer surface of the shield. Ferrite chokes on
strate is Duroid RO4003 with a thickness of 1.5 mm and dielec-
the exterior of the cables can reduce the cable-related effect sig-
tric constant of 3.38. The width of the microstrip line is 3.5 mm
nificantly [20]. However, ferrites typically work well as chokes
to keep its characteristic impedance at 50 . The DUT is placed
up to 1 GHz. The use of sleeve-like baluns on the cable, located
at the top of the ground plane. A coaxial cable is connected to
near the handset, can reduce the effect of the RF cable on the an-
network analyzer HP8753E at the bottom of the board. The gain
tenna measurement as well [21], [22]. As shown in [22], the de-
and radiation patterns are measured using Orbit/FR system in an
sign of such a balun in multiband operation is very complicated.
anechoic chamber. The above mentioned measurement setup for
Moreover, it is commonly known to us in wireless industry that
handset antenna design was validated and confirmed in terms of
a semi-rigid coaxial transmission line is placed on the ground
measured and simulated input reflection, near-field currents on
plane with its centre conductor connected to the antenna while
the ground plane and far-field radiation patterns in house.
its shield soldered onto the ground place as in [23]. With this
arrangement, the effects of the feeding coaxial cable on the an-
III. STARTING POINT
tenna can be reduced to an acceptable level. Thus this feeding
scheme can best model the real mobile phone where a separate The antenna shown in Fig. 2(a) is the one as in [12], which
RF transceiver, residing inside a metal enclosure, is employed was used as the starting point of this work. The antenna com-
to drive the antenna that is mounted very close to the RF trans- prises a folded radiating patch in the first layer, a ground plane
ceiver. in the second layer, a supporting foam in-between, a short-cir-
In this paper, the test printed circuit board (PCB) with the cuited strip, and a feed strip. The patch is connected to the
DUT for use in a mobile telephone is shown in Fig. 1. The PCB ground plane via a vertical short-circuited strip and is fed via
is in a rectangular shape. It has a ground plane and a microstrip a feed strip connected to a 50- transmission line etched on the
line etched on the back. In practical use the PCB will have a back of the ground plane. The folded PIFA is spaced from the
number of electronic components mounted thereon, which are ground plane by a dielectric substrate of foam. At the first layer,
necessary for the operation of the mobile telephone, but which the long bent portion of the antenna is tuned to have a relatively
are omitted here for brevity. The rectangular ground plane has a low band resonance frequency, such as 900 MHz, and the short
1938
Fig. 3. (a) Measured and simulated return losses of the antenna in Fig. 2(a)
and (b) measured and simulated return losses of the antenna in Fig. 2(b).
part of the antenna is tuned to have a high band resonance fre-
quency, such as 1800 MHz. The ground plane has dimensions
of length 80 mm, and width 36 mm. The dielectric constant of
foam is around 1.07. The dimensions of the dual-band antenna
are , , , ,
, ,
, , , the original folded patch, whereas in the previous triple-band
and . designs [12]–[14], the additional parasitic radiator has a small
The measured and simulated return losses of the dual-band
antenna in Fig. 2(a) is shown in Fig. 3(a). The measured band-
widths, defined for 6 dB return loss (SWR 3), are 82 MHz
(972–1054 MHz) for the lower band and 263 MHz (1769–2032
MHz) for the upper band, respectively. The corresponding sim-
ulated bandwidths are 120 MHz (965–1085 MHz) and 270 MHz
(1830–2100 MHz). Reasonable agreement between measure-
ment and simulation is achieved. The wide bandwidth at the
upper band in this design may also be due to one resonance
generated by the ground plane, which has a half-wave length
with the center frequency being around 1.8 GHz. If the influ-
ence of the plastic casing as in real situation is considered with
a rough 5% reduction of the resonant frequency [12], it is ob-
served that the corresponding frequencies are still a little out of
the GSM900 and DCS1800 bands.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
Fig. 4. Proposed quad-band internal handset antenna.
To reduce the resonant frequency further, we may extend the
arm length or bend at the open end of the folded antenna in
Fig. 2(a). However, the bending at the open end in Fig. 2(a) may
be a little difficult to manufacture. Fig. 2(b) shows one possible
variation of the folded antenna in Fig. 2(a) with an additional
strip stub bent perpendicularly toward the ground plane. The
stub has dimensions of length and width . All other
parameters are kept same as those in Fig. 2(a). The measured
and simulated return losses of the antenna in Fig. 2(b) is shown
in Fig. 3(b). The size of the stub for the results shown in Fig. 3(b)
is and . The measured bandwidths
for 6 dB return loss are 76 MHz (942–1018 MHz) for the
lower band and 239 MHz (1752–1991 MHz) for the upper band,
respectively. The corresponding simulated results are 122 MHz
(928–1050 MHz) and 242 MHz (1808–2050 MHz). In this case,
the resonant frequencies can meet the requirement of GSM900
and DCS1800 with a plastic cover being added.
IV. QUAD-BAND ANTENNA
A. Antenna Structure
The proposed antenna in this work is shown in Fig. 4.
Compared with the dual-band folded patch in Fig. 2(b), a
new radiating strip is added. The new radiating strip as an
additional resonator is directly connected to the feed strip and
positioned at a plane perpendicular to the ground plane and
distance from the original folded patch. Due to that, the designs
in [12]–[14] may occupy valuable space in mobile phones that
are constantly shrinking in size. Compared with the designs
in [12]–[14], the size of the newly proposed antenna can be
reduced by an order of 10 20%, which is desirable since
the size of mobile phones is becoming smaller according
to consumer preferences. The new additional strip is like a
PIFA antenna and is tuned to have a second high resonance
frequency, such as 2100 MHz. The new quad-band antenna was
developed within the limits of a volume. The
rectangular ground plane has a length of and a
width of . The dimensions of the new antenna
are , , , ,
, , , ,
,
GUO et al.: MINIATURE BUILT-IN MULTIBAND ANTENNAS FOR MOBILE HANDSETS
Fig. 5. Measured and simulated return losses of the antenna in Fig. 4.
Fig. 6. Measured gains of the dual-band antenna in Fig. 2(b) and the quad-band
antenna in Fig. 4.
, ,
.
B. Measured and Simulated Results
The return losses and radiation properties of the new antenna
as shown in Fig. 4 were investigated using measurement and
simulation. The simulation was performed using the commer-
cial software XFDTD5.3, which is based on the FDTD method.
Fig. 5 shows the measured and simulated return losses of
the new antenna presented in Fig. 4. In the actual design, we
need to consider around 5% frequency-shifting due to the ef-
fect of the plastic cover [7]. Thus, the simulated result with the
plastic cover is also provided. In the simulation, 2-mm thick
dielectric sheet with dielectric constant and 1-mm
spacing between the cover and the antenna is used to simulate
the actual effect of the plastic cover [7], [24]. The measured
bandwidths without the plastic cover according to 6 dB re-
turn loss matching are 78 MHz (933–1010 MHz) at the lower
band and 516 MHz (1772–2288 MHz) at the upper band, respec-
tively. The corresponding simulated results without the plastic
cover are 130 MHz (924–1054 MHz) at the lower band and 486
MHz (1824–2310 MHz) at the upper band, respectively. A good
1939
agreement between measurement and simulation is obtained.
Referring to Fig. 5, it is observed that there are some differ-
ences for the null depth in the simulated and measured return
losses of the upper band, which may come from that the antenna
size cannot be modeled very accurately by the FDTD method
due to its meshing scheme. The simulated bandwidths with the
plastic cover as in real case are 126 MHz (883–1009 MHz) at
the lower band and 573 MHz (1659–2232 MHz) at the upper
band, respectively. The antenna has a capacity for covering the
GSM900, DCS1800, PCS1900, and UMTS2000 bands. With re-
gard to Fig. 5, the return loss has one distinct minimum at a low
frequency band and two minima at two high frequency bands
relatively close to each other. It is very clear to observe that
the wide bandwidth of the higher band of the new antenna is
due to the introduced strip connected to the feed. Note that the
wide bandwidth at the upper band in this design may also come
from one resonance generated by the ground plane, which has
a half-wave length with the center frequency being around 1.8
GHz.
The -plane far-field radiation patterns of the new quad-
band antenna at 935, 1795, 1935, and 2100 MHz are depicted
in Fig. 7(a)–(d), respectively. They are similar to those of other
integrated antennas for mobile handsets [1]. Referring to Fig. 7,
the overall shape of the radiation patterns can be suitable for
mobile communications terminals. The measured values of the
gain of the quad-band antenna are shown in Fig. 6. Also, the
measured gains for the dual-band antenna as in Fig. 2(b) are in-
cluded for comparison. The measured gains are varying from
0.4 to 3.6 dBi.
C. Parametric Study
In this section, effects of varying key antenna parameters, i.e.
the substrate thickness, the ground plane size, and the additional
strip position and width are considered on the antenna band-
width. Again, for all the simulations in this section, 2-mm thick
dielectric sheet with dielectric constant and 1-mm
, and
spacing between the cover and the antenna are used to simu-
late the actual effect of the plastic cover as before [7], [24].
1) Effects of the Substrate Thickness: The first variation is
performed by varying the height of the substrate. Other param-
eters of the antenna are as follows: , ,
, , , ,
, , ,
, ,
, , and . It can
be seen from Fig. 8, that this variation has a large impact on
the impedance matching of the upper band. With the substrate
height increasing, the bandwidths for the upper band increase
significantly, while the bandwidths of the lower band increase
slightly. The lower cutoff frequency (f1L), upper cutoff fre-
quency (f1U) and the absolute bandwidth (BW1) for the lower
band and the lower cutoff frequency (f2L), upper cutoff fre-
quency (f2U) and the absolute bandwidth (BW2) for the upper
band are tabulated in Table I for reference, respectively. Addi-
tionally, the resonant frequencies of the lower band shift up with
the substrate height being increased, which may be due to the
decreased capacitance between the folded radiating patch and
the ground plane.
1940 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004

Fig. 7. Radiation patterns of the antenna in Fig. 4 at xz plane: (a) 925 MHz, (b) 1795 MHz, (c) 1935 MHz, and (d) 2100 MHz.

Only small variations are seen for the bandwidths of both the
lower and upper bands with the ground plane width varying
from 36 to 44 mm. Other parameters of the antenna are as fol-
lows: , , , ,
, , , ,
,
, , , and
.
3) Effects of the Additional Strip Position and Its
Size: Fig. 10 shows the effects of the additional strip position
and its width on the new antenna. Other parame-
ters of the antenna are as follows: , ,
, , , ,
, , , ,
,
Fig. 8. Simulated return losses with variation of H for the antenna in Fig. 4. , and . Referring to the Fig. 10,
it can be seen that the additional strip position and its width
2) Effects of the Ground Plane Size: For small PIFA-like an- mainly affect the impedance matching of the upper band.
tennas, the finite ground plane can be considered as a radiator. The matching will become deteriorated when the additional
Therefore, it is necessary to study the effects of the ground plane strip bottom approaches very near the ground plane as high
size on the impedance characteristics of the new antenna. With capacitance may be introduced in this case. The bandwidths
regard to Fig. 9 it is observed that the ground plane length has of the lower band almost keep constant with the additional
a large effect on the upper band with the length varying from strip position and its size varying. The antennas with other
60 to 100 mm, while the lower band almost keeps unchanged. additional strip positions and the strip sizes were also simulated
GUO et al.: MINIATURE BUILT-IN MULTIBAND ANTENNAS FOR MOBILE HANDSETS
TABLE I
SIMULATED BANDWIDTHS WITH DIFFERENT SUBSTRATE THICKNESS H OF THE QUAD-BAND ANTENNA
Fig. 9. Simulated return losses with variation of L for the antenna in Fig. 4.
Fig. 10. Simulated return losses with variation of W9 for the antenna in Fig. 4,
d = 2 mm.
and tabulated in Table II. Again, the lower cutoff frequency
(f1L), upper cutoff frequency (f1U) and the absolute bandwidth
(BW1) for the lower band and the lower cutoff frequency
(f2L), upper cutoff frequency (f2U) and the absolute bandwidth
(BW2) for the upper band are listed in Table II, respectively.
With regard to Table II, the bandwidth is defined according
to return loss of 6 dB. Moreover, it is easy to realize that
the length of the additional strip mainly affects its resonant
1941
frequency of the introduced second high band as it acts like a
quarter-wavelength IFA antenna.
V. FIVE-BAND ANTENNA
A. Antenna Structure
Fig. 11 depicts a five-band antenna for covering the GSM900,
DCS1800, PCS1900, UMTS2000, and ISM2450 bands by
adding a second additional strip and connecting it to the feed
strip. The second metal strip is parallel to the ground plane
and the original dual-band PIFA patch but orthogonal to the
first additional radiating strip with a horizontal separation
d3 and a height h1. The additional separation and position
arrangement between the first radiating strip and the second
additional strip reduces the mutual coupling therebetween. The
new five-band antenna was still developed within the limits of
a volume. The rectangular ground plane has
a length of and a width of .
The dimensions of this antenna are ,
, , , ,
, , , ,
,
, , , ,
, , and .
B. Measured and Simulated Results
Fig. 12 shows the measured and simulated return losses of the
proposed five-band antenna presented in Fig. 11. The measured
bandwidths for 6 dB return loss are 78 MHz (932–1010 MHz)
at the GSM900 band, 456 MHz (1818–2274 MHz), and
115 MHz (2523–2638 MHz), respectively. The corresponding
simulated results are 130 MHz (920–1050 MHz) at the lower
band, 552 MHz (1760–2312 MHz) at the first high band, and
80 MHz (2480–2560 MHz), respectively. A reasonable agree-
ment between measurement and simulation is obtained. The
antenna has a capacity for covering the GSM900, DCS1800,
PCS1900, UMTS2000, and ISM2450 bands after the frequency
shifting is considered due to the plastic cover. Again, it is
observed that there are some differences for the null depth
in the simulated and measured return losses of the first high
band, which may come from that the antenna size cannot
be modeled very accurately by the FDTD method due to its
1942 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004

TABLE II
SIMULATED BANDWIDTHS WITH DIFFERENT W9 AND d2 OF THE QUAD-BAND ANTENNA

Fig. 11. Geometry of proposed five-band internal handset antenna.

meshing scheme. It is obvious that the band around 2450 MHz

is due to the introduced second strip shown in Fig. 11. The
radiation patterns were also measured and similar to those for
the antenna presented in Fig. 4, thus are not shown for brevity.
The measured gain at 2.45 GHz is around 1.5 dBi.
VI. CONCLUSION
In this paper, we have proposed a new design in that a new
metal strip as an additional resonator is directly connected with
a feed strip and positioned at a plane perpendicular to a ground
plane. With the new design scheme, a quad-band antenna
Fig. 12. Measured and simulated return losses for the antenna in Fig. 11.
for covering GSM900, DCS1800, PCS1900, and UMTS2000
bands and a five-band antenna for covering GSM900, DCS1800,
PCS1900, UMTS2000, and ISM2450 bands for use in mobile
handsets have been experimentally carried out. Compared with
the parasitic form, the size of the proposed antennas can be
reduced by an order of 10 20%. Moreover, the impedance
matching for each band becomes easy. The new quad-band
and five-band antennas have been developed within the limits
of a volume. The antennas have also been
GUO et al.: MINIATURE BUILT-IN MULTIBAND ANTENNAS FOR MOBILE HANDSETS
analyzed using the FDTD technique. A good agreement has
been achieved between measurement and simulation.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers
for their comments which improved this paper.
REFERENCES
[1] K. Hirasawa and M. Haneishi, Eds., Analysis, Design, and Measurement
of Small and Low-Profile Antennas. Norwood, MA: Artech House,
1992.
[2] Z. D. Liu, P. S. Hall, and D. Wake, “Dual-frequency planar inverted-F
antenna,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 45, pp. 1451–1457, Oct.
1997.
[3] C. R. Rowell and R. D. Murch, “A compact PIFA suitable for dual-
frequency 900/1800-MHz operation,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat.,
vol. 46, pp. 596–598, Apr. 1998.
[4] M. Sanad and N. Hassas, “Compact wide-band microstrip antennas for
PCS and cellular phones,” in Proc. IEEE Conf. Antennas Propagation
for Wireless Commun., Nov. 1998, pp. 152–155.
[5] R. Mittra and S. Dey, “Challenges in PCS antenna design,” in Proc. IEEE
Antennas Propagation Symp. Dig., Orlando, FL, July 1999, pp. 544–547.
[6] S. Tarvas and A. Isohatala, “An internal dual-band mobile phone an-
tenna,” in Proc. IEEE Antennas Propagation Symp. Dig., Salt Lake City,
UT, July 2000, pp. 266–269.
[7] M. Yang and Y. Chen, “A novel U-shaped planar microstrip antenna
for dual-frequency mobile telephone communications,” IEEE Trans. An-
tennas Propagat., vol. 49, pp. 1002–1004, June 2001.
[8] A. Taflove and L. Vasilyeva, “Elongate Radiator Conformal Antenna for
Portable Communication Devices,” U.S. patent 6 292 144, Sept. 2001.
[9] M. Martinez-Vazquez, M. Geissler, D. Heberling, A. Martinez-Gon-
zalez, and D. Sanchez-Hernandez, “Compact dual-band antenna for
mobile handsets,” Microwave and Opt. Technol. Lett., vol. 32, no. 2, pp.
87–88, Jan. 2002.
[10] R. Chair, K. M. Luk, and K. F. Lee, “Measurement and analysis of minia-
ture multilayer patch antenna,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 50,
pp. 244–250, Feb. 2002.
[11] K. L. Wong, “A short course note on planar antennas for wireless
communications,” in Proc. IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society
Int. Symp., San Antonio, TX, June 2002, pp. 6–14.
[12] D. Manteuffel, A. Bahr, D. Heberling, and I. Wolff, “Design con-
sideration for integrated mobile phone antennas,” in Proc. 11th Int.
Conf. Antennas and Propagation, Manchest, U.K., April 2001, pp.
252–256.
[13] Z. Ying, Multi Frequency-Band Antenna PCT application WO01/91233,
May 2001.
[14] I. Egorov, “Antenna,” U.S. patent application 09/908 817, July 2001.
[15] W. P. Dou and Y. M. W. Chia, “Novel meandered planar inverted-F an-
tenna for triple-frequency operation,” Microwave Opt. Technol. Lett.,
vol. 27, pp. 58–60, Oct. 2000.
[16] C. T. P. Song, P. S. Hall, H. Ghafouri-Shiraz, and D. Wake, “Triple band
planar inverted F antennas for handheld devices,” Electron Lett., vol. 36,
pp. 112–114, Jan. 2000.
[17] M. Martinez-Vazquez and O. Litschke, “Design considerations for
quadband antennas integrated in personal communications devices,” in
Proc. Int. Symp. Antennas (JINA), vol. 1, Nice, France, Nov. 2002, pp.
195–198.
[18] Y. X. Guo, M. Y. W. Chia, and Z. N. Chen, “Compact multi-band an-
tennas for wireless communications,” in Proc. Progress in Electromag-
netics Research Symp., Singapore, Jan. 2003, p. 130.
[19] , “Miniature built-in quad-band antennas for mobile handsets,”
IEEE Antennas Wireless Propagat. Lett., vol. 2, pp. 30–32, 2003.
[20] S. Saario, D. V. Thiel, J. W. Lu, and S. G. O’Keefe, “An assessment
of cable radiation effects on mobile communications antenna measure-
ments,” in Proc. IEEE Antennas Propagt. Symp. Dig., Montreal, Canada,
July 1997, pp. 550–553.
1943
[21] C. Icheln, J. Ollikainen, and P. Vainikainen, “Reducing the influence of
feed cables on small antenna measurements,” Electron. Lett, vol. 35, no.
15, pp. 1212–1214, July 1999.
[22] C. Icheln and P. Vainikainen, “Dual-frequency balun to decrease influ-
ence of RF feed calbes in small antenna measurements,” Electron. Lett.,
vol. 36, no. 21, pp. 1760–1761, Oct. 2000.
[23] J. Haley, T. Moore, and J. T. Bernhard, “Experimental investigation
of antenna-handset-feed interaction during wireless product testing,”
Microwave and Opt. Technol. Lett., vol. 34, no. 3, pp. 169–172,
Aug. 2002.
[24] H. S. Hwang, “private communication,” unpublished.
Yong-Xin Guo (M’01) received the B.Eng. and
M.Eng. degrees from Nanjing University of Science
and Technology, Nanjing, China, and the Ph.D.
degree from City University of Hong Kong, all in
electronic engineering, in 1992, 1995, and 2001,
respectively.
From 1995 to 1997, he was a Teaching and
Research Assistant and then a Lecturer in the
Department of Electronic Engineering, Nanjing
University of Science and Technology. From January
1998 to August 1998, he was a Research Associate
in the Department of Electronic Engineering, City University of Hong Kong.
Since September 2001, he has been with the Institute for Infocomm Research,
Singapore, as a Scientist. He also holds an appointment of Adjunct Assistant
Professor at the National University of Singapore. He has published over
50 technical papers in international journals and conferences. He holds one
Chinese Patent and one pending U.S. patent. His current research interests
include design and modeling of microstrip and dielectric resonator antennas for
handsets and other wireless communications, UWB antennas, LTCC filters and
baluns and LTCC optoelectronic transceiver for radio-over-fiber application,
and numerical methods in electromagnetics.
Dr. Guo has served as a reviewer for IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND
PROPAGATION since 2002. He also served as one session chair for 2003 Asia and
Pacific Microwave Conference (APMC2003), Korea.
Michael Yan Wah Chia (M’94) was born in Singa-
pore. He received the B.Sc. (1st Class Honors) and
Ph.D. degrees from Loughborough University, U.K.
He joined the Center for Wireless Communica-
tions (CWC), Singapore, in 1994 as a Member of
Technical Staff (MTS), was promoted to Senior
MTS, then Principal MTS, and finally Senior Prin-
cipal MTS. He was also holding the appointment
as Division Director of Radio Division. In 1999, he
started UWB work at CWC, which was later merged
to I R. Currently, he is the Division Director of
Communications and Devices Division (which consists of five Departments),
Institute for Infocomm Research (I R) of ASTAR (Agency of Science Tech-
nology And Research). Concurrently, he has been appointed as an Adjunct
Associate Professor at the National University of Singapore. Externally, he has
also served in the Public Service Funding Panel of ASTAR-2002, Radio Stan-
dard Committee and UWB Task Force Committee of Infocomm Development
Authority(IDA) of Singapore. He was also on the Technical Program Com-
mittee International Workshop on UWB System (IWUWBS) 2003, Finland,
and has been listed in Marquis’s Who’s Who in Engineering since 2002. He
has published 28 international journal papers and 50 international conference
papers. He has 10 patents both filed and granted. Some of the patents has
been commercialized and licensed to companies. His main research interest
are ultraeide-band(UWB) system, antenna, transceiver, radio over fiber, RFIC,
linearization and communication, and radar system architecture.
Dr. Chia was awarded Overseas Research Studentship (ORS) and British
Aerospace Studentship from the U.K.
1944 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004

Zhi Ning Chen (M’99) was born in China and

received the B.Eng., M.Eng., and Ph.D. degrees in
electrical engineering from the Institute of Commu-
nications Engineering (ICE), China, and the Ph.D.
degree from the University of Tsukuba, Japan.
From 1988 to 1995, he was with the ICE and was
appointed Teaching Assistant, Lecturer, and then pro-
moted to Associate Professor. After that, he was with
the Southeast University (SEU), Nanjing, China, as
a Postdoctoral Fellow and then appointed Associate
Professor. From 1995 to 1997, he undertook his re-
search in the City University of Hong Kong, China, as a Research Assistant, Re-
search Associate, Senior Research Associate, and then Research Fellow. From
1997 to 1999, he pursued research at the University of Tsukuba, Japan, with
the Fellowship awarded by Japan Society for Promotion of Science (JSPS).
He visited SEU in 2000 and 2001, as a Visiting Scholar awarded by the Min-
istry of Education, China. In 2001, he visited the University of Tsukuba, Japan,
again under the Invitation Fellowship Program (senior level) of JSPS. In 1999,
he joined the Centre for Wireless Communications (CWC) (later known the
Institute for Communications Research (ICR) and now the Institute for Info-
comm Research (I R)) as a Member of Technical Staff (MTS), Senior MTS,
and then promoted Principal MTS. Currently, he is working as a Lead Scientist
and a Manager for Department of Radio Systems. He is concurrently teaching
and supervising postgraduate students at the National University of Singapore
(NUS), as an Adjunct Associate Professor. Since 1990, he has authored and
coauthored over 110 technical papers published in international journals and
presented at international conferences. One of his patents has been granted and
four are pending. His main research interests include applied computational
electromagnetics, and antenna theory and designs. Currently, he is focused on
small, broadband, lightweight antennas for wireless systems and ultrawide-band
(UWB) radio systems, and metamaterials and their applications. He managed a
research project on Small and Multiband Antennas during 2000 to2003.
Dr. Chen was a Member of the technical program and organizer/chair of UWB
technology workshop at IEEE Radio and Wireless Conference (RAWCON),
2003. He also organized and chaired special session on Antennas for UWB
Wireless Communication Systems at the IEEE International Symposium on An-
tennas and Propagation (AP-S), 2003 and IEEE Asia and Pacific Microwave
Conference (APMC), Korea, 2003.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004 1945

Miniature Reconfigurable Three-Dimensional Fractal

Tree Antennas
Joshua S. Petko, Student Member, IEEE, and Douglas H. Werner, Senior Member, IEEE

Abstract—This paper introduces a design methodology for

miniature multiband as well as reconfigurable (i.e., tunable)
antennas that exploits the self-similar branching structure of
three-dimensional (3-D) fractal trees. Several fundamental rela-
tionships, useful for design purposes, are established between the
geometrical structure of the fractal tree antenna and its corre-
sponding radiation characteristics. In particular, it will be shown
that the density and elevation angle of the branches play a key
role in the effective design of miniature 3-D fractal tree antennas.
Several design examples are considered where fractal trees are
used as end-loads in order to miniaturize conventional dipole or
monopole antennas. Multiband and reconfigurable versions of
these miniature antennas are also proposed, where either reactive
LC traps or RF switches are strategically placed throughout the
branches and/or along the trunk of the trees. Included among
these designs is a miniature reconfigurable dipole antenna that
achieves a 57% size reduction for the center frequency of the
lowest intended band of operation and has a tunable bandwidth
of nearly 70%. Fig. 1. First 4 iterations of the four-branch class of fractal tree antennas [7].
Also included is a pictorial representation of the nomenclature used to describe
Index Terms—Fractal antennas, fractal tree antennas, miniature fractal trees.
anennas, reconfigurable antennas.
TABLE I
PARAMETERS FOR GENERATING FOUR-BRANCH, 30 FRACTAL TREES
I. INTRODUCTION

A S PART OF AN effort to further improve modern commu-

nication system technology, researchers are now studying
many different approaches for creating new and innovative
antennas. One technique that has received a lot of recent at-
tention involves combining aspects of the modern theory of
fractal geometry with antenna design. This rapidly growing
area of research is known as fractal antenna engineering [1],
[2]. One particular class of antenna configurations that have
been studied recently is based on fractal trees [2]–[10]. Fractal
tree structures can be exploited in antenna designs to produce
multiband characteristics [1], [3]–[5], [9] or to achieve minia-
turization [6]–[10]. A set of dipole antennas that use fractal tree
structures as end loads to achieve a resonant frequency lower
than a standard dipole of comparable length have been recently
studied in [6]–[10].
This paper begins by discussing ways to improve antenna
miniaturization techniques that employ fractal tree geometries
as end loads by increasing the density of branches (i.e., by using
trees with a higher fractal dimension). Several miniaturization
schemes for fractal tree antennas are introduced, which are
based on various combinations of different branch lengths or
angles. The addition of a center stub is also considered as a
means for improving existing designs for miniature fractal tree
Manuscript received February 10, 2003; revised September 26, 2003.
The authors are with the The Pennsylvania State University, Department of
Electrical Engineering, University Park, PA 16802 USA (dhw@psu.edu).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2004.832491
0018-926X/04$20.00 © 2004 IEEE
antennas. Finally, the unique self-similar wire branch structure
of the three-dimensional (3-D) fractal tree is exploited to
develop new design methodologies for reconfigurable minia-
ture dipole and monopole antennas. Several design examples
are considered where these miniature fractal tree antennas
are made reconfigurable by the introduction of strategically
placed reactive loads or RF switches. Among these designs is
a reconfigurable miniature dipole antenna that achieves a 57%
size reduction with respect to its conventional counterpart (i.e.,
a half-wave dipole designed for the center frequency of the
lowest operating band) and has a tunable bandwidth of nearly
70%.
II. FRACTAL TREE RADIATION STUDIES
A. Dense Fractal Tree Generators
Fractals are objects which have a self-similar structure re-
peated throughout their geometry [11], [12]. This self-similar
structure may be produced by the repeated application of a gen-
erator, and in the case of fractal trees, the generator is defined
as a junction from which several smaller branches, called child
branches, split from a parent branch. Every branch, with the ex-
ception of the first and final branches, has a generator connected
1946
TABLE II
PARAMETERS FOR GENERATING SIX- AND EIGHT-BRANCH FRACTAL TREES
Fig. 2. First two iterations of the six-branch and eight-branch classes of fractal
tree antennas.
to it at each end: one from which it is a child and the other to
which it is the parent.
Three different families of 3-D fractal trees are first evalu-
ated for their suitability as miniature dipole antennas. These
classes of antennas will be referred to throughout the paper
as four-branch, six-branch, and eight-branch fractal trees. The
four-branch class of antennas, shown in Fig. 1, has been adapted
from [7] and is used as a benchmark of comparison for the
six-branch and the eight-branch classes introduced in this paper.
Table I shows the generation parameters for the four-branch
fractal trees shown in Fig. 1.
The fractal generators of these antennas have several prop-
erties in common. First, the child branches are half the length
of the parent branches from which they separate. In addition,
child branches bend 30 from the direction the parent branch
is aimed. Also, all child branches have equal angles separating
them (i.e., for the four-branch class, there are 90 between each
child branch, for the six-branch class, there are 60 between
each branch, and for the eight-branch class, there are 45 be-
tween each branch). Finally, one of these child branches must
continue the arc path of its parent and the parent branch before
that. The generation parameters are listed in Table II for both
the six- and eight-branch cases. The similarities between four-,
six-, and eight-branch antenna classes are evident from Figs. 1
and 2.
Several of the other fractal tree design parameters are also
held constant for the sake of comparison. First, the distance from
tip to tip for each fractal tree dipole antenna is fixed at 7.5 cm (or
3.75 cm from tip to source). More specifically, the base or trunk
length of the first stage is 2.5 cm, the second stage is 2.143 cm,
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
the third stage is 2 cm, and the fourth stage is 1.936 cm. In
addition, the diameter of the wire assumed for each antenna is
. Finally, all of the fractal tree dipole antennas
are assumed to be center-fed.
The resulting radiation characteristics of these fractal tree
antennas were evaluated using a numerically rigorous approach
based on the method of moments (MoM). Fig. 3 plots the for
the first two stages of the six- and eight-branch antenna classes
and compares them to the first four stages for the four-branch
class. The results show that the six-branch antennas have a
resonant frequency 100 MHz lower than the four-branch antenna
at the same fractal stage of growth, whereas the eight-branch
antenna has a resonant frequency approximately 150 MHz
lower. The six- and eight-branch classes follow the same trend
as the four-branch in the sense that the resonant frequency
decreases with an increase in the fractal stage of growth;
however, there is no valid geometry for the six- and eight-branch
antenna classes beyond stage 3, because wire segments will
intersect. Nevertheless, at these lower stages of growth, the
six- and eight-branch antenna classes are more effective than
the four-branch and are easier to fabricate than higher order
four-branch antennas because the six- and eight-branch classes
have less junctions. Despite the complicated geometry of these
fractal tree structures, the radiation patterns exhibited by these
types of antennas are very similar to those of typical dipole
antennas. Fig. 4 shows the radiation patterns produced by the
four-, six-, and eight- branch fractal tree dipoles compared
to the radiation pattern of a conventional half-wave dipole.
The radiation patterns for these fractal tree antennas have
negligible cross-polarization components (i.e., 150 dB)
and are nearly identical to the radiation pattern of the half-wave
dipole antenna.
B. Fractal Tree Generators of Varying Angle
In this section, several different 3-D fractal trees are evalu-
ated for their suitability as miniature dipole antennas at their
second and third stages of growth. These antennas are related
to the four-branch class of antennas adapted from [7]; how-
ever, the elevation angle that the child branches bend from the
parent branch is not held constant at 30 but is varied over a
range of angles from 10 to 90 . All other independent design
parameters are assumed to be the same for each antenna. For
instance, the antennas are all center fed dipoles with fractal
tree loads placed on both ends, each generator has only four
equally spaced branches, child branches are half the length of
PETKO AND WERNER: MINIATURE RECONFIGURABLE 3-D FRACTAL TREE ANTENNAS
Fig. 3. Comparison of S versus frequency for four-branch, six-branch, and eight-branch fractal trees. The S
line.
Fig. 4. Radiation patterns of dense fractal tree antennas compared to those of
a conventional half-wave dipole.
the parent branches, and the arc length of wire from tip to source
is 3.75 cm. Fig. 5 shows how modifying this angle can dramat-
1947
was calculated with respect to 50
Fig. 5. Third iteration of four-branch fractal tree antennas with the elevation
angle at 10 , 30 , 45 , 60 and 90 respectively.
TABLE III
PARAMETERS FOR GENERATING FOUR-BRANCH FRACTAL TREES WITH
VARYING ELEVATION ANGLE
ically change the shape of the antenna. The generation parame-
ters for each case considered in Fig. 5 are listed in Table III.
Next, we consider variations of a second stage and a third
stage four-branch fractal tree antenna. In both cases, the eleva-
tion angle is varied from 10 to 90 and each antenna that results
is individually simulated. From this data, the value of voltage
standing wave ratio (VSWR) that corresponds to the resonant
frequency of each fractal tree antenna is obtained and plotted
as shown in Fig. 6. The results for both stages show that fractal
tree antennas with small elevation angles have a lower VSWR
but a higher resonant frequency than those with large eleva-
tion angles. The resonant frequency continues to move lower
as the elevation angle increases until it reaches approximately
50 . From that point, the resonant frequency begins to increase
again. Throughout the entire range of elevation angles that were
considered for each stage, the VSWR increases as the elevation
angle increases. Trends uncovered by the elevation angle study
can be used to design effective miniature fractal tree dipoles that
1948 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004

Fig. 6. Fractal tree dipole VSWR versus resonant frequency for elevation angles ranging from 10 to 90 . The VSWR was calculated with respect to 50
line.

also possess good VSWR performance characteristics. The ra- TABLE IV

PARAMETERS FOR GENERATING EIGHT-BRANCH HYBRID SCALED
diation patterns, not shown in this case, have very similar char- SELF-AVOIDING FRACTAL TREES
acteristics to the patterns illustrated in Fig. 4.

III. FRACTAL TREE ANTENNA DESIGNS

A. Hybrid Fractal Tree Antenna
While the eight-branch class of fractal tree antennas consid-
ered in Section II does not have a valid third stage of growth,
modifications can be performed on the generator in order to
make a valid self-avoiding third stage possible. As shown by
the generation parameters listed in Table IV, the child branches
at 0 , 90 , 180 , and 270 are 50% as long as the parent branch,
which is the same as the previous antenna classes; however,
the child branches at 45 , 135 , 225 , and 315 are only 40%
as long as the parent branch. This difference in scale creates a
hybrid pattern of short and long wires, which also impacts the
length of wires at later stages of growth (see Fig. 7). All other
factors in the design remain unchanged, and the distance of the
longest possible path from the source to a wire end is 3.75 cm
(7.5 cm end-to-end). This class of antenna is not as dense as the
eight-branch class for stages one and two; however, its advan-
tage is its self-avoiding geometry at stage three.
The results (see Fig. 8) show a reduction in the resonant Fig. 7. First three iterations for the eight-branch hybrid scaled self-avoiding
class of fractal tree antennas.
frequencies for the hybrid class of antennas when compared to
the four-branch class of antennas for the same stage of growth:
100 MHz difference for the first stage, 80 MHz difference for the B. Center-Stubbed Fractal Tree Antennas
second, and 60 MHz difference for the third. Fig. 8 demonstrates It will be demonstrated here that fractal tree antennas can
that the resonant frequency of the third stage hybrid antenna is be designed to have a reduced resonant frequency and low
about the same as the resonance of the fourth stage four-branch reflection properties by incorporating a center stub. As shown
antenna, illustrating that denser fractal tree structures can ef- previously in Section II-B, fractal tree dipole antennas can be
fectively reduce resonant frequency in a similar manner as less designed to have low values of reflection by using generator
dense fractal tree structures at higher stages of growth. As in branching schemes with sufficiently small elevation angles.
the previous cases considered, the radiation patterns (not shown) Also, the resonant frequency of fractal tree dipole antennas may
are nearly indistinguishable from the pattern of a conventional be reduced by considering geometries which have a more dense
half-wave dipole antenna and possess essentially no cross-po- configuration of branches. In this manner a center stubbed
larized field components. fractal tree antenna can take into account both of these design
PETKO AND WERNER: MINIATURE RECONFIGURABLE 3-D FRACTAL TREE ANTENNAS 1949

Fig. 8. Comparison of S for eight-branch hybrid fractal tree dipoles with standard four-branch and eight-branch fractal trees. The S was calculated with
respect to 50
line.

considerations by increasing the density of the fractal branching

structure while, at the same time, keeping the elevation angles
small with respect to the generator. Here we consider two gen-
erators, one with and one without a center stub. Each generator
has four branches that bend out with elevation angles of 45
that are 50% as long as the previous branch. The branches of
each generator are equally spaced in the phi direction; however,
the generator is rotated an additional 45 so that they are offset
from the path of the previous two branches. For this reason, the
rotational angles are offset from 0 , 90 , 180 and 270 to 45 ,
135 , 225 , and 315 respectively. A fractal tree antenna with a
generator having only these 4 branches is compared to a fractal
tree antenna with a generator having these 4 branches and an
additional branch as a center stub. This center stub continues
as an extension of the previous branch, but is rotated by 45 . In
this way the child branches of the center stub are offset by 45
from the branches of the level below it. All other parameters
in the design remain unchanged. The distance of the longest
possible path from the source to an end of a wire is 3.75 cm
(7.5 cm end-to-end). These structures are shown in Fig. 9 and
the corresponding generation parameters are listed in Table V.
The MoM simulation results indicate that fractal tree an-
tennas with center stubs, when compared to fractal trees without
a center stub, exhibit a downward shift in the resonant frequency
with only a minimal increase in the reflection at resonance. The
characteristics (see Fig. 10) show that for each of the first
three stages of growth there is a 60 MHz reduction in resonant
frequency for fractal tree antennas with a center stub compared
to those without a center stub. The results plotted in Fig. 10 also
show that for each of the first three stages of growth there is only
a minimal increase in the level of (between 3 dB and 1 dB)
for tree antennas with a center stub as opposed to those without
a center stub. Thus, fractal tree antennas with center stubs can
be very effective designs because of the similar efficiency and
the lower resonant frequency. Finally, the radiation patterns
for miniature fractal tree antennas with center stubs were also
Fig. 9. An example of a four-branch, center-stubbed fractal tree antenna.
found to be comparable to the radiation pattern produced by a
conventional half-wave dipole antenna.
C. Six Branch 50 –30 Fractal Tree Antenna
In this section we consider an approach for designing minia-
ture fractal tree dipole antennas that have relatively low values
of . This is achieved by using a combination of different
branches with small elevation angles to increase the density or
space-filling property of the end-loads. One particular design
considered here has 6 branches, with a 60 rotational angle be-
tween each branch of the generator. The elevation angles of the
generator alternate between 30 and 50 , and the 50 branch is
aligned with the 0 rotational angle. Fig. 11 shows these struc-
tures in detail and Table VI lists the corresponding generation
parameters. Finally, all other design parameters are kept the
same as before and the length of the antenna is 3.75 cm from
tip to source.
The resulting plots shown in Fig. 12 indicate that there
is a significant reduction in the resonant frequency when com-
pared to the four-branch 30 fractal tree antenna evaluated in
[7]. The second iteration six-branch 50 –30 antenna has a res-
onant frequency of 920 MHz, which is the same as the third
1950 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004

TABLE V
PARAMETERS FOR GENERATING FOUR-BRANCH, 45 FRACTAL TREES WITH AND WITHOUT CENTER STUB

Fig. 10. S versus frequency for a four-branch, 45 fractal tree dipole antenna (stage 1, stage 2, and stage 3) with and without a center stub. The S was
calculated with respect to 50
line.

four-branch fractal tree antenna. The radiation patterns for a

stage 1, stage 2, and stage 3 six-branch 50 –30 fractal tree
dipole antenna are again similar to those illustrated in Fig. 4
with negligible cross-polarization.

IV. RECONFIGURABLE FRACTAL TREE ANTENNAS

Fig. 11. First three stages of a six-branch 50 –30 fractal tree dipole antenna.
TABLE VI
PARAMETERS FOR GENERATING SIX BRANCH 50 –30 FRACTAL TREES
iteration for the four-branch fractal tree antenna. For the third
iteration six-branch 50 –30 antenna, the resonant frequency
is 790 MHz, 70 MHz lower than the fourth iteration of the
A. Self-Reconfigurable Reactive Loaded Fractal Tree
Monopoles
It has been shown that reactive loads acting as traps can be
used to make a typical monopole antenna resonant at more than
one frequency [13], [14]. These reactive loads behave as an
open circuit at some frequencies and a short circuit at others, ef-
fectively making an antenna self-reconfigurable (i.e., reconfig-
urable without the need for RF switches). This concept can also
be applied to fractal tree monopoles to produce an antenna that
not only is resonant at more than one frequency but also is minia-
ture in size due to the presence of the space-filling end-load
structure.
The first case study evaluates a monopole version of the third
stage four-branch fractal tree, this time including parallel LC
reactive load elements on the base (i.e., trunk) of the antenna.
By placing the reactive loads below the fractal tree end-load,
the antenna can be designed so that the feed effectively sees the
entire antenna at the lowest resonant frequency and only parts
of the base at higher resonant frequencies. Both a dual-band
and a tri-band version of the third stage four-branch fractal tree
PETKO AND WERNER: MINIATURE RECONFIGURABLE 3-D FRACTAL TREE ANTENNAS
Fig. 12. S versus frequency for a stage 1, stage 2, and stage 3, six-branch 50 –30 fractal tree antenna. Also shown for comparison is the S
stages of a standard four-branch fractal tree antenna. The S was calculated with respect to 50
line.
TABLE VII
LOAD COMPONENT VALUES FOR THE DUAL- AND TRI-BAND FOUR-BRANCH FRACTAL TREE MONOPOLE ANTENNAS
Fig. 13. Load locations on dual- and tri-band four-branch fractal tree
monopole antennas.
antenna are considered here. For the dual-band antenna, one
resonant load is placed near the top of the fractal tree’s base,
1.95 cm above the ground plane along the 2-cm tall trunk. For
the tri-band antenna, an additional load is placed on the base
at a height of 1.65 cm above the ground plane. Fig. 13 illus-
trates the load locations on the dual- and tri-band monopole
antennas and Table VII lists the corresponding load compo-
nent values. Plots of the versus frequency are shown in
Fig. 14 for the single-band unloaded fractal tree monopole, the
dual-band fractal tree monopole with one reactive load, and the
1951
for the first four
tri-band fractal tree monopole with two reactive loads. The re-
active loads also have another advantage in further reducing the
minimum resonant frequencies of the antenna structure. The
unloaded fractal tree structure has one primary resonance at
910 MHz, the dual-band antenna has two primary resonances at
800 and 2460 MHz, and the tri-band antenna has three primary
resonances at 550, 2300, and 5240 MHz. Also, fundamental
or primary resonant frequencies can be distinguished from sec-
ondary resonant frequencies in that there is only one main lobe
present in the radiation pattern at a primary resonant frequency.
Fig. 15 shows the radiation patterns at each resonant frequency
within the 400 to 6400 MHz band. In the plot for the unloaded
fractal tree, we see that there is a primary resonance at 910 MHz,
characterized by a single lobe in the radiation pattern, and a sec-
ondary resonance at 6100 MHz, characterized by two lobes in
the radiation pattern. For the fractal tree with one load, the pri-
mary resonances are confirmed to be at 800 MHz and 2460 MHz
while there is a secondary resonance at 6230 MHz. Finally for
the fractal tree with two loads, primary resonances occur at 550,
2300, and 5240 MHz.
The next case study considers the third stage of a four-branch,
45 fractal tree monopole with center stub. In this instance, se-
ries LC traps are placed inside the fractal tree end-load structure
instead of, as in the previous instance, parallel LC traps being
placed on the trunk or base of the tree. The capability of placing
1952 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
Fig. 14. S versus frequency for self-reconfigurable four-branch fractal tree monopoles. The response of the single-band unloaded fractal tree monopole is
compared to a dual-band and a tri-band version of the same antenna with one and two reactive loads respectively. The S was calculated with respect to 50
line.
Fig. 15. Radiation patterns for self-reconfigurable four-branch fractal tree
monopoles.
Fig. 16. Load locations on a tri-band four-branch, center stubbed fractal tree
monopole.
LC traps in the end-load structure is an important advantage of
the fractal tree antenna. Resonant traps can be placed on the
base of any end-loaded monopole antenna; however, by placing
Fig. 17. Matching network for the tri-band four-branch, center stubbed fractal
tree monopole antenna.
the traps only on the base, the antennas will exhibit a charac-
teristically large separation between the lowest operating band
and any higher frequency bands. Having the ability to place the
traps in the branches of the fractal tree structure provides more
flexibility in the design of miniature multiband monopole an-
tennas by allowing the resonances to be placed closer together.
Using five distinct reactive LC traps, a tri-band version of the
third stage four-branch, 45 fractal tree monopole with center
stub is presented and discussed here. Four traps are placed near
the top of the first stage of the outer four branches. A fifth trap is
placed near the bottom of the first stage of the center stub. Fig. 16
shows the position of the traps and Table VIII provides the cor-
responding component values. The antenna has three primary
resonances at 330 MHz, 800 MHz, and 2220 MHz. The sepa-
ration between the first and third resonant frequencies is only
1890 MHz, 2800 MHz less than the separation between the first
and third resonant frequencies of the tri-band four-branch fractal
tree shown in Fig. 13. In this case, a five-element matching net-
work can be used to allow the antenna to perform efficiently at
each resonant frequency. The topology of a candidate matching
network is shown in Fig. 17 along with the required component
values. The candidate matching network was designed using a
trial and error approach in combination with a random variable
PETKO AND WERNER: MINIATURE RECONFIGURABLE 3-D FRACTAL TREE ANTENNAS
TABLE VIII
LOAD COMPONENT VALUES FOR THE TRI-BAND FOUR-BRANCH, CENTER STUBBED FRACTAL TREE MONOPOLE ANTENNA SHOWN IN FIG. 16
Fig. 18. S versus frequency comparison of matched and unmatched tri-band four-branch, center stubbed fractal tree monopole antennas. The S
with respect to 50
line.
Fig. 19. Radiation patterns for each band of the tri-band four-branch, center
stubbed fractal tree monopole antenna shown in Fig. 16.
optimizer [15]. The plots for the matched and unmatched
tri-band center-stubbed fractal tree monopoles are compared
in Fig. 18. These plots demonstrate that by placing a reactive
matching network at the feed of the antenna, all three resonances
can be matched to operate at a VSWR under 2:1. Finally, Fig. 19
shows the radiation patterns at each of the resonances of the
tri-band center stub fractal tree monopole antenna. The radia-
1953
was calculated
tion patterns at 300 MHz, 800 MHz, and 2220 MHz each only
have a single lobe, indicating that all three cases represent pri-
mary resonant frequencies.
B. Miniature Reconfigurable/Tunable Fractal Tree Antennas
Using Electronic Switches
Recently there has been a considerable amount of interest
in design concepts for reconfigurable antennas capable of
operating over a broad range of frequencies. In this section a
reconfigurable antenna design approach will be introduced that
exploits the branching structure of fractal tree dipoles. Because
the current is distributed over the entire end-load, the effective
removal or switching off of even relatively large sections of the
fractal tree structure will reduce the resonant frequency only by
small amounts. This property of reconfigurable fractal tree an-
tennas can be exploited to allow the resonances of the antenna
to be spaced close enough together to cover all of the frequen-
cies between adjacent bands. Second, because the fractal tree
structure has many parallel paths for the current to flow, then
only a relatively small number of switches may be required to
achieve tunability over a desired range of frequencies.
A design is presented here where RF switches are strate-
gically placed on the third stage, six-branch 50 –30 fractal
1954
Fig. 20. Switch layout for the reconfigurable six-branch, 50 –30 fractal tree
dipole antenna.
tree dipole antenna to make it reconfigurable (i.e., tunable) over
a bandwidth of 68%. The antenna uses 204 separate switches
placed throughout both tree structures (a total of 102 on each
end) to produce 20 reconfigurable states. The locations of these
RF switches are illustrated in Fig. 20. The switches are placed at
every junction inside the tree structure with the exception of the
junction joining the base to the first stage. The junctions joining
the first and second stages all have six switches associated with
each of the six branches. In addition the 36 junctions between
the second and third stage of the fractal structure have switches
associated with each of them. The six junctions between the
second and third stages that are nearest to the center axis of the
antenna (i.e., those that are closest to being vertical) also have
six switches associated with each of the six branches. The re-
mainder of the junctions between the second and third stage of
line.
the fractal tree have only one switch, which is placed near the
end of the branch below the junction. For this particular design,
there are 20 different combinations of switch settings which cor-
respond to 20 different resonant frequencies at which the recon-
figurable antenna is capable of operating.
A rigorous moment method simulation is used to individually
model each of the 20 different states of the reconfigurable fractal
tree antenna. The switches in the fractal tree structure are mod-
eled as ideal. Also, the MoM model for each state is generated
from what remains of the fractal tree antenna after removing the
appropriate sections that have been switched off. This is justified
since coupling effects between these removed sections, which
are significantly less than a half-wavelength long, and the re-
mainder of the antenna still being directly fed are expected to
be minimal.
In an effort to maintain the omni-directional radiation pattern
of the fractal tree antenna in the azimuthal plane, the order in
which the switches are turned off is performed in a manner
that preserves the symmetry of the tree about its base as much
as possible. Fig. 21 illustrates several different states of the
reconfigurable fractal tree antenna, visualized by removing
portions of the fractal tree above switches that are turned off.
The resulting antenna can be reconfigurable from 770 to 1570
MHz for a bandwidth of 800 MHz with a VSWR under 3:1
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
Fig. 21. Several states for the reconfigurable six-branch, 50 –30 fractal tree
dipole antenna. For illustrative purposes, the branches that are switched off for
each of the five different bands have been removed.
Fig. 22. S versus frequency for the reconfigurable six-branch, 50 –30
fractal tree antenna. The light gray curves represent each of the 20 states
the antenna can be configured to operate at. The dark gray curves represent
reconfigured states which operate as stage 1, stage 2, and stage 3 fractal tree
antennas. The black line represents the overall minimum S the antenna can
operate over the entire band. The S was calculated with respect to 50
and is reconfigurable from 970 to 1570 MHz for a bandwidth
of 560 MHz with a VSWR below 2:1. In Fig. 22 each of
the 20 reconfigurable states is represented by a separate
curve (indicated by light gray lines) with the lowest resonant
frequency representing the state with all the switches closed
and the highest resonant frequency representing the state with
all the switches open. The remaining states are achieved by
opening the switches progressively from the top to the bottom.
In addition, for three of the reconfigurable states the antenna
effectively operate as a 50 –30 fractal tree dipole with fractal
stages 3, 2, or 1. The curves for these three special cases
are indicated on the graph by thick dark gray lines. Finally the
solid black line represents the overall minimum the antenna
can be configured to for a particular frequency over the entire
operating range of the antenna. Fig. 23 presents an overlay of the
co-polarized and cross-polarized radiation patterns plotted at the
resonance for each state of the reconfigurable 50 –30 fractal
tree dipole. Because of the asymmetry in the tree geometry for
several of the reconfigurable states, the cross-polarized patterns
corresponding to these particular states are somewhat higher
( 30 dB), but still remain within acceptable limits. The
co-polarized radiation pattern plots are again seen to closely
resemble those of a conventional linear half-wave dipole. Finally,
PETKO AND WERNER: MINIATURE RECONFIGURABLE 3-D FRACTAL TREE ANTENNAS
Fig. 23. Co-polarized and cross-polarized radiation patterns for each state of the reconfigurable six-branch, 50 –30 fractal tree dipole antenna.
we note that a monopole version of this antenna can also be
created with half the number of switches. In this case a broadband
or tunable matching network would be also required.
V. CONCLUSION
This paper begins by investigating the relationship between
the geometrical structure of fractal tree antennas and their cor-
responding radiation characteristics. It was found, through a
series of systematic MoM simulations, that the two most crit-
ical factors influencing the successful design of miniature 3-D
fractal tree antennas appear to be the density and elevation angle
of their branches. These observations subsequently led to the
development of several new design configurations that employ
fractal tree end-loads as a means of miniaturizing conventional
dipole or monopole antennas. Hybrid fractal trees and center-
stubbed fractal trees represent two types of end-load structures
that have proven to be particularly effective in achieving a sig-
nificant amount of size reduction. Next, multiband and recon-
figurable versions of these miniature antennas are introduced,
where either reactive LC traps or RF switches are strategically
placed throughout the branches and/or along the trunk of the
1955
trees. A prime advantage of placing the traps or RF switches
at critical locations on branches of the fractal tree end-loads
is that the resonant frequencies of the antenna can be spaced
much closer together than if they were applied only to the tree
trunks. Among the designs considered was a miniature reac-
tively loaded tri-band center stubbed fractal tree monopole with
associated matching network. Also considered was a design for
a miniature reconfigurable dipole antenna that achieves a 57%
size reduction for the lowest intended band of operation and has
a tunable bandwidth of nearly 70%.
REFERENCES
[1] D. H. Werner, R. L. Haupt, and P. L. Werner, “Fractal antenna engi-
neering: the theory and design of fractal antenna arrays,” IEEE Antennas
Propagat. Mag., vol. 41, pp. 37–59, Oct. 1999.
[2] D. H. Werner and R. Mittra, Frontiers in Electromagnetics. Piscat-
away, NJ: IEEE Press, 2000.
[3] M. Sindou, G. Ablart, and C. Sourdois, “Multiband and wideband prop-
erties of printed fractal branched antennas,” IEE Electron. Lett., vol. 35,
no. 3, pp. 181–182, Feb. 1999.
[4] C. Puente, J. Claret, F. Sagues, J. Romeu, M. Q. Lopez-Salvans, and
R. Pous, “Multiband properties of a fractal tree antenna generated by
electrochemical deposition,” IEE Electron. Lett., vol. 32, no. 25, pp.
2298–2299, Dec. 1996.
1956 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
[5] D. H. Werner, A. R. Bretones, and B. R. Long, “Radiation characteristics
of thin-wire ternary fractal trees,” IEE Electron. Lett., vol. 35, no. 8, pp.
609–610, Apr. 1999.
[6] J. P. Gianvittorio and Y. Rahmat-Samii, “Fractal element antennas: a
compilation of configurations with novel characteristics,” in Proc. IEEE
Antennas and Propagation Society Int. Symp., vol. 3, Salt Lake City, UT,
July 2000, pp. 1688–1691.
[7] J. P. Gianvittorio, “Fractal Antennas: Design, Characterization, and Ap-
plications,” M.S. thesis, Dept. Elect. Eng., University of California Los
Angeles, 2000.
[8] J. P. Gianvittorio and Y. Rahmat-Samii, “Fractal antennas: a novel
antenna miniaturization technique, and applications,” IEEE Antennas
Propagat. Mag., vol. 44, Feb. 2002.
[9] D. H. Werner and S. Ganguly, “An overview of fractal antenna engi-
neering research,” IEEE Antennas Propagat. Mag., vol. 45, pp. 38–57,
Feb. 2003.
[10] J. S. Petko and D. H. Werner, “Dense 3-D fractal tree structures as minia-
ture end-loaded dipole antennas,” in Proc. IEEE Antennas and Propaga-
tion Society Int. Symp., vol. 4, San Antonio, TX, June 2002, pp. 94–97.
[11] B. B. Mandelbrot, The Fractal Geometry of Nature. New York:
Freeman, 1983.
[12] H. O. Peitgen, H. Jurgens, and D. Saupe, Chaos and Fractals: New Fron-
tiers of Science. New York: Springer-Verlag, 1992.
[13] A. Boag, E. Michielssen, and R. Mittra, “Design of electrically loaded
wire antennas using genetic algorithms,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Prop-
agat., vol. 44, pp. 687–695, 1996.
[14] Z. Altman, R. Mittra, P. L. Werner, and D. H. Werner, “Application of
genetic algorithm to boradband antenna design,” in Electromagnetic Op-
timization by Genetic Algorithms, Y. Rahmat-Samii and E. Michielssen,
Eds. New York: Wiley, 1999, pp. 181–210.
[15] Microwave Office, Applied Wave Research Inc., 2000.
Joshua S. Petko (S’02) was born in Brownsville,
PA, in 1979. He received the B.S. degree in electrical
engineering from The Pennsylvania State University,
University Park, in 2002, where he is currently
working toward the M.S. degree.
Currently, he is a Research Assistant for the
Communications and Space Sciences Laboratory
and the Applied Research Laboratory, Pennsylvania
State University. His research interests include
antenna theory, computational electromagnetics,
fractal electrodynamics, and evolutionary algorithms
with a focus on fractal antenna elements and arrays.
Mr. Petko is a Member of Eta Kappa Nu. He has been awarded the 2002
James A. Barnak Outstanding Senior Award from the Pennsylvania State Uni-
versity Eta Kappa Nu chapter and was a finalist and an honorable mention for the
Alton B. Zerby and Carl T. Koerner National Outstanding Senior Award from
Eta Kappa Nu. He also has been awarded second place in both the 2002 Penn
State Undergraduate Poster Competition and the 2002 IEEE Region 2 Student
Paper Competition.
Douglas H. Werner (S’81–M’89–SM’94) received
the B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in electrical en-
gineering and the M.A. degree in mathematics from
The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State),
University Park, in 1983, 1985, 1989, and 1986,
respectively.
He is an Associate Professor in the Department of
Electrical Engineering, Penn State. He is a member of
the Communications and Space Sciences Lab (CSSL)
and is affiliated with the Electromagnetic Communi-
cation Research Lab. He is also a Senior Research
Associate in the Electromagnetics and Environmental Effects Department of
the Applied Research Laboratory at Penn State. He is a former Associate Editor
of Radio Science. He has published numerous technical papers and proceedings
articles and is the author of nine book chapters. He is an Editor of Frontiers
in Electromagnetics (Piscataway, NJ: IEEE Press, 2000). He also contributed
a chapter for Electromagnetic Optimization by Genetic Algorithms (New York:
Wiley Interscience, 1999). His research interests include theoretical and com-
putational electromagnetics with applications to antenna theory and design, mi-
crowaves, wireless and personal communication systems, electromagnetic wave
interactions with complex media, meta-materials, fractal and knot electrody-
namics, and genetic algorithms.
Dr. Werner is a Member of the American Geophysical Union (AGU), Inter-
national Scientific Radio Union (URSI) Commissions B and G, the Applied
Computational Electromagnetics Society (ACES), Eta Kappa Nu, Tau Beta Pi,
and Sigma Xi. He received the 1993 Applied Computational Electromagnetics
Society (ACES) Best Paper Award and a 1993 URSI Young Scientist Award.
In 1994, he received the Pennsylvania State University Applied Research Lab-
oratory Outstanding Publication Award. He received a College of Engineering
PSES Outstanding Research Award and Outstanding Teaching Award in March
2000 and March 2002, respectively. He recently received an IEEE Central Penn-
sylvania Section Millennium Medal. He has also received several Letters of
Commendation from Penn State’s Department of Electrical Engineering for
outstanding teaching and research. He is an Editor of IEEE ANTENNAS AND
PROPAGATION MAGAZINE.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004 1957

Investigations on Miniaturized Endfire Vertically

Polarized Quasi-Fractal Log-Periodic
Zigzag Antenna
Satish K. Sharma, Member, IEEE, and Lotfollah Shafai, Fellow, IEEE

Abstract—This paper presents the investigations on a miniatur-

ized vertically polarized traveling wave antenna for operation in
the high frequency band (3–6 MHz), with a specific requirement
of keeping its height near 1 8th of a wavelength. The antenna is
desired to have a good endfire gain and front to back ratio, and
small radiation levels in the vertical direction at broadside angle. A
log-periodic Zigzag antenna (LPZA) has acceptable performance
in both gain and polarization. Its height however is large, at about
one wavelength (1 ). The concept of fractal antenna is employed
in this antenna to achieve the necessary height reduction to 8,
while keeping its radiation characteristics nearly constant. Both
single and dual arm quasifractal log-periodic zigzag antenna
(QFLPZA) configurations are investigated, with a maximum
antenna height of only 1 8th of a wavelength, showing the desired
radiation characteristics, and a wide impedance bandwidth of
67%. This type of antenna may find applications in surveillance
radar.
Index Terms—Miniaturized wire antenna, vertically polarized,
log-periodic (LP), zigzag (Z), backfire radiation, quasi-fractal
(QF).

I. INTRODUCTION

T HE antennas whose current and voltage distributions can

be represented by one or more traveling waves, usually in
the same direction, are referred to as traveling wave antennas.
This antenna radiates from a continuous source. There are
various examples of traveling wave antennas, such as dielectric
rod, helix, and various log periodic antennas (LPA) [1], most
of which are suitable for microwave frequencies. In the present
study, different variations of traveling wave antennas were
considered, i.e., traveling wave linear [2] and V-antennas [3],
sandwich wire antennas [4]–[6], meander line planar array
antennas [7], [8], and most importantly log-periodic zigzag
antennas (LPZA) [9], [10]. Another antenna of interest was the
electrically short umbrella top-loaded antenna [11]. However, Fig. 1. Configurations of (a) basic zigzag traveling wave antenna, (b) single
arm log-periodic zigzag traveling wave antenna, and (c) balanced LPZA [9],
among these options, the log periodic zigzag antenna seemed [10].
to provide the desired antenna radiation characteristics hence
was selected for further study. Some investigation results on
wire will have a fundamental-wave phase constant given by:
this study were presented by the authors in [12].
, where is the free space wave number. This
Zigzag antennas are classified as periodic structures [9]. The
monofilar zigzag antenna produces a backfire radiation below its
basic zigzag antenna is shown in Fig. 1(a), in which is the
resonance frequency, and a broadside beam at its resonance. A
pitch angle. Assuming that the current along the wire travels
variation of this zigzag antenna as a single arm LPZA is shown
with free space phase velocity, the near fields of the zigzag
in Fig. 1(b). It shows the small cells termed as transmission
line region, which correspond to the low-frequency condition,
Manuscript received July 16, 2003; revised November 5, 2003. and causes little radiation to occur as the fundamental and all
The authors are with the Department of Electrical and Computer En- space harmonics are slow waves. The region where the first re-
gineering, The University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB R3T 5V6, Canada
(e-mail: shafai@ee.umanitoba.ca). verse traveling space harmonics approaches the backfire condi-
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2004.832317 tion produces appreciable radiation and corresponds
0018-926X/04$20.00 © 2004 IEEE
1958 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004

TABLE I

to the active region. If the radiation is sufficient, the larger cells

will not be excited, which is desirable to avoid radiation in di-
rections away from backfire [9]. Fig. 1(c) shows the geometry
of the double arm thin wire LPZA [10]. The angle refers to
the angle from tip to tip, and the angle between the planes of the
zigzag elements is called . By controlling the angles and ,
the E- and H-plane beamwidths and antenna directivity can be
controlled. On the other hand, the control of input impedance,
beamwidth and other radiation characteristics may be achieved
using different log-periodic parameters like , and , where
is the geometric factor defined as [Fig. 1(c)].
Hence, for the present investigation, the LPZA is selected as a
possible candidate, and will be studied next. The computational
tool used for this study is NEC [16], which is a full wave anal-
ysis software based on the method of moments (MOM). The
wire radius is 4.00 mm for the entire investigation. The antenna
design requirements are shown in Table I, where and
are the gains along vertical (broadside) and horizontal (endfire)
directions. Fig. 2. Characteristics of a double arm LPZA (Fig. 1(c)), (a) Resistance and
reactance variation with frequency, and (b) Radiation patterns ( = 0 plane) at
different frequencies within 67% bandwidth. The antenna is lifted from ground
II. DOUBLE ARM LPZA plane by 0:002 .

In this section, a LPZA is investigated [Fig. 1(c)] based on [9],

[10], which will be the basis of comparison for the miniaturized
antenna presented next. The most important design parameters
for this LPZA are the geometrical factor, which is the ratio
of two adjacent similar dimensions on the antenna
and angles and . As shown in Fig. 1(c), determines the an-
tenna lengths measured from the apex and is the property of a
frequency independent log-periodic antenna. For this antenna,
the selected parameters were: , its
maximum element height , and length
[Fig. 1(c)] along the principal axis of its single arm, where
is the free space wavelength at the lower end of the frequency
band, i.e., , where MHz. This
antenna height of is much larger than the desired height of
. It was assumed that the maximum length of the antenna is
not a problem. Hence, the study was devoted to the reduction of
the antenna height from to near , without sacrificing
significantly the antenna’s radiation performance. This required
an extensive study. Design details for this antenna are not given
here, as it was known in literature [9], [10]. For the purpose
of computations, the antenna is placed over an infinite ground
plane at a height of and is fed at the input end with a
voltage source w.r.t. the ground plane. Its impedance character-
istics and radiation gain patterns for 67% frequency bandwidth
are shown in Fig. 2(a) and (b), respectively.
An examination of Fig. 2(a) reveals that, with frequency vari-
ation the resistance and reactance oscillate around 700 and 0
, respectively. Their maximum span, for both resistance and
reactance, is around 400 and shows a fairly constant trend.
The radiation gain characteristic is shown in Fig. 2(b) remaining
between 10.50 to 12.50 dBi. The gain level at broadside angle
is always less than dBi. The front-to-back (F/B) ratio is
varying between 6.50 dB and 9.00 dB. Since, the radiation pat-
, tern peak is near it is also referred as the backfire antenna.
Next, height miniaturization of this antenna is presented, em-
ploying similar to the Koch type of fractal element [13] concept
for a single arm LPZA.
III. ANTENNA MINIATURIZATION TECHNIQUES FOR
SINGLE ARM
In this section, the height miniaturization of a single arm
LPZA is discussed, while keeping its radiation characteristics
almost unaltered. The techniques used to reduce the antenna
height are as follows.
1) Fold the lower half of the antenna along its axis, i.e.,
axis, by 90 , keeping the upper half vertical and making the
lower half horizontal, i.e., plane (Fig. 3, Step II). The
antenna length along its axis remains constant and equal to
. Its height reduces to .
2) Fold back the antenna triangular arms, when their height
exceeds (Fig. 3, Step III). The antenna length along its
axis remains constant. Its height decreases to .
3) Fold back the arms again, when their length exceeds
(Fig. 3, Step IV). The antenna length along its axis remains
constant. The antenna height decreases to .
4) The entire antenna is lifted (20 cm) above
ground plane to prevent shorting the horizontal arms to
ground plane during its operation.
SHARMA AND SHAFAI: INVESTIGATIONS ON MINIATURIZED ENDFIRE VERTICALLY POLARIZED QFLPZA 1959

Fig. 3. Step by step antenna miniaturization technique. (a) Step I: original antenna height of H , (b) Step II: reduced height, H=2, (c) Step III: reduced height,
H=4, and (d) Step IV: final reduced height, H=8. In all cases, the antenna is lifted from ground plane by 0:002 .

Fig. 5. Configuration of the reduced length single arm quasifractal LPZA

(QFLPZA), L = 1:96  , and H =  =8. The antenna is lifted from ground
plane by 0:002 .

fractal form, the resultant path lengths for propagation remains

Fig. 4. Effect of antenna height reduction on vertically polarized radiation
pattern ( = 0 plane) at different frequencies for single arm QFLPZA. (a)
Step I and (b) Step IV.
In the above process, the elements exceeding a specified
height limit are reduced by the quasifractal elements. The
quasifractal element concept employed is similar to the Ist
iteration of the Koch curve [13]. The condition that geometrical
factor, remains unaltered makes sure that after reducing the
height the antenna is still log-periodic. The horizontal wires
parallel to the ground plane will not add much to the radiation,
though they will cause the necessary phase delay to occur [14],
[15], behaving as a transmission lines. Contrary to this, the
vertical wires will directly contribute to the vertically polarized
radiation due to vertical component of current present in them.
Furthermore, after braking the original height of wires, for
both horizontal and vertical wires and converting them into
almost the same as the original antenna. Breaking the wires,
however, modifies the direction of the radiating currents and
thus, will influence the antenna radiation characteristics. This
is investigated and the resulting radiation patterns are shown in
Fig. 4(a) and (b), respectively, for the original antenna and the
final reduced height model.
An examination of Fig. 4(a) reveals that for the original an-
tenna in Step I of Fig. 3, the backfire gain varies between 9.50
to 11.40 dBi, and the F/B ratio changes from 11.20 to 14.60 dB.
The radiating gain in the vertical direction is below
6 dBi, about 15 dB below the main beam. Its performance
after the full height reduction to (Step IV of Fig. 3) as
shown in Fig. 4(b), remains satisfactory. The backfire gain is
varying between 6.00 to 9.00 dBi, and the radiation in the ver-
tical direction is below 2.50 dBi. The back radiation, however,
seems sensitive to the operating frequency. An interesting phe-
nomenon is the null filling in the main beam and elimination of
the first sidelobe. As shown inc Fig. 4(b) the resulting gain pat-
terns become smoother, and the gain drops gradually away from
1960 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
Fig. 6. Radiation pattern ( = 0 plane) for the reduced length
(L = 1:96 ) single arm QFLPZA at different frequencies.
Fig. 7. Configuration of double arm reduced length QFLPZA shown in xyz
views. L = 1:96 ; H =  =8;  = 25 . The antenna is lifted from ground
plane by 0:002 .
the main beam. This antenna is termed as the quasi-fractal log
periodic zigzag antenna (QFLPZA), and studied further for its
length reduction and fractal length variations.
A. Length Reduction
In this subsection, the Step IV antenna is further investigated
for reduction in its length along the axis, which originally
was . Extensive simulations were run, by reducing the
wire elements near the transmission line region, which do not
contribute significantly to the radiation. For the sake of brevity,
these are not presented here, instead the results for an antenna
with length reduced to along the -coordinate axis is
presented, which eliminates of length, and still per-
forms similar to the Step IV antenna. The antenna configuration
is shown in Fig. 5. It is clear that the angle as defined in Fig. 1
is now irrelevant, except at the antenna input end. The geomet-
rical factor , still defines the configuration. To prevent shorting
of horizontal arms to ground, the antenna is placed over an infi-
nite ground plane at a height of and is fed at the input
end with a voltage source w.r.t. the ground plane. The computed
data for radiation patterns at is shown in Fig. 6. The gain
varies within 3.00 dB range between 9.00 and 6.00 dBi for dif-
ferent frequencies within the band.
B. Effect of Fractal Element Lengths
It is known that the introduction of bends in a line reduces
its effective electrical length due to the corner effects. The
Fig. 8. Effect of varying the arm-to-arm angle  on double arm reduced length
(L = 1:96 )QFLPZA. (a) Gain and (b) F/B ratio.
amount of the length reduction depends on the corner angle
and increases as the corner angle reduces. In the proposed
height reduction method the number of fractal and thus corners
increases progressively along the antennas. However, since each
fractal has a single corner, this can easily be compensated for by
increasing the length of each fractal element. This phenomenon
was studied at different frequencies within 2 % length variation
of the fractals. The results showed a rapid degradation of the
performance, at all frequencies, with the length reduction.
The improvement in the performance, due to length increase,
however, was very slow. Consequently, and the fact that the
antenna height reduction was desired, the length increase was
not incorporated. Hence, the fractal element lengths were kept
as in the original antenna (Section III: Step IV, and III-A).
IV. DOUBLE ARM QFLPZA
The double arm antenna is a more practical one, in which the
H-plane beamwidth can be controlled by the angle between
the arms. Thus, in this part a double arm QFLPZA is investi-
gated using the single arm design of QFLPZA presented in the
previous Section III-A. The geometry of the antenna is shown
in Fig. 7. A parametric study was carried out to find the effect
of the arm-to-arm angle as defined in Figs. 1(c) and 7 on the
gain and F/B ratio. The results are shown in Fig. 8(a) and (b).
Fig. 8(a) reveals that by increasing the angle the gain drops
slowly at the low frequency end of 0.75 , whereas for it is
nearly constant. For 1.25 the gain increases with frequency.
Similarly, Fig. 8(b) shows that by increasing the F/B ratio
drops rapidly for 0.75 f , whereas for and 1.25 , it is nearly
constant. Thus, based on Fig. 8(a) and (b), the arm-to-arm angle
is an important parameter. Near a tradeoff between
SHARMA AND SHAFAI: INVESTIGATIONS ON MINIATURIZED ENDFIRE VERTICALLY POLARIZED QFLPZA
Fig. 9. Performance of reduced length (L = 1:96 ) double arm quasifractal
LPZA (QFLPZA). (a) Resistance and reactance, (b) input impedance on Smith
Chart with 575
normalization impedance, (c) return loss, and (d) vertically
polarized radiation pattern at  = 0 plane.
the gain and bandwidth can be achieved, and therefore is
selected for the double arm QFLPZA. The results for its
impedance, return loss, and radiation patterns are shown in
Fig. 9(a)–(d), respectively.
1961
From Fig. 9(a) the resistance undergoes significant variation
between 200 and 1000 in the frequency range, but the reac-
tance varies only between , except at 0.825 , where it
is around 680 . The input impedance was also plotted on Smith
Chart with 575 of normalization characteristic impedance,
and is shown in Fig. 9(b). From Fig. 9(b) it is evident that
impedance is balanced and can be matched to a 50 circuit
using a commercial RF impedance transformer of impedance
ratio 50 /575 . The impedance plot lies at the center of
the Smith chart. Only a few points lie outside 2:1 circle. This
is further clear from Fig. 9(c), which shows the return loss,
(dB), computed using a reference impedance of 575 . It
reveals a very good impedance match ( dB) over the
complete frequency band, except at 0.775 and 1.00 where
it becomes poor. Fig. 9(d) shows the radiation patterns within
the 67% frequency band. The antenna shows good backfire
gain at all frequencies, except at the lower end frequencies,
which is attributed to the reduced effective antenna height at
these frequencies. The gain variation is within 3.60 dB ranging
between 11.60 and 8.00 dBi within the band. The F/B ratio is
between 6.00 and 9.00 dB. The gain in the vertical direction
is less than 5 dBi, except at the center frequency. Its perfor-
mance is superior to the single arm QFLPZA, and its gain has
improved by at least 2.00 dB throughout the frequency range.
Further effort may be needed to improve the F/B ratio.
The antenna was intended to be transportable and easy to
install. The entire antenna was, therefore, to be mounted on a
flexible net like material, using flexible wires. To install, non-
conducting rigid poles of proper heights, were to be installed
at location of the vertical arms, with predetermined mounting
hooks. The deployed antenna was to be mounted on the poles,
in a trellis like structure. For transportation, the antenna to be re-
moved from the poles, folded along bends, and simply rolled for
storage as a bundle. The mounting and removal of the antenna
requires negligible time. Only the installation of poles needs
careful planning, to insure its survival during operation.
V. CONCLUSION
Vertically polarized antennas are an important class of an-
tennas that are used efficiently over conducting ground planes,
and monopoles are the most popular configurations. Their
height of , however, becomes large at low frequencies.
They are also narrow band. In this study, we have investigated
the possibility of using LPZA to achieve wide impedance bands
and modified their geometry to reduce the height to . The
resulting antenna is a quasifractal antenna. Steps leading to the
height reduction are described and their effects on the antenna
performance are studied. While the height reduction process
has deteriorated the front-to-back ratio at some frequencies, the
overall antenna performance has remained remarkably good.
The gain pattern becomes smoother and decreases gradually
with the angle away from the main beam.
REFERENCES
[1] C. A. Balanis, Antenna Theory and Design, 2nd ed, New York: Wiley.
[2] D. P. Nyquist and K. Chen, “The traveling wave linear antenna with
nondissipative loading,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. AP-16,
pp. 21–31, Jan. 1968.
1962 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004

[3] K. Iizuka, “The traveling wave V-antenna and related antennas,” IEEE Lotfollah Shafai (F’87) received the B.Sc. degree
Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. AP-15, pp. 236–243, Mar. 1967. from the University of Tehran, Iran, in 1963 and the
[4] W. Rotman and N. Karas, “Sandwich wire antenna: A new type of M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees from the Faculty of Applied
microwave line source radiator,” Proc. IRE Nat. Conf. Rec., pt. 1, pp. Sciences and Engineering, University of Toronto,
166–172, 1957. ON, Canada, in 1966 and 1969, respectively, all in
[5] K. Chen, “Sandwich wire antenna,” IRE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. electrical engineering.
AP-10, pp. 159–164, Mar. 1962. In November 1969, he joined the Department of
[6] H. E. Green and J. L. Whitrow, “The new analysis of the sandwich wire Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of
antenna,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. AP-19, pp. 600–605, Manitoba, Canada, as a Sessional Lecturer, then as an
Jan. 1971. Assistant Professor in 1970, an Associate Professor
[7] G. A. Hockham and R. I. Wolfson, “Broadband meander-line planar in 1973, and as Professor in 1979. Since 1975, he
array antenna,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. AP-27, pp. has made a special effort to link the University research to the industrial de-
645–648, 1979. velopment by assisting industries in the development of new products or es-
[8] O. Aboul-Atta and L. Shafai, “Hemispherically radiating meander-line tablishing new technologies. To enhance the University of Manitoba’s contact
planar array antenna,” in Proc. Int. Conf. Antennas and Propagation, with industry, in 1985 he assisted in establishing The Institute for Technology
1987, pp. 141–144. Development, and was its Director until 1987, when he became the Head of the
[9] Antenna Handbook, Theory, Applications, and Design, Y. T. Lo and S. Electrical Engineering Department. His assistance to industry was instrumental
W. Lee, Eds., Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York, 1988. in establishing an Industrial Research Chair in Applied Electromagnetics at the
[10] S. H. Lee and K. K. Mei, “Analysis of zigzag antennas,” IEEE Trans. University of Manitoba in 1989, which he held until July 1994.
Antennas Propagation, vol. AP-18, pp. 760–764, Nov. 1970. Dr. Shafai is a Member of the International Scientific Radio Union (URSI)
[11] A. F. Gangi, S. Sensiper, and G. R. Dunn, “The characteristics of electri- Commission B, was its Chairman during 1985 to 1988, and is currently the
cally short, umbrella top-loaded antennas,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Prop- Vice-Chairman. He was elected a Fellow of The Royal Society of Canada in
agat., vol. AP-13, pp. 864–871, Nov. 1965. 1998. He has been the recipient of numerous awards. In 1978, his contribution
[12] S. K. Sharma and L. Shafai, “Investigations of a compact vertically po- to the design of a small ground station for the Hermus satellite was selected as
larized backfire high frequency traveling wave antenna,” in Proc. IEEE the 3rd Meritorious Industrial Design. In 1984, he received the Professional En-
Antennas Propagation Int. Symp., vol. 1, Columbus, OH, June 22–27, gineers Merit Award and in 1985, “The Thinker” Award from Canadian Patents
2003, pp. 253–256. and Development Corporation. From the University of Manitoba, he received
[13] J. P. Gianvittorio and Y. Rahmat-Samii, “Fractal antennas: A novel the “Research Awards” in 1983, 1987, and 1989, the Outreach Award in 1987
antenna miniaturization technique, and applications,” IEEE Antennas and the Sigma Xi, Senior Scientist Award in 1989. In 1990, he received the
Propagat. Mag., vol. 44, pp. 20–36, Feb. 2002. Maxwell Premium Award from IEE (London) and in 1993 and 1994, the Dis-
[14] E. C. Jordan and K. G. Balmain, “Ch. 15,” in Electromagnetic Waves tinguished Achievement Awards from Corporate Higher Education Forum. In
and Radiating Systems, 2nd ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall 1998, he received the Winnipeg RH Institute Foundation Medal for Excellence
Inc., 1968, pp. 620–621. in Research. In 1999 and 2000, he received the University of Manitoba, Faculty
[15] V. H. Rumsey, Frequency Independent Antennas, New York: Academic, Association Research Award. He was a recipient of the IEEE Third Millenium
1966, pp. 105–110. Medal in 2000 and in 2002 was elected a Fellow of The Canadian Academy
[16] Numerical Electromagnetic Code. of Engineering and Distinguished Professor at The University of Manitoba. He
holds a Canada Research Chair in Applied Electromagnetics. He has been a par-
ticipant in nearly all Antennas and Propagation symposia and participates in the
review committees. In 1986, he established the symposium on Antenna Tech-
Satish Kumar Sharma (M’00) was born in Sul- nology and Applied Electromagnetics, ANTEM, at the University of Manitoba,
tanpur (U.P.), India, in April 1970. He received the which is held every two years.
B. Tech. degree from Kamla Nehru Institute of Tech-
nology, Sultanpur affiliated with Avadh University,
Faizabad, and the Ph.D. degree from Institute of
Technology, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi,
both in India, in 1991 and 1997, respectively, both
in electronics engineering.
He was a Lecturer and Project Officer with the
Kamla Nehru Institute of Technology, Sultanpur,
and Institute of Engineering and Rural Technology,
Allahabad, from February 1992 to December 1993, respectively, both in Uttar
Pradesh. There, he taught courses in electromagnetics, antennas and propaga-
tion, electronics instrumentation and electronic communication, etc. During
December 1993 to February 1999, he was a Research Scholar, and Junior and
Senior Research Fellow of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research
(CSIR), Government of India, in the Department of Electronics Engineering,
Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University. He was a Postdoctoral
Fellow with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, The
University of Manitoba, with Professor L. Shafai from March 1999 to April
2001. Since May 2001, he has been a Senior Antenna Researcher/Engineer with
InfoMagnetics Technologies Corporation, Winnipeg, MB, Canada. Since June
2001, he has also been a part-time Research Associate with the Department of
Electrical and Computer Engineering, The University of Manitoba. Here, he has
been involved in the design and development of several antennas for wireless
and satellite communications as feed for reflectors, polarizers, and MEMS
phase shifters. His main research interests are in applied electromagnetics,
antennas, and RF MEMS.
He is a registered Professional Engineer (P. Eng.) of the Province of Man-
itoba, Canada. He is reviewer of IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND
PROPAGATION and Indian Journal of Radio and Space Physics (IJRSP).
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
Compact Wide-Band Multimode Antennas for
MIMO and Diversity
Christian Waldschmidt, Student Member, IEEE, and Werner Wiesbeck, Fellow, IEEE
Abstract—This paper presents broadband multimode antennas
for multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) and diversity applica-
tions. The antenna system is not based on spatial diversity, as usual
MIMO systems, but on a combination of pattern and polarization
diversity. Different modes of self-complementary, thus extremely
broadband, spiral and sinuous antennas are used to decorrelate
the signals. It is shown that only one antenna is necessary to re-
ceive three uncorrelated signals, thus the space required to place
the MIMO antenna is very small. Simulation results and measure-
ments of a typical indoor scenario are given.
Index Terms—Multimode diversity, multiple-input multiple-
output (MIMO), sinuous antenna, spiral antenna.
I. INTRODUCTION
F UTURE communication systems have to fulfill the require-
ments of high data rates and flexible interfaces for dif-
ferent communication system standards. Multistandard radios,
offering the demanded flexibility to use different standards, re-
quire very broadband antennas. multiple-input multiple-output
(MIMO) and diversity systems allow exploitation of the spatial
channel properties. If the signals received by different antennas
are uncorrelated, very high data rates may be reached as recent
studies have shown, first in [1] and later in [2], [3]. Usually un-
correlated signals are obtained by spatial diversity, which re-
quires large antenna spacings.
This paper presents new broadband antenna solutions, that
are small enough to fit into laptops or organizers, but that still
yield uncorrelated signals for MIMO or diversity applications.
The compactness of the broadband MIMO antenna system is not
achieved by using different antennas, but by one antenna with
different, independently fed, modes. This results in multimode
diversity, a combination of pattern- and polarization diversity to
obtain uncorrelated channel impulse responses for the MIMO or
diversity system. As far as the authors are aware multimode di-
versity has first been suggested in [4], where orthogonal azimuth
patterns were used. In [5] a multimode patch antenna with dif-
ferent modes for diversity was presented. Multimode diversity
for MIMO has been suggested in [6], but this paper presents
a new and practical antenna concept, based on spiral and sin-
uous antennas. In [7] the ability of logarithmic spiral antennas
to radiate in different polarizations is discussed and a possible
application for diversity is mentioned, but not explicated.
Besides uncorrelated signals at the antennas, which are ob-
tained by orthogonal patterns the mean signal to noise ratio
Manuscript received February 4, 2003; revised August 25, 2003.
The authors are with the Institut für Höchstfrequenztechnik und Elektronik
(IHE), Universität Karlsruhe (TH), Karlsruhe D-76128 Germany (e-mail: Chris-
tian.Waldschmidt@ihe.uka.de).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2004.832495
0018-926X/04$20.00 © 2004 IEEE
1963
Fig. 1. Geometry of a spiral antenna with voltage sources between the single
arms of the spiral.
(SNR) of all the signals has to be “similar,” see [8], to obtain
a diversity gain or capable MIMO systems. “Similar” in this
context means, e.g., less than 10 dB difference for two branch
maximum ratio combining, [8]. In this paper it is shown, that
the mean effective gain (MEG), which is linked to the SNR, of
the single modes differs by only 1 to 2 dB, thus a high diver-
sity gain is obtained. For MIMO the total received power or the
mean SNR respectively is an important quality measure for an
antenna array. By a comparison with a dipole array with large
antenna spacings, which is generally considered as a capable
array for MIMO, the ability of multimode antennas for MIMO
is shown.
This paper is organized as follows. In the first section
four-arm spiral and sinuous antennas and the different exci-
tations for the modes are presented. Second, the correlation
properties of signals received by different modes of the antenna
and the mean effective gains are given as a function of the
incident field and its spatial distribution. In the last section
MIMO capacity calculations and measurements with spiral
antennas are given.
II. SPIRAL AND SINUOUS ANTENNAS
The self-complementary, archimedian, four-arm spiral an-
tenna and sinuous antennas are well described in the literature,
see, e.g., [9]–[11], thus only the properties crucial for multi-
mode diversity are given here. The spiral antenna consists of
four arms, that are rotated around the center of the antenna,
see Fig. 1. The antenna can basically radiate three different
modes depending on the excitation. For this application mode
1 and mode 2 are used. Mode 1 is characterized by a phase
shift of 90 between adjacent sources at the single arms of the
spiral, see Fig. 1. Mode 2 has a phase shift of 180 . Both modes
are circularly polarized in the direction of the main radiation
1964 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
Fig. 2. Geometry of a four-arm sinuous antenna.  describes the lengths of
the teeth and is therefore a determining antenna parameter.
Fig. 3. Pattern of mode 1 of the spiral antenna with a radius of 10 cm at 2 GHz
separated into left (lhc) and right hand circular (rhc) polarization. If the spiral is
fed at the outer end of the arms, the polarization is orthogonal to the one obtained
by exciting at the center of the spiral.
and elliptically polarized otherwise. Due to the self-comple-
mentarily the antennas are frequency-independent or, in other
words, extremely broadband. Since the geometrical structure
of the spiral antenna is finite, there exists a lower frequency
bound. This bound is
(1)
where is the speed of light, the outer radius of the spiral
and the effective substrate permittivity. has to be de-
termined by simulations of the spiral antenna or experimentally.
According to experience, is close to one for etched spirals,
also for a high of the substrate. For all simulations presented
in this paper the antennas were simulated with FEKO [12], a
standard software tool based on method of moments. Equation
(1) is explicable by the current distribution within the active
zones of the single modes [10]. The active zone is a circular area
located around the center of the antenna. The energy is radiated
from the antenna in the active zone. This zone is characterized
by a certain ratio of its circumference to the wavelength. For
Fig. 4. Pattern of mode 2 of the spiral antenna with a radius of 10 cm at 2 GHz.
The pattern hardly changes versus frequency for frequencies above 1.2 GHz.
Fig. 5. Phase of the pattern of mode 1 and mode 2, shown in Figs. 3 and 4.
The phase of mode 1 changes 360 per circulation around the antenna, mode 2
changes 720 .
mode 1 the circumference is one wavelength, for mode 2 it is
two wavelengths. Thus, the current distribution on the arms of
the spiral in the active zone has two maxima for mode 1 and
four for mode 2. Above this lower frequency bound all antenna
properties are almost stable and change only slightly with fre-
quency. The pattern in elevation of mode 1 and 2 are given
in Fig. 3 and Fig. 4. The azimuth patterns are omnidirec-
tional. The phase of the complex radiation pattern, which among
other parameters determines the correlation among the receive
signals, is shown in Fig. 5. The phase of mode 1 changes 360
and the one of mode 2 720 for each circulation around the an-
tenna, which is explicable by the current distribution within the
active zones. The modes can be excited in two ways: first by
feeding the spiral arms at the inner ends that is at the center
of the spiral and second at the outer ends of the arms. Those
modes are orthogonally polarized left-hand circular (lhc) and
right-hand circular (rhc). The third mode of the spiral antenna
(270 phase shift between adjacent arms at the excitation) has
a pattern, whose amplitude is equal to mode 1, but the polar-
ization changes from lhc to rhc. Thu,s mode 1 and mode 3 are
orthogonally polarized. The unwrapped phase of the pattern of
mode 3 changes 1080 per circulation around the antenna.
WALDSCHMIDT AND WIESBECK: COMPACT WIDE-BAND MULTIMODE ANTENNAS FOR MIMO AND DIVERSITY
Fig. 6. Pattern of mode 2 of the sinuous antenna with a radius of 10 cm at
2 GHz. The pattern hardly changes versus frequency for frequencies above
1.7 GHz.
Fig. 7. Pattern of mode 1 of the sinuous antenna with a radius of 10 cm at
2 GHz.  is 50 . Mode 3 is orthogonally polarized, but has the same pattern.
The geometry of a four-arm sinuous antenna is given in Fig. 2
and described in detail in [11]. The antenna is self-complemen-
tary and used as a multimode antenna. The modes are excited the
same way as for the spiral antenna. The lower frequency bounds
of the modes are a function of different geometry parameters,
thus are not as easy accessible as for the spiral. In general the
lower frequency bounds are higher than the ones for the spiral
antenna for a given outer radius of the antennas. They decrease
with increasing (for see Fig. 2), since the antenna resembles
in sections a spiral antenna for large . The patterns of mode
1 and 2 are given in Figs. 6 and 7. The shapes of the patterns
change only slightly with frequency or , but the polarization
changes. The pattern is alternately left and right hand ellipti-
cally polarized versus frequency, see Fig. 8. The axial ratio of
the sinuous antenna depends on . For large the antenna acts
in sections like a spiral, thus the axial ratio is almost 0 dB. For
small the antenna is rather linearly polarized. Both modes may
be excited at the center or at the outer ends of the arms, but in
contrast to the spiral antenna, orthogonal polarizations are only
obtained for large ( , spiral-like behavior). The shape
1965
Fig. 8. Gain of the rhc and lhc polarized field of the sinuous antenna with
 = 50 and an outer radius of 0.1 m.
of the pattern of mode 3 is equivalent to mode 1, but both modes
are orthogonally polarized.
III. MULTIMODE-DIVERSITY
MIMO transmission channels are characterized by the
channel matrix , which contains the channel impulse re-
sponses or the channel coefficient in the flat fading case
between the different sets of transmit and receive antenna
ports. For broadband systems the spectrum can be divided into
narrowband sections with flat fading. The diversity gain or
MIMO capacity depends on the correlation coefficients among
those channel coefficients of , see [3], and the SNR. The
correlation is influenced by the statistical properties of the
wave propagation and the antenna properties, in this case the
properties of the single modes. In the following the correlation
coefficient among two receive signals as a function of the
incident field is calculated. This is equivalent to the correlation
among the channel coefficients of for one transmit and two
receive antennas in a MIMO system.
The spatial wave propagation properties are describable by
the power azimuth and elevation profile and
for both polarizations and . To allow for analytical calcula-
tions typical statistical functions to model the wave propagation
are chosen. Measurements have shown, that the power azimuth
spectrum is best modeled by a Laplacian function [13]
for both polarizations. For the power elevation profile a
Gaussian function is assumed. The total power angle spectrum is
given by the product of the Laplacian function for the azimuth
and a Gaussian function for the elevation, normalized so that
. With [14] (earlier shown in [8] in a
similar way) it can easily be shown that the complex correlation
coefficient among two signals received by different antennas, in
this case different modes, is given by
(2)
1966
Fig. 9. Correlation coefficient among mode 1 (a) and mode 2 (c), excited at
the center of the spiral, and mode 1 (b), excited at the outer edge of the spiral to
generate orthogonal polarizations. The incident field has an elevation spread of
5 and azimuth spread of 60 . The lower frequency bound of mode 2 is 1.2 GHz,
thus the spiral does not work correctly for lower frequencies.
with the covariance
where is constant and the variance
where is the ratio of the power in -polarization to the
power in polarization at the receiver. Note, that is a func-
tion of the polarimetric radiation pattern, thus disappears for
orthogonally polarized antennas in this case lhc and rhc polar-
ized modes. The power correlation coefficient is obtained by
, according to [15].
Basically it is possible to use spiral or sinuous antennas with
any different modes and polarizations for multimode-diversity.
In the following first a spiral and second a sinuous antenna are
used to calculate the correlation coefficients among receive sig-
nals. The orientation of the both antenna planes is vertical. A
spiral antenna with mode 1 and mode 2, excited at the center of
the antenna, and a third mode (mode 1) with orthogonal polar-
ization excited at the outer edge of the antenna is used. Figs. 9
and 10 show the power correlation coefficient between
different modes for a large azimuth angular spread of 60 and
a small spread of 20 for a mean direction of 10 in azimuth
and 0 in elevation of the incident waves. The third mode is or-
thogonally polarized to the other modes, thus the correlation is
almost zero. The other modes are more strongly correlated as
the pattern of mode 1 and 2 partly overlap. On the other hand,
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
Fig. 10. Correlation coefficient among the same modes as in Fig. 9, but the
incident field has an elevation spread of 5 and an azimuth spread of 20 .
Due to slight changes in the pattern for different frequencies the correlation
coefficient changes. But it is over the whole frequency range low enough to
obtain a diversity gain.
(3)
(4)
Fig. 11. Correlation coefficient among mode 1 (1), mode 2 (2) and mode 3
(3) of the sinuous antenna. The incident field has an elevation spread of 5 and
azimuth spread of 60 . The lower frequency bound of mode 2 is 1.7 GHz, thus
the antenna does not work correctly for lower frequencies.
the different phases of the patterns of mode 1 and 2 (see Fig. 5)
decorrelate the received signals, since the single plane waves
from different directions superpose differently for each mode.
The influence of the feed network on the pattern of the modes
is neglected.
The sinuous antenna is used with three modes, all
excited at the center of the antenna. Figs. 11 and 12 show the
correlation coefficient versus frequency for the scenarios men-
tioned above. Mode 3 is orthogonally polarized to mode 1 and
2, thus the correlation is low. Mode 1 and 2 hardly overlap, thus
different signals are received.
In order to fulfill the requirement of an equal or “similar”
SNR of the signals received by different modes to obtain a diver-
sity gain the MEG may be used, see [16]. The MEG is defined as
the ratio of the mean received power of one antenna under test
to the mean received power of a reference antenna, when both
WALDSCHMIDT AND WIESBECK: COMPACT WIDE-BAND MULTIMODE ANTENNAS FOR MIMO AND DIVERSITY
Fig. 12. Correlation coefficient among the same modes as in Fig. 11, but the
incident field has an elevation spread of 5 and an azimuth spread of 20 . With
decreasing angular spread the correlation increases.
TABLE I
MEG OF DIFFERENT MODES IN DECIBELS (ELEVATION ANGULAR SPREAD 5 )
antennas are used in the same channel with the same transmit
antenna, see [17], [18]. For the assumptions on the wave propa-
gation made above the MEG can be calculated analytically for
an isotropic reference antenna.
(5)
where are the gain patterns for both polarizations. Table I
shows the MEGs for different antennas and modes for a cross-
polarization coupling of 8 dB. The MEGs of mode 3 of both
antennas are equal to the one of mode 1. Since the requirement
of orthogonal patterns, i.e., uncorrelated signals, and similar
MEGs are fulfilled, a diversity gain over a large bandwidth with
both antenna types, used as multimode antennas, is obtained.
IV. MIMO SYSTEMS BASED ON MULTIMODE-DIVERSITY
In order to show the potential of multimode antennas in
MIMO systems, simulations and measurements of the capacity
of a MIMO system with one multimode spiral antenna on each
side of the link, were performed. Additionally a comparison
with dipole antennas, arranged in parallel, is drawn. For the
simulations a sophisticated channel model is used. This model
does not allow for analytical calculations like in Section III,
but it allows to assess the MIMO performance in very realistic
environments.
1967
A. Simulations of the Capacity
The channel model used to calculate the capacity of MIMO
systems consisting of one spiral antenna at the transmitter and
one at the receiver is an extended version of the model described
in [19]. This stochastic channel model is based on ray-tracing
simulations and measurement campaigns in indoor scenarios.
It is a three dimensional double-directional channel model, in
other words provides the angle of departure and arrival of each
path. The channel model takes only non line-of-sight (NLOS)
connections into account. The power azimuth spectrum
is modeled by multiple Laplacian functions, each modeling a
cluster of scatterers. The elevation profile is modeled by a sine
function. The cross polarization coupling is 8 dB. The an-
tennas used for the simulation are one spiral antenna at the trans-
mitter and one at the receiver. Mode 1 and 2 are excited at the
center of the spiral, and mode 1 with orthogonal polarization is
excited at the outer edge of the spiral. Thus, the same modes
as in Section III at both transmitter and receiver are used. The
orientation of the spiral plane is again vertical. The result of
the simulations with this channel model are channel matrices
(obtained the same way as in [20]). Therefore, the capacity of
a MIMO system with no channel state information at the trans-
mitter can be calculated [2]
SNR
(6)
where SNR denotes SNR conjugate complex transpose and
is the number of transmit antennas, in this case the number
of different modes. The channel matrices in (6) are normalized
with
(7)
to obtain a constant mean gain of each channel matrix, see [21].
The SNR in (7) is the average SNR at the receiver. This normal-
ization allows to show the influence on the capacity of the cor-
relation properties and the distribution of the mean gains of the
channel coefficients. This distribution influences the capacity.
The channel coefficients between co-polarized modes have a
larger mean gain than those between cross-polarized modes.
Thus, the mean gains of the channel coefficients are not equal.
Equality is considered to be optimal, [2]. Fig. 14 shows the ca-
pacity distribution for a constant mean SNR at the receiver of
10 dB for 1000 channel realizations at 2 GHz. The 10% outage
capacity is approximately 7.3 bit/s/Hz.
B. Power Considerations
When the normalization in (7) is used in other words when
the gain of each channel matrix is normalized, the information
about it is lost. But to assess arrays for MIMO completely, this
information needs to be taken into account to assure a high effi-
ciency of the complete MIMO channel. Fig. 15 shows the cumu-
lative distribution function of the gain of the channel matrices
of the simulations. The comparison with a MIMO
system with arrays consisting of three vertical half-wavelength
1968 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
Fig. 13. Scenarios for the measurements. For the LOS scenarios transmitter
and receiver are placed in the same room. For the NLOS scenarios the
transmitter is placed in the corridor.
Fig. 14. Measured cumulative distribution functions of the capacity for
different antenna scenarios at 2 GHz. The three dipoles have spacings of =4.
The capacity of the NLOS measurements reaches higher capacities as in the
LOS scenarios for a constant mean SNR of 10 dB.
dipoles (also simulated with FEKO) with spacings on each
side of the link shows, that the gain of the channel matrices of
the multimode MIMO system is not worse than with the dipole
arrays. Additionally this distribution function is given for dipole
arrays with spacings on each side of the link.
C. Measurements
The measurements were performed with two spiral antennas.
The antenna were designed for a frequency range from 1.2 GHz
up to 2.5 GHz, limited by the feeding network. Mode 1 and 2 are
excited with the feeding network given in [9]. At the outer ends
of the arms a hybrid mode with orthogonal polarization com-
pared to the other modes is excited. The coupling between the
single modes is below 20 dB. The measurement system con-
sists of a two channel network analyzer, amplifiers and coaxial
switches. The channel coefficients were measured one by one.
All measurements were done during night, in order to reduce
the time variance of the channel. The measurements were per-
formed in an office building, with concrete ceilings and concrete
and wood covered walls. The average office size is 4 5 m, see
Fig. 13. The receive antennas were placed at the same position
Fig. 15. Transmission gain of different MIMO systems for the path based
channel model. The SISO system has one transmit and one receive dipole.
for all measurements. The transmitter was moved along two dif-
ferent routes, shown in Fig. 13. During the first route a strong
LOS component is present, whereas the other route is always
NLOS. Along each route measurements at 801 discrete frequen-
cies in the frequency range from 1.5 to 2.5 GHz at 210 different
positions were performed. The measured data are normalized,
according to (7), to obtain a constant mean SNR of each channel
matrix of 10 dB. Fig. 14 shows the cumulative capacity distribu-
tion for both routes at 2 GHz. The capacity distribution changes
negligibly with frequency. Due to the higher multipath richness
of the NLOS route, it outperforms the LOS route.
For comparison two dipole arrays, consisting of three dipoles
each, were used, one at each side of the link. The dipoles were
arranged in parallel with spacings of and vertical polariza-
tion. The array covers approximately the same area as the spiral
antenna with dimensions, so that the resonance frequency of the
dipoles equals the lower frequency bound of the spiral. Fig. 14
shows, that the dipoles perform worse than the spiral, since nei-
ther polarization nor pattern diversity is exploited. The space
diversity is very limited due to the small antenna spacings.
V. CONCLUSION
This paper shows that four-arm spiral and sinuous antennas
allow to exploit multimode diversity, which is a combination
of pattern and polarization diversity. The antennas are ex-
tremely broadband, thus allow applications for multistandard
radios. The space required for the antennas is relatively small.
If placing dipoles on the same space required by the spiral,
the dipoles do not reach the capacity of multimode-based
MIMO-systems.
REFERENCES
[1] J. H. Winters, “On the capacity of radio communication systems with
diversity in a rayleigh fading environment,” IEEE J. Select. Areas
Commun., vol. 5, pp. 871–877, May 1987.
[2] G. J. Foschini and M. J. Gans, “On limits of wireless communications in
a fading environment when using multiple antennas,” Wireless Personal
Commun., vol. 6, pp. 311–335, 1998.
WALDSCHMIDT AND WIESBECK: COMPACT WIDE-BAND MULTIMODE ANTENNAS FOR MIMO AND DIVERSITY
[3] C. Chuah, D. N. C. Tse, J. M. Kahn, and R. A. Valenzuela, “Capacity
scaling in MIMO wireless systems under correlated fading,” IEEE
Trans. Inform. Theory, vol. 48, pp. 637–650, 2002.
[4] E. N. Gilbert, “Energy reception for mobile radio,” Bell Syst. Tech. J.,
vol. 44, pp. 1779–1803, 1965.
[5] R. G. Vaughan and J. B. Andersen, “A multiport patch antenna for mo-
bile communications,” in Proc. 14th Eur. Microwave Conf., 1984, pp.
607–612.
[6] T. Svantesson, “An antenna solution for mimo channels: the multimode
antenna,” in Conf. Record 34th Asilomar Conf., vol. 2, 2000, pp.
1617–1621.
[7] O. K. Kim and J. D. Dyson, “A log-spiral antenna with selectable po-
larization,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. AP-19, pp. 675–677,
Apr. 1971.
[8] R. G. Vaughan and J. B. Andersen, “Antenna diversity in mobile com-
munications,” IEEE Trans. Veh. Technol., vol. 36, no. 4, pp. 149–172,
July 1987.
[9] E. Gschwendtner and W. Wiesbeck, “Multi-service dual-mode spiral
antenna for conformal integration into vehicle roofs,” in Proc. IEEE
Int. Symp. Antennas and Propagation AP-S, vol. 3, Davos, Switzerland,
2000, pp. 1532–1535.
[10] R. G. Corzine and J. A. Mosko, Four-Arm Spiral Antennas. Norwood,
MA: Artech House, 1990.
[11] T. T. Chu and H. G. Oltman, “The sinuous antenna,” Microwave Syst.,
News and Commun. Technol., vol. 18, pp. 40–48, 1988.
[12] www.emss.de [Online]
[13] K. I. Pedersen, P. M. Mogensen, and B. H. Fleury, “Spatial channel
characteristics in outdoor environments and their impact on BS antenna
system performance,” in Proc. IEEE Vehicular Technology Conf., 1998,
pp. 719–724.
[14] K. Fujimoto and J. R. James, Mobile Antenna Systems Handbook. Nor-
wood, MA: Artech House, 1994.
[15] J. R. Pierce and S. Stein, “Multiple diversity with nonindependent
fading,” in Proce. IRE, vol. 48, 1960, pp. 89–104.
[16] M. G. Douglas, M. Okoniewski, and M. A. Stuchly, “Performance of
pcs handset antennas in mobile environments,” in Proc. IEEE MTT-S
Int. Microwave Symp. Dig., vol. 3, 1997, pp. 1759–1762.
[17] J. B. Andersen and F. Hansen, “Antennas for VHF/UHF personal radio: a
theoretical and experimental study of characteristics and performance,”
IEEE Trans. Veh. Technol., vol. AP-26, pp. 349–357, 1977.
[18] T. Taga, “Analysis for mean effective gain in mobile antennas in land
mobile radio environments,” IEEE Trans. Veh. Technol., vol. 39, pp.
117–131, 1990.
[19] T. Zwick, C. Fischer, and W. Wiesbeck, “A stochastic multipath channel
model including path directions for indoor environments,” IEEE J. Se-
lect. Areas Commun., vol. 20, pp. 1178–1192, 2002.
[20] C. Waldschmidt, T. Fügen, and W. Wiesbeck, “Spiral and dipole an-
tennas for indoor MIMO-systems,” Antennas Wireless Propagat. Lett.,
vol. 1, no. 9, pp. 176–178, 2002.
2
[21] J. W. Wallace and M. A. Jensen, “Characteristics of measured 4 4 and
2
10 10 MIMO wireless channel data at 2.4 GHz,” in Proc. IEEE Symp.
Antennas and Propagation, vol. 3, 2001, pp. 96–99.
1969
Christian Waldschmidt (S’01) was born in Basel,
Switzerland, in 1976. He received the Dipl.-Ing.
(M.S.E.E.) degree in electrical engineering from the
Universität Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe, Germany, in 2000,
where he is currently working toward the Ph.D.
degree.
From 2001 to 2003, he was with the Institut für
Höchstfrequenztechnik und Elektronik (IHE), Uni-
versität Karlsruhe (TH), as a Research Assistant. He
serves as a Lecturer for smart antennas and radar an-
tenna systems for the Carl Cranz Series for scientific
education. His research activities mainly focus on multiple input multiple output
systems, smart antennas, small antennas, integration of antennas and vehicular
antennas for radar and mobile communications applications.
Werner Wiesbeck (SM’87–F’94) received the Dipl.-
Ing. (M.S.E.E.) and the Dr.-Ing. (Ph.D.E.E.) degrees
from the Technical University of Munich, Munich,
Germany, in 1969 and 1972, respectively.
From 1972 to 1983, he was with AEG-Tele-
funken in various positions including the Head of
Research and Development, Microwave Division,
Flensburg, Germany, and Marketing Director in
the Receiver and Direction Finder Division, Ulm.
During this period he had product responsibility for
millimeter-wave radars, receivers, direction finders
and electronic warfare systems. Since 1983, he has been Director of the Institut
für Höchstfrequenztechnik und Elektronik (IHE), University of Karlsruhe,
Karlsruhe, Germany, where he is presently Dean of the Faculty of Electrical
Engineering. In 1989 and 1994, respectively, he spent a six month sabbatical
at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena. He serves as a Permanent Lecturer
for radar system engineering and for wave propagation For the Carl Cranz
Series for Scientific Education. He is a Member of an Advisory Committee of
the EU-Joint Research Centre (Ispra/Italy), and he is an advisor to the German
Research Council (DFG), to the Federal German Ministry for Research and to
industry in Germany. His research topics include radar, remote sensing, wave
propagation and antennas.
Dr. Wiesbeck has received a number of awards including the IEEE Mil-
lennium Medal. Since 2002, he has been a Member of the “Heidelberger
Akademie der Wissenschaften.” He was a Member of the IEEE GRS-S AdCom
from 1992–2000, Chairman of the GRS-S Awards Committee from 1994 to
1998, Executive Vice President IEEE GRS-S from 1998 to 1999, President
IEEE GRS-S from 2000 to 2002, Associate Editor IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON
ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION from 1996 to 1999, past Treasurer of the IEEE
German Section. He has been General Chairman of the 1988 Heinrich Hertz
Centennial Symposium, the 1993 Conference on Microwaves and Optics
(MIOP ’93) and he has been a member of scientific committees of many
conferences.
1970 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
Ground Influence on the Input Impedance of Transient
Dipole and Bow-Tie Antennas
Andrian Andaya Lestari, Alexander G. Yarovoy, Member, IEEE, and Leo P. Ligthart, Fellow, IEEE
Abstract—In this paper, the influence of a lossy ground on the
input impedance of dipole and bow-tie antennas excited by a short
pulse is investigated. It is shown that the ground influence on the
input impedance of transient dipole and bow-tie antennas is signif-
icant only for elevations smaller than 1 5 of the wavelength that
corresponds to the central frequency of the exciting pulse. Further-
more, a principal difference between the input impedance due to
traveling-wave and standing-wave current distributions is pointed
out.
Index Terms—Bow-tie antenna, dipole antenna, input
impedance, transient antenna.
I. INTRODUCTION
D IPOLE and bow-tie antennas are employed in many
transient applications such as impulse ground penetrating
radar (GPR) for transmitting short transient pulses. The large
antenna bandwidth required to transmit such pulses with min-
imal distortion (e.g., antenna ringing) is usually obtained by
the application of resistive loading [1], [2]. As resistive loading
substantially reduces radiation efficiency [1], it is essential to
achieve maximum power transfer from the generator to the
antenna, for which the input impedance of the antenna should
be known.
The input impedances of time-harmonic and transient an-
tennas are principally different since the former is due to
standing-wave current distribution, while the latter is due to
traveling-wave current distribution. Publications with regard to
the input impedance of time-harmonic dipole and bow-tie an-
tennas near the ground are abundantly available in the literature.
On the contrary, not much of the input impedance of transient
dipole and bow-tie antennas near the ground has been reported.
In the free-space case, significant contributions were given by
Wu [3] and Carrel [4] who presented analytical expressions of
the input impedance of transient dipole and bow-tie antennas,
respectively. In this paper we analyze the input impedance of
transient dipole and bow-tie antennas near a lossy ground.
A numerical method to predict the input impedance of
arbitrary metallic transient antennas in free space using the
time-domain integral equation (TDIE) method has been
demonstrated by Booker, et al. [5]. In their work the TDIE is
Manuscript received March 7, 2003; revised August 20, 2003. This work
was supported by the Dutch Technology Foundation (STW) under the projects
“Improved Ground Penetrating Radar Technology” (1999–2000) and “Ad-
vanced Re-Locatable Multisensor System for Buried Landmine Detection”
(2001–2002).
The authors are with the International Research Centre for Telecommunica-
tions-Transmission and Radar (IRCTR), Delft University of Technology, Delft,
The Netherlands (e-mail: a.lestari@irctr.tudelft.nl).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2004.832371
0018-926X/04$20.00 © 2004 IEEE
numerically solved by the method of moments (MoM) using
the marching-on-in time approach. By neglecting end reflec-
tions in the time-domain solution, the input impedance is given
by the high-frequency limit of the frequency-domain solution
obtained by Fourier transforming the mentioned time-domain
solution. Unfortunately, when it comes to layered-medium
problems, well-suited Green’s functions in space-time domain
are not yet well documented. One of few developments of such
Green’s functions has recently been reported for analyzing the
response of a transient dipole in stratified media [6]. However,
layered-medium Green’s function formulations in space-time
domain which are directly applicable to surface-patch MoM
methodologies, are not yet widely reported.
The numerical analysis carried out in this work is based on
the frequency-domain integral equation (FDIE) method, as the
methods of solution for problems with layered media in fre-
quency domain are already well established. The FDIE incor-
porates a layered-medium Green’s function and is numerically
solved by a surface-patch MoM scheme for metallic nonwire
structures, whereas wire structures are approximated by narrow
strips. The input impedance of the transient antennas is ob-
tained by the Fourier transformation and a time-window tech-
nique for excluding end reflections. An experimental analysis is
performed to verify the computed results.
II. NUMERICAL METHOD
The work reported in this paper is based on a frequency-
domain mixed-potential integral equation (MPIE) formula-
tion. To account for the presence of the ground the dyadic
Green’s function formulation C for layered-medium problems
by Michalski and Zheng [7] is incorporated into the MPIE,
which is numerically solved by MoM according to the trian-
gular surface-patch methodology introduced by Rao, et al. [8].
Computation time is minimized by employing the efficient
numerical implementation introduced in [9].
In this work the antennas are excited by a monocycle with
0.8-ns duration shown in Fig. 1(a). In Fig. 1(b) its normalized
spectrum is given. The central frequency of this pulse is about
1 GHz and the dB levels are found at frequencies 424 MHz
and 1.670 GHz. It can be seen in Fig. 1(b) that the spectrum of
the exciting pulse is essentially contained within the 0–5 GHz
range.
In this paper, we develop a nonstraightforward numerical
method to predict the input impedance of a transient antenna in
four steps as follows.
1) Antenna feed current is computed in the frequency
domain with 1 Volt input voltage by means of the MoM
LESTARI et al.: GROUND INFLUENCE ON THE INPUT IMPEDANCE OF TRANSIENT DIPOLE AND BOW-TIE ANTENNAS
Fig. 1. Exciting pulse used in this work: (a) a monocycle with 0.8-ns duration
and (b) its normalized spectrum.
scheme mentioned above. For obtaining time-domain so-
lutions, the computations are performed at 100 frequency
points from 50 MHz to 5 GHz with 50-MHz steps.
2) Exciting pulse function is synthesized directly from
measurement of the 0.8-ns monocycle in Fig. 1(a), and used
as the excitation model in the computations.
3) The feed current of the same antenna with infinite length
(thus, no end reflections) is computed by means of the Fourier
transformation and a time-window technique for removal of
end reflections, which can concisely be written as
F W F (1)
where is the normalized F is the discrete
Fourier transformation operator, F is the discrete inverse
Fourier transformation operator, and W is the time-window
operator with smooth truncation process given by
for the left end (2a)
for the right end (2b)
1971
Fig. 2. Setup for input impedance measurements.
in which is the value of the real or imaginary part of the
argument, and is the decay rate of the truncation process
that assumes values in the range . We have found
that typically the performance of (2) is optimal with
. Note that when (2) reduces to a rectangular time
window.
4) Finally, the input impedance of the transient antenna is
obtained as
(3)
III. MEASUREMENT TECHNIQUE
We perform input impedance measurements in frequency do-
main using a standard network analyzer. The antennas are situ-
ated horizontally over a lossy ground, which in this case is dry
sand. The measurements are carried out without an anechoic
chamber, and consequently the results are heavily disturbed by
reflections from surrounding objects. To deal with this, the mea-
surement results are inverse-Fourier transformed into time do-
main, after which use of time gating is made to remove those
unwanted reflections. The actual impedance of the antenna can
be extracted afterwards by performing the Fourier transforma-
tion of the results back to frequency domain.
Furthermore, to properly measure balanced loads such as the
antennas discussed here, a balun is required. However, since
ultra-wideband baluns are difficult to produce and commer-
cially available ones are expensive, baluns are not used in the
measurements. A technique to measure the input impedance
of balanced antennas without baluns introduced in [10] is here
simplified. The antenna under test is fed using two identical
50-Ohm semi-rigid cables soldered together over their length,
except for a small part near the ends where SMA connectors
are attached. Each of the inner conductors of the other ends
is soldered to one of the antenna terminals in the way shown
in Fig. 2. The semi-rigid cables are connected by 50-Ohm
Sucoflex coaxial cables to the ports of the network analyzer,
which has been previously calibrated at the SMA connectors.
Hence, the reflection coefficient at the SMA connectors is
given by
(4)
where and are the -parameters measured by the net-
work analyzer. Disturbances caused by unwanted reflections can
1972 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
be removed from (4) by means of a time-gating operation, which
can be described by
F W F (5)
in which the time-window operator W implements the trunca-
tion process in (2). Using the dielectric constant and the
insertion loss of the semi-rigid cables provided by the man-
ufacturer, the reflection coefficient at the antenna terminal can
then be written as
(6)
where is the phase constant which depends on is two
times the length of the semi-rigid cables and is given in dB/m.
Several available values of for different frequencies are inter-
polated to obtain the values of over the whole frequency range.
Finally, the input impedance of the antenna is given by
(7)
where is the characteristic impedance of the semi-rigid
cables, which has a value of 100 Ohms due to the double-line
configuration shown in Fig. 2.
It is worth noting that antenna length is actually not important
for the input impedance of transient antennas. However, in the
above technique antenna length is important for computation
and measurement procedures, i.e.,
— to ensure separation in time between feed-point and
end reflections for time window application,
— to obtain adequate duration of the time window since
a finite time window limits the lowest frequency at
which input impedance can be determined.
In this work we use antennas with 50-cm length, which allows
application of a time window with 2-ns duration for excitation
with the 0.8-ns monocycle.
IV. ANALYSIS
As the input impedance of a transient dipole is frequency de-
pendent [3], the input impedance is determined with respect to
the exciting pulse using the averaging given by [11]
(8)
in which and are the frequencies which correspond to the
lower and upper limits of the pulse spectrum, respectively, and
is the antenna input impedance. It has been indicated in
[11] that it is adequate to assume over the range
, and this is followed here with and cor-
responding to the dB limits of the exciting pulse in Fig. 1.
Hence, in (8) can be interpreted as the input impedance
with respect to the exciting pulse (the 0.8-ns monocycle). In this
work in (8) is replaced with in (3). In this way,
(8) is improved because prior to using the averaging in (8) we
Fig. 3. Experimental dipole over dry sand. Length = 50 cm and wire diameter
= 2 mm.
perform time windowing in (1), which greatly reduces the oscil-
lation of the impedance curve. In effect, this approach improves
the averaging process.
The computed and measured input impedances of the hori-
zontal transient dipole in Fig. 3 with respect to the 0.8-ns mono-
cycle as function of elevation above the sand are presented in
Fig. 4(a). The wire is modeled as a thin strip using the equiva-
lent radius formula [12]. The result computed by the Numerical
Electromagnetics Code (NEC-2) is included for comparison. It
can be seen that in general the computations agree with the mea-
surement. At the highest elevation the computed and measured
values of the reactance are about 200 , in accordance with the
result obtained using the expression given in [3]. For very small
distances from the interface we observe that the result computed
by the triangular-patch MoM suffers from a slight discrepancy
with the measurement. We notice that this discrepancy might be
caused by the variation of the electrical length of the feed gap of
the experimental antenna when it approaches the ground. Such
a phenomenon is however not experienced by the delta-function
generator assumed in the triangular-patch MoM. The delta-gap
model used by NEC, on the other hand, accommodates this phe-
nomenon as it uses a feed segment with the same length as the
feed gap width of the experimental antenna. This leads to better
agreement with the measurement for small distances from the
interface as shown in the figure. The result computed using the
commercial MoM code FEKO, which is based on the same tri-
angular-patch MoM methodology, is also included. It can be
seen that generally agreement between our code and FEKO is
achieved. To further test the accuracy of our results, computa-
tions are carried out using our code and FEKO for a 1-mm wire
diameter and the results are presented in Fig. 4(b), in which the
results for a 2-mm diameter in Fig. 4(a) are also shown. It is
demonstrated in Fig. 4(b) that agreement is generally achieved.
The observed slight discrepancy in reactance may be attributed
to different densities of the mesh generated by the codes, es-
pecially in the feed region of the antenna. Moreover, we note
that agreement between the results for small elevations indicates
the accuracy of numerical evaluation of the layered-medium
Green’s function.
LESTARI et al.: GROUND INFLUENCE ON THE INPUT IMPEDANCE OF TRANSIENT DIPOLE AND BOW-TIE ANTENNAS
Fig. 4. (a) Input impedance of the transient dipole in Fig. 3 with respect to
the 0.8-ns monocycle as function of elevation above the sand. (b) Comparison
between this work and FEKO for two different wire diameters (1 and 2 mm).
Additional proof of the accuracy of the numerical results is
given in Fig. 5 by comparison with analytical results, obtained
using the theory in [3]. The input impedance of a transient dipole
in free space is plotted for two different wire diameters, 1 and 2
mm. It can be seen that for sufficiently high frequencies gen-
erally agreement between numerical and analytical results is
achieved. The observed slight discrepancy at high frequencies
may be explained by difference in the excitation models of the
antenna. The theory in [3] assumes excitation from a coaxial
feed system, while for excitation we use a delta-function gen-
erator. The large discrepancy at low frequencies is due to the
finite length of the time window, which imposes limitation on
the lowest frequency at which accuracy of the result is ensured.
To obtain improved accuracy at lower frequencies one should
use a longer antenna for allowing a longer time window.
It is advisable to mention the advantages and disadvantages
of the used codes. The advantage of NEC-2 is the efficiency
for handling wire structures as it employs thin-wire approx-
imation, which reduces formulation of the problem into a
1973
Fig. 5. Input impedance of transient dipoles in free space for two different wire
diameters: analytical against numerical results. Analytical results are obtained
using [3]; numerical results are computed by our code.
one-dimensional integral equation. However, to this work the
main drawback of NEC-2 is that it renders inaccurate when
modeling antennas very close to the ground. In Fig. 4(a) NEC-2
computation is interrupted at 5-mm elevation because for lower
elevations the results become inaccurate. One of the advan-
tages of our triangular-patch MoM code is its capability of
modeling antennas touching the interface. In addition, it offers
flexibility for modeling metallic antennas of arbitrary shape.
In comparison with NEC-2 the obvious disadvantage of the
code when treating wire structures is its lower computation
efficiency since it employs a surface integral formulation.
To analyze the influence of a lossy ground on the input
impedance of the transient dipole we compute the input
impedance with respect to the 0.8-ns monocycle as func-
tions of antenna elevation for different ground types.
In particular, we assume the ground to be sandy soil
( S/m), dry clay ( S/m),
wet clay ( S/m), and muddy soil
( S/m). Furthermore, two different wire
diameters of 1 and 2 mm are assumed to investigate the influ-
ence of the wire thickness on the results. The computed input
resistance and reactance with respect to the 0.8-ns monocycle
are plotted in Fig. 6, where it is evident that the presence of
the ground significantly affects the impedance only for very
small distances from the interface. In Fig. 6 it is shown that,
the ground influence is already very small at elevations higher
than 6 cm for a wide range of ground types. Noting that the
central frequency of the 0.8-ns monocycle is about 1 GHz
(corresponding to a wavelength of 30 cm), as a generalization
of the results one may state that the ground essentially affects
the input impedance of a transient dipole only when the antenna
elevation is smaller than of the wavelength that corresponds
to the central frequency of the exciting pulse.
Evidently, wire diameter exhibits a considerable influence
on the resistance as demonstrated in Fig. 6, which indicates
that doubling the wire diameter from 1 to 2 mm reduces the
resistance by about 19%. It is also worth noting that for a very
1974 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
Fig. 6. Computed input impedance of a transient dipole with respect to the
0.8-ns monocycle as functions of elevation for different ground types.
close proximity to the interface, the input resistance decreases as
the dipole approaches the interface. We note that this behavior
is the opposite of the time-harmonic case, in which for very
small distances from the interface the input resistance increases
as the dipole is lowered [13], [14]. This result indicates a
principal difference between traveling-wave and standing-wave
current distributions of transient and time-harmonic antennas,
respectively.
In this paper the input impedance of a transient bow-tie
antenna is computed as functions of elevation above the ground
for flare angles of 30 , 50 , and 70 . The computed input
impedance of a transient bow tie above sandy soil ( and
S/m) with respect to the 0.8-ns monocycle is pre-
sented in Fig. 7. We notice in the figure that for the three flare
angles the value of the reactance at a 6-cm elevation is already
close to zero, which is the free-space value of the characteristic
reactance of a transient bow tie [4]. Moreover, by inspection of
the result given in [4] it is found that that at a 6-cm elevation the
resistance nearly assumes its free-space value. Hence, similar
to the case of the transient dipole discussed previously it is
shown that the ground essentially affects the input impedance
of a transient bow-tie antenna only when the antenna elevation
Fig. 7. Computed input impedance of a transient bow tie as functions of
elevation above sandy soil for different flare angles.
is smaller than of the wavelength that corresponds to the
central frequency of the exciting pulse.
V. CONCLUSION
The influence of a lossy ground on the input impedance
of dipole and bow-tie antennas excited by a short pulse is
investigated. It is shown that the ground influence on the input
impedance of a transient dipole and bow-tie antennas is signif-
icant only for elevations smaller than of the wavelength
that corresponds to the central frequency of the exciting pulse.
Furthermore, it is shown that for a very close proximity to the
interface, the input resistance of a transient dipole decreases
as the dipole approaches the interface. This behavior is the
opposite of the time-harmonic case, in which for very small
distances from the interface the input resistance increases as
the dipole is lowered.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors thank P. Hakkaart for his assistance in the con-
struction of the experimental antenna and J. Zijderveld for his
assistance in the measurements.
REFERENCES
[1] T. P. Montoya and G. S. Smith, “A study of pulse radiation from several
broad-band loaded monopoles,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol.
44, pp. 1172–1182, Aug. 1996.
[2] K. L. Shlager, G. S. Smith, and J. G. Maloney, “Optimization of bow-tie
antennas for pulse radiation,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 42,
pp. 975–982, July 1994.
[3] T. T. Wu, “Input admittance of infinitely long dipole antennas driven
from coaxial lines,” J. Math. Phys., vol. 3, pp. 1298–1301, 1962.
[4] R. L. Carrel, “The characteristic impedance of two infinite cones of ar-
bitrary cross section,” IRE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. AP-6, pp.
197–201, Apr. 1958.
[5] S. M. Booker, A. P. Lambert, and P. D. Smith, “A numerical calculation
of transient antenna impedance,” in Proc. 2nd Int. Conf. Computation in
Electromagnetics, 1994, pp. 359–362.
[6] A. G. Tijhuis and A. Rubio Bretones, “Transient excitation of a layered
dielectric medium by a pulsed electric dipole,” IEEE Trans. Antennas
Propagat., vol. 48, pp. 1673–1684, Oct. 2000.
LESTARI et al.: GROUND INFLUENCE ON THE INPUT IMPEDANCE OF TRANSIENT DIPOLE AND BOW-TIE ANTENNAS
[7] K. A. Michalski and D. Zheng, “Electromagnetic scattering and radia-
tion by surfaces of arbitrary shape in layered media, part I: Theory, part
II: Implementation and results for contiguous half-spaces,” IEEE Trans.
Antennas Propagat., vol. 38, pp. 335–352, Mar. 1990.
[8] S. M. Rao, D. R. Wilton, and A. W. Glisson, “Electromagnetic scattering
by surfaces of arbitrary shape,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol.
AP-30, pp. 409–418, May 1982.
[9] A. A. Lestari, A. G. Yarovoy, and L. P. Ligthart, “Numerical and ex-
perimental analysis of circular-end wire bow-tie antennas over a lossy
ground,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 52, pp. 26–35, Jan. 2004.
[10] K. D. Palmer and M. W. van Rooyen, “Simple broadband measurement
of balanced loads using a network analyzer,” in CD-ROM Proc. Mil-
lenium Conf. Antennas Propagat. (AP-2000), Davos, Switzerland, Apr.
2000.
[11] R. W. P. King and H. J. Schmitt, “The transient response of linear an-
tennas and loops,” IRE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 10, pp. 222–228,
May 1962.
[12] C. M. Butler, “The equivalent radius of a narrow conducting strip,” IEEE
Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. AP-30, pp. 755–758, July 1982.
[13] G. Turner, “The Influence of subsurface properties on ground pene-
trating radar pulses,” Ph.D. dissertation, Macquarie University, Sydney,
NSW, Australia, 1993.
[14] C. J. Leat, N. V. Shuley, and G. F. Stickley, “Complex image model for
ground-penetrating radar antennas,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat.,
vol. 46, pp. 1483–1488, Oct. 1998.
Andrian Andaya Lestari was born in Bogor,
Indonesia. He received the Ingenieur and Ph.D. de-
grees in electrical engineering from Delft University
of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands, in 1993 and
2003, respectively.
From 1993 to 1998, he was with a government
research agency in Jakarta, Indonesia. He joined
the International Research Centre for Telecommu-
nications-transmission and Radar (IRCTR), Delft
University of Technology, as a Researcher in 1998.
His work at IRCTR has resulted in over 20 publica-
tions, which include national and international patents, journal and conference
papers, and scientific reports. Currently he works on ultrawide-band antennas
and numerical tools for transient antenna analysis.
1975
Alexander G. Yarovoy (M’96) received the Diploma
(with honors) in radiophysics and electronics and
the Cand. Phys. & Math. Sci. and Dr. Phys. &
Math. Sci. degrees in radiophysics, from Kharkov
State University, Kharkov, Ukraine, in 1984, 1987,
and 1994, respectively.
In 1987, he joined the Department of Radio-
physics, Kharkov State University, as a Researcher
and became a Professor in 1997. From September
1994 through 1996, he was with the Technical
University of Ilmenau, Germany, as a Visiting
Researcher. Since 1999, he has been with the International Research Centre
for Telecommunications-Transmission and Radar (IRCTR), Delft University
of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands, where he coordinates all GPR-related
projects. His main research interests are in ultrawide-band electromagnetics,
wave scattering from statistically rough surfaces and penetrable obstacles and
computational methods in electromagnetics.
Leo P. Ligthart (M’94–SM’95–F’02) was born in
Rotterdam, the Netherlands, on September 15, 1946.
He received the Engineer’s degree (cum laude)
and the Doctor of Technology degree from Delft
University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands, in
1969 and 1985, respectively, the Doctorates (honoris
causa) from Moscow State Technical University
of Civil Aviation, Moscow, Russia, in 1999, and
the Doctorates (honoris causa) from Tomsk State
University of Control Systems and Radioelectronics,
Tomsk, Russia, in 2001.
Since 1992, he has held the Chair of Microwave Transmission, Radar and
Remote Sensing in the Department of Information Technology and Systems,
Delft University of Technology, where in 1994, he became Director of the In-
ternational Research Centre for Telecommunications-Transmission and Radar.
His principal areas of specialization include antennas and propagation, radar
and remote sensing, but he has also been active in satellite, mobile, and radio
communications.
1976 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004

Adaptive Crossed Dipole Antennas Using a

Genetic Algorithm
Randy L. Haupt, Fellow, IEEE

Abstract—Antenna misalignment in a mobile wireless commu- and directivity of the receive and/or transmit antennas must be
nications system results in a signal loss due to a decrease in an- adaptively changed if the positions of the two antennas change.
tenna directivity and a polarization mismatch. A genetic algorithm Adaptive antennas usually place a null in the antenna pattern
(GA) is used to adaptively alter the polarization and directivity of a
crossed dipole receive antenna in order to increase the link budget. to reject interference or steer a beam toward a desired signal.
The three orthogonal dipole configuration works better than only Phased arrays have more than one antenna, so they are perfect
two crossed dipoles, but both improved the link loss as the angular for adapting their patterns. Adapting the polarization, however,
pointing errors increased. A GA with a high mutation rate works requires an antenna that can modify the major and minor axes
best for a noiseless open loop adaptation, while a GA with a low
of its polarization ellipse. Crossed dipoles are perfect for this
mutation rate works best for noisy fully adaptive system.
application.
Index Terms—Adaptive antenna, crossed dipole, genetic algo- The crossed dipole antenna has found use before in systems
rithm (GA), polarization, smart antenna.
requiring antennas that change their polarization. A wireless
communications system in a high multipath environment can
I. INTRODUCTION improve the link better through polarization diversity in the
form of crossed dipoles than through spatial diversity (antenna
I F ONE OR MORE of the antennas in a wireless commu-
nication system is mobile, then as the antennas move, the
direction of the peak gains and the polarization of the antennas
separation) [1]. A crossed dipole consists of two or three
orthogonal dipoles. When linearly polarized signals become
depolarized due to reflections, each dipole can receive the
change. As a result, the power received goes down. For instance,
electric field component parallel to it. Using three orthogonal
a wireless system that transmits vertical polarization has some
crossed dipoles has been experimentally shown to significantly
of its power converted to horizontal polarization as the signal re-
increase channel capacity of a wireless communication system
flects from the environment. Unless the receive antenna can de-
inside a building [2].
tect both polarizations, the received power decreases. Another
The polarization and directivity of a crossed dipole antenna
example is when a spacecraft orbits the earth; the antennas in
are easy to control. One dipole controls the electric field parallel
the communications system no longer align for optimum power
to it and the orthogonal dipoles control the electric fields par-
transfer. Antenna engineers design the antennas for maximum
allel to them. Each dipole has an independent complex weight.
directivity and polarization match when the antennas point at
Controlling the amplitude and phase of the signal at each dipole
each other. Both the directivity and polarization of an antenna
modifies the electric field amplitude and phase in orthogonal
change with angle. If the antennas do not point at each other,
directions resulting in any polarization from linear through el-
then the product of the receive and transmit antenna directivi-
liptical to circular. Modifying the amplitude and phase of the
ties goes down. The directivity loss coupled with the polariza-
signal at the dipoles also modifies the directivity of the antenna
tion mismatch reduces the received power.
as well.
An obvious solution to this problem is to keep the antennas
Adaptive crossed dipoles alter their polarization based upon
pointing at each other. Constantly maneuvering a spacecraft re-
environmental conditions. When a transmitted circularly polar-
quires an unacceptable expenditure of precious fuel, though.
ized millimeter wave passes through rain, it becomes elliptically
Steering the ground antenna is another option but only solves
polarized. The depolarization can be calculated if the rainfall
half of the problem, since the spacecraft might still be out of
rate is known. Reference [3] proposed an open loop adaptive
alignment. If the antenna is a phased array, then steering the
transmit antenna that adjusted its polarization based upon the
main beam maximizes the directivity but does not improve the
measured rainfall in the propagation path. In [4], a least mean
polarization mismatch.
square (LMS) algorithm adapted the polarization and pattern of
One way to improve the link budget is to adaptively change
a two element array of crossed dipoles to improve the signal to
the antenna polarization and directivity to maximize the power
interference plus noise ratio (SINR). As long as the desired and
transfer. In order to improve the link budget, the polarization
interference signals are not at the same angles and have the same
polarizations, the SINR was improved. In another paper, the
Manuscript received February 10, 2003; revised May 27, 2003. LMS algorithm was used to find amplitude and phase weights
The author was with the Utah State University, Electrical and Computer for three orthogonal dipole antennas in order to improve the
Engineering, Logan, UT 84322-4120 USA. He is now with the Applied SINR. This arrangement provided some rejection for interfer-
Research Laboratory, Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA 16804
USA (e-mail: haupt@ieee.org). ence signals for most angles of arrival and polarizations [5]. A
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2004.832493 previous paper presented results from adaptively adjusting the
0018-926X/04$20.00 © 2004 IEEE
HAUPT: ADAPTIVE CROSSED DIPOLE ANTENNAS USING A GA 1977

the crossed dipole current is the sum of the constant currents on

each short dipole

(1)

Substituting this current into the equation for the magnetic

vector potential for a short dipole yields

(2)

where
distance from the origin to the field point at ;
dipole length in the and directions;
radial frequency;
wave number;
permeability;
constant current in or direction.
In the far field, the electric field in rectangular coordinates is
found from the magnetic vector potential by
Fig. 1. Coordinate system for the crossed dipole transmit and receive antennas.
(3)
amplitude and phase of the current fed to one dipole while the
other dipole had an amplitude of one and phase of zero. The Nu- The transmitted electric field is given by
merical Electromagnetic Code generated the electromagnetic
response of the dipole antennas and a local optimizer performed
the optimization [6]. It was found that optimizing only for cir-
cular polarization produces losses in radiated power that offset Converting this rectangular form of the electric field into spher-
the polarization correction. An improvement in the power trans- ical coordinates produces the far field components
ferred increased up to a maximum of 2.0 dB at . Using
adaptive crossed dipoles at the transmitter and receiver was also
considered and further improved the model.
This paper expands upon a recent presentation that introduced (4)
the application of a genetic algorithm (GA) to adaptively change
the current fed to crossed dipole antennas in order to improve (5)
the link budget [7]. The dipole model consists of three orthog-
onal short dipoles with variable control of the phase and am- The directivity is given by
plitude fed to each element. A GA is used to maximize the
received signal by improving the directivity and polarization
match through weighting the currents at each dipole. Improve-
ments in the link budget of up to 6 dB are possible. (6)
and the polarization loss factor is
II. CROSSED DIPOLE MODEL
Satellite communications systems use circularly polarized
antennas for the satellite and the ground antennas. In this
paper, the circularly polarized antennas are modeled as crossed (7)
dipoles. Consequently, controlling the amplitude and phase of
the signals at the dipoles of the transmit and receive antennas,
modifies the directivity and polarization of both antennas. where with a perfect match. The
In this case, the crossed dipole has three orthogonal dipoles. and subscripts represent transmit and receive, respectively.
The receive antenna is located at an angle of from Equations (10) and (11) are key ingredients to the link budget.
the transmit antenna (Fig. 1). Similarly, the transmit antenna The examples presented here assume the earth station con-
is located at an angle of from the receive antenna. sists of a pair of orthogonal crossed dipoles in the plane
Maximum power transfer occurs when and . transmitting a circularly polarized field in the -direction. In-
In order to determine the directivity and polarization of the creasing toward the horizon transitions from circular polar-
antennas, the electric fields can be found from the currents on ization through elliptical until linear polarization results at the
the dipoles. If the dipoles are assumed to be short , horizon. In this paper, the transmit antenna has the following
1978
Fig. 2. Circularly polarized crossed dipoles along the x and y axes. This is a
hemispherical plot of the inverse axial ratio. Light color indicates high with a
0
value of 1 in the z -direction and a value of 0 in the x y plane.
Fig. 3. Plot of the inverse axial ratio versus the elevation angle.
currents: , , and . Fig. 2 shows a hemispher-
ical plot and Fig. 3 a linear plot of the inverse axial ratio as a
function of . White (at the poles) represents an inverse axial
ratio of one (circular polarization), while black (at the equator)
is an inverse axial ratio of zero (linear polarization). Increasing
also changes the antenna directivity as shown in Figs. 4 and
5 from a maximum at 0 (white) to a minimum at 90 (black).
Compensating for the loss in directivity and polarization match
can improve the link budget by several decibels.
III. GENETIC ALGORITHM OPTIMIZATION
In a wireless communications system, the goal is to maximize
the power transfer between the transmit and receive antennas.
The following fitness function calculates the portion of the link
budget relating to polarization and directivity from the ampli-
tude and phase of the currents for each dipole:
where is the directivity of the transmit crossed dipoles in the
direction of the receive crossed dipoles, and is the directivity
of the receive crossed dipoles in the direction of the transmit
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
Fig. 4. Circularly polarized crossed dipoles along the x and y axes. This is a
hemispherical plot of the directivity. Light color indicates high with a value in
0
the y -direction and a low value in the x y plane.
Fig. 5. Plot of the directivity versus the elevation angle.
crossed dipoles. Since the crossed dipoles have a maximum di-
rectivity close to one, the directivities are not normalized in the
objective function. The maximum possible value of this fitness
function is approximately 2.25 or 3.5 dB.
There are several approaches to performing the adaptation.
With current technology, the most likely approach is to do an
open loop adaptation. The satellite uses various sensors to make
it aware of its orientation. Once its orientation is known, then the
dipole currents can be found from a lookup table of optimized
values, or the optimization could be done at that time. Noise and
orientation errors limit the improvement possible. The other ap-
proach is a fully adaptive system capable of correcting for noise
and system inaccuracies. This approach would be necessary for
using the adaptive dipoles on another mobile system, such as an
airplane, where the orientation and environment of the dipoles
quickly changes and cannot be predicted ahead of time.
A continuous parameter GA was used to find the values of the
(8) amplitude and phase of the receive dipole currents that max-
imize (12). The GA has a population size of 8, mutation rate
of .2, single point crossover, and 50% replacement. This small
population size and high mutation rate results in a very fast con-
vergence as will be shown in the following section. The goal of
HAUPT: ADAPTIVE CROSSED DIPOLE ANTENNAS USING A GA
Fig. 6. Average number of function calls needed to get the fitness above 3 for
various population sizes and mutation rates.
Fig. 7. Link is optimal when the two antennas face each other or  =  = 0.
the optimization process is to quickly improve the communica-
tions link, not necessarily find the global minimum. Fig. 6 shows
the results of optimizing (8) using a GA for population sizes be-
tween 8 and 32 and mutation rate between 0.1 and 0.2. No noise
was used in these runs. The plot is of the mean number of func-
tion calls to get (8) above 3 dB averaged over 50 independent
runs when the GA begins with a random population. A small
population size and large mutation rate produce the fastest con-
vergence on average for the open loop adaptation.
IV. RESULTS
In all the examples presented here, the orientation of the
ground and satellite antennas are assumed to change with time
unless otherwise specified Fig. 7. Even though the distances
between the antennas would also change, this variation is
ignored. As the orientations of the antennas vary with time, so
do their directivity and polarizations in the directions of each
other.
Assume that the transmit antenna (ground station) tracks the
satellite and the receive antenna (satellite) points at
the ground ( varies). The transmit antenna continues to de-
liver a circularly polarized signal at maximum directivity to
the moving receive antenna. If the receive antenna consists of
two crossed dipoles, then the maximum receive power transfer
occurs when the receive antenna is directly overhead of the
transmit antenna. If the receive antenna remains circularly po-
larized as it moves, then the power received drops off at the rate
shown by the dashed line in Fig. 8. The loss in power transfer
1979
Fig. 8. In this case,  varies with time and  = 0. The receive antenna
consists of two crossed dipoles. The solid line results from adaptation and the
dashed line has no adaptation.
Fig. 9. In this case,  varies with time and  = 0. The receive antenna
consists of three crossed dipoles. The solid line results from adaptation and the
dashed line has no adaptation.
is due to the reduction in the directivity and the PLF. If the cur-
rents at each dipole are optimally weighted using the GA, then
the power loss follows the solid line in Fig. 8. This curve re-
sults from running the GA to find the optimum weights for a
range of angles. The difference between the two curves is the
link improvement. The link improvement is as much as 3 dB at
. In this case, all the improvement is due to increasing
the directivity of the receive antenna.
Adding a third orthogonal dipole to the receive antenna pro-
vides another degree of freedom. Now, adapting the receive an-
tenna to the tracking transmit antenna results in no change in the
link budget as a function of (solid line in Fig. 9). The three
orthogonal dipoles can compensate for the change in directivity
and polarization of the receive antenna as it moves. This sce-
nario produces up to 6 dB improvement in the link budget at
.
Another scenario has both two dipole antennas pointing
straight ahead (no tracking) while the satellite moves (
and change with time). Fig. 10 shows the improvement (solid
line) possible through adaptation compared to the link loss with
no adaptation (dashed line). The link improvement is as much
as 3 dB at . Adding a third dipole produces even better
1980 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004

Fig. 10. In this case,  = vary with time. The receive antenna consists of two crossed dipoles. The solid line results from adaptation and the dashed line has
no adaptation.

Fig. 11. In this case,  = vary with time. The receive antenna consists of three crossed dipoles. The solid line results from adaptation and the dashed line has
no adaptation.

link improvement than the two dipole case, particularly at generation 21, the number of fitness function evaluations made
smaller angles (Fig. 11). The maximum improvement is 3 dB by this GA run is
at .
How fast can a GA adapt? If the receive antenna continuously
adapts as it moves, then only small perturbations are necessary
(9)
at each angle and the adaptation is very fast. As an example,
consider maximizing the link budget of the receive antenna with
three orthogonal dipoles at . If the adaptation starts A fitness function evaluation equates to a power measurement
with the optimal weightings at , then the solid curve in a real system. If the adaptation starts with the optimal weight-
in Fig. 12 results. In order to reach the steady state solution at ings at , then the dashed curve in results. Continuously
HAUPT: ADAPTIVE CROSSED DIPOLE ANTENNAS USING A GA 1981

Fig. 12. Typical link improvement versus generation for a three orthogonal dipole receive antenna at an angle of 50 . If the adaptation process is started with the
receive antenna at circular polarization (0 ), then the GA finds an optimum in 21 generations or about 100 power measurements (solid line). If the process starts
with the optimum dipole weights at 45 , then minimal adaptation is necessary (dashed line).

TABLE I
AVERAGE MAXIMUM AND MEAN OF THE POPULATION OVER 100
GENERATIONS FOR VARIOUS MUTATION RATES AND NOISE VARIANCES

Fig. 13. Performance of the GA when normally distributed noise is added to

=
the amplitude and phase of the currents fed to the dipoles ( 0 and  = 0:1).
The GA has a population size of 8 and mutation rate of 0.2.

adapting the signal results in constant incremental improvement

of the link. Even if the antenna must be adapted from circular
polarization, the GA quickly finds an acceptable solution. The
results are not dependent upon .
Noise was added to the currents of the dipoles of the transmit
antennas to see how well the GA performs in a noisy envi-
ronment. Using a population size of 8 and mutation rate of
0.2, a plot of the link improvement versus generation shows
ups and downs due to the random variations (Fig. 13). The
transmit dipole current amplitude and phase errors are normally
Fig. 14. Performance of the GA when normally distributed noise is added to
distributed with a mean and standard deviation given by the amplitude and phase of the currents fed to the dipoles ( = 0 and  = 0:1).
and . Note that the mean of the population has high The GA has a population size of 8 and mutation rate of 0.02.
variations due to the large mutation rate. Using a small mutation
rate of 0.02, results in a much lower variations in the mean mutation rate are lower. Consequently, when noise is included,
of the population (Fig. 14). Even though the higher mutation a lower mutation rate is more desirable. Table I shows that the
rate finds an optimal solution faster than the lower mutation average for the population mean over 100 generations is better
rate, the average power measurements associated with the high when the mutation rate is smaller.
1982 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
Fig. 15. Performance of the GA when normally distributed noise is added to
=
the amplitude and phase of the currents fed to the dipoles ( 0 and  = 0:1)
and the satellite is moving 1 per generation. The GA has a population size of
8 and mutation rate of 0.2.
Fig. 16. Performance of the GA when normally distributed noise is added to
the amplitude and phase of the currents fed to the dipoles ( = 0 and  = 0:1)
and the satellite is moving 1 per generation. The GA has a population size of
8 and mutation rate of 0.02.
In a fully adaptive system, the GA would also have to adapt
while the satellite moves. The next set of simulations used the
same error statistics as before and had the satellite move 1 per
generation. Fig. 15 shows the convergence curve when the mu-
tation rate is 0.2. Again, the mean of the population has very
high variations. Fig. 16 shows the convergence curve when the
mutation rate is 0.02. The smaller mutation rate is more desir-
able, because the variations in the population mean are small. A
high mutation rate works best for a no noise environment, and a
low mutation rate works best in the presence of noise.
V. CONCLUSION
The received signal in a mobile communications system
loses strength due to a decrease in antenna directivity and polar-
ization mismatch. The current fed to a set of crossed dipoles can
be modified to increase the directivity and polarization match
between the transmit and receive antennas. Two orthogonal
dipoles can compensate for the loss in gain but not polarization.
Three adaptive orthogonal dipoles can fully restore the loss due
to loss in directivity and polarization mismatch if tracked by the
transmit antenna. A GA quickly adapts the receive antenna to
the transmitted signal. Three orthogonal dipoles provide more
improvement than just two orthogonal dipoles.
REFERENCES
[1] A. Singer, “Space versus polarization diversity,” Wireless Review, pp.
164–168, Feb. 15, 1998.
[2] M. R. Andrews, P. P. Mitra, and R. deCarvalho, “Tripling the capacity of
wireless communications using electromagnetic polarization,” Nature,
vol. 409, pp. 316–318, Jan 18, 2001.
[3] R. E. Marshall and C. W. Bostian, “An adaptive polarization correction
scheme using circular polarization,” in Proc. IEEE Int. Antennas and
Propagation Society Symp., Atlanta, GA, June 1974, pp. 395–397.
[4] R. T. Compton, “On the performance of a polarization sensitive adaptive
array,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. AP-29, pp. 718–725, Sept.
1981.
[5] , “The tripole antenna: an adaptive array with full polarization flexi-
bility,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. AP-29, pp. 944–952, Nov.
1981.
[6] B. D. Griffin, R. Haupt, and Y. C. Chung, “Adaptive polarization
for spacecraft communications system,” presented at the Proc. IEEE
Aerospace Conf., Big Sky, MT, Mar. 2002.
[7] R. Haupt, “Adaptive crossed dipole antennas,” in URSI General As-
sembly, Maastricht, Netherlands, Aug. 2002.
Randy L. Haupt (M’82–SM’90–F’00) received the
B.S. degree in electrical engineering from the U.S.
Air Force Academy, U.S. Academy, CO, the M.S.
degree in engineering management from Western
New England College, Springfield, MA, in 1981,
the M.S. degree in electrical engineering from
Northeastern University, Boston, MA, in 1983, and
the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in 1987.
He was a Professor of electrical engineering at the
U.S. Air Force Academy and Professor and Chair of
Electrical Engineering at the University of Nevada - Reno. In 1997, he retired as
a Lt. Col. in the U.S. Air Force. He was a Project Engineer for the OTH-B radar
and a Research Antenna Engineer for Rome Air Development Center. From
1999 to 2003, he was Professor and Department Head of Electrical and Com-
puter Engineering at Utah State University, Logan. He is currently a Senior Sci-
entist at the Applied Research Laboratory, Pennsylvania State University, State
College. He has many journal articles, conference publications, and book chap-
ters on antennas, radar cross section and numerical methods and is coauthor
of the book Practical Genetic Algorithms, 2nd edition (New York: Wiley, May
2004). He has eight patents in antenna technology.
Dr. Haupt is a Member of Tau Beta Pi, Eta Kappa Nu, International Scientific
Radio Union (URSI) Commission B, and the Electromagnetics Academy. He
was the Federal Engineer of the Year in 1993.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
Modeling and Investigation of a Geometrically
Complex UWB GPR Antenna Using FDTD
Kwan-Ho Lee, Student Member, IEEE, Chi-Chih Chen, Member, IEEE, Fernando L. Teixeira, Member, IEEE,
and Robert Lee, Member, IEEE
Abstract—A detailed analysis of ultrawide-band (UWB),
dual-polarized, dielectric-loaded horn-fed bow-tie (HFB) an-
tennas is carried out using the finite-difference time-domain
(FDTD) method. The FDTD model includes realistic features of
the antenna structure such as the feeding cables, wave launchers,
dielectric loading, and resistive-film loading. Important antenna
characteristics that are usually difficult to obtain via measure-
ments can be obtained more directly from this FDTD model. Since
the HFB antennas under consideration are intended for ground
penetrating radar (GPR) applications, the effects of the half-space
medium are also investigated. The simulated results serve to verify
the performance of the HFB antenna design, and to optimize
various antenna parameters.
Index Terms—Bow-tie antenna, coaxial cable, dielectric loading,
finite-difference time-domain (FDTD), ground penetrating radar
(GPR), impedance, resistive, ultrawide-band (UWB).
I. INTRODUCTION
G ROUND PENETRATING RADAR (GPR) find appli-
cations in many areas such as geophysical prospecting,
archeology, civil engineering, environmental engineering, and
defense technologies as a noninvasive sensing tool [1], [2].
One key component in any GPR system is the receiver/trans-
mitter antenna(s). Desirable features for GPR antennas include
broadband operation, good impedance matching, and small
size. The frequency range of a GPR antenna is determined
by the particular application and its relation to the nature
of the target, soil constitution, desired depth of penetration,
and inversion/classification method being used. For example,
the frequency of operation for detection and classification of
anti-tank and anti-personnel landmines is usually from 0.1 to
1 GHz [3] and from 1 to 6 GHz [4], [5], respectively. A good
frequency range for detecting 6-inch drainage pipes is found
to be from 100 to 400 MHz. For unexploded ordnance (UXO)
detection, the 10 800 MHz frequency range is often used [6],
[7].
For the detection of shallow objects where high sensitivity
is not an issue, elevated antennas are often used for easier scan-
ning and better antenna calibration. In particular, many antennas
used for detection of shallow landmines [5], [8], evaluation of
integrity of concrete [9] and soil hardness [10] are all elevated
Manuscript received December 2, 2002; revised November 3, 2003. This
work was supported in part by the Department of Defense (DoD) Strategic En-
vironmental Research and Development Program (SERDP) Project 1122 by the
National Science Foundation (NSF) under Grant ECS-0347502.
The authors are with ElectroScience Laboratory, Department of Electrical
Engineering, The Ohio State University, Columbus OH, 43210 USA (e-mail:
lee.1333@osu.edu).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2004.832501
0018-926X/04$20.00 © 2004 IEEE
1983
systems that exhibits low antenna-ground interaction. On the
other hand, most GPR antennas used for the detection of deep
targets are operated very close to the ground so that most of the
energy is radiated into the ground to improve sensitivity. This
configuration also minimizes radiation into the air to comply
with the FCC regulations.
The characteristics of such GPR antennas while in field
operation are usually difficult to determine a priori because of
the large coupling with the environment. For instance, the input
impedance of the commonly used dipoles or flat bowtie dipoles
are directly affected by the electrical property of the particular
ground for antennas operated close to the surface. Moreover,
the amount of energy coupled into the ground changes as the
permittivity increases and hence the radiation patterns also
depend of the soil permittivity [11]–[13]. Hence, one major
disadvantage is that the antenna characteristics in the field
become dependent on the electrical properties of the ground
and surroundings. This also makes calibration more difficult. In
order to make antenna characteristics less susceptible to ground
characteristics, a new dielectric-loaded horn-fed bowtie (HFB)
antenna design was introduced in [7]. The HFB antenna was
designed to minimize the antenna ringing by: 1) employing a
stable and well matched surge impedance and 2) using specially
designed tapered resistive loadings. Unlike most conventional
antennas, the surge impedance was designed to be less depen-
dent on the ground property because the feed point is elevated
off the ground. Low loss dielectric material was then used to
fill the space between the feed front and the ground surface to
reduce ground-surface reflections and increase the electrical
height of the feed. Both single-polarized and dual-polarized
HFB antenna prototypes have been built and employed in actual
applications.
Due to its flexibility, the finite-difference time-domain
(FDTD) method has been widely used in recent years for the
numerical simulation of GPR systems [14]–[17]. Some of the
previous studies have modeled GPR antennas as a series of
point sources or short dipoles with or without the presence of
conducting shields [18], [19]. In order to better characterize
HFB antennas and to provide a more convenient tool for their
design and optimization, a full-scale detailed three-dimensional
(3-D) FDTD model of a dual-polarized HFB prototype was
developed in this work and simulated for GPR applications.
To reduce the computational cost, a special partition scheme
[20] is adopted for the 3-D FDTD domain. This scheme divides
the whole inhomogeneous region into several small homo-
geneous regions. In each homogeneous region, volumetric
material property matrices are replaced by constants to save the
1984 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
Fig. 1. Prototype of HFB antenna.
memory. This partition scheme for modeling the electrically
large HFB antenna in the presence of ground also allows for
faster simulations on a personal computer. An anisotropic
perfectly matched layer (APML) especially formulated for the
dielectric or lossy half spaces [16], [21], [22] is implemented.
This paper is organized as follows. The HFB antenna design
is discussed in Section II. Section III describes the construction
of the FDTD model for the dual-polarized HFB design and the
performance of the resistive-film loading which is optimized
for a given length. Section IV presents various HFB antenna
characteristics obtained from the FDTD simulations.
II. BASIC DUAL-POLARIZED HFB ANTENNA DESIGN
Fig. 1 illustrates the basic structure of the dual-polarized
UWB HFB antenna design. This is somewhat similar to a
planar bowtie dipole with the feed point being raised off the
ground. The feed section resembles that of a small transverse
electromagnetic (TEM) horn except that it is filled with low
loss dielectric material. Each antenna arm is smoothly curved in
the transition from the horn section to the planar bowtie dipole
section. The ends of the dipoles are terminated with tapered
resistive cards (R-card) to reduce antenna ringing.
A. Resistive Taper Section
Tapered R-cards have many useful applications for radia-
tion and scattering control [23]–[25], but commercial tapered
R-cards are often expensive and have very limited choices
of tapering profile and taper length. The R-card used in the
HFB prototype was constructed in-house using multiple layers
of commercial window films [23]. These have various sheet
resistance for different percentage of light transmission. When
multiple films are overlaid properly together, one can obtain
a desired resistivity profile with desired taper length. Fig. 1
illustrates how the tapered R-card was constructed for the HFB
prototype.
The objective of the resistive card is to reduce reflections by
gradually dissipating the currents propagating toward the end of
each antenna arm. This requires the resistivity on the R-card to
be tapered from a small value to a large value along the antenna
arm. An exponential taper of the resistivity was adopted in the
HFB prototype with a tapering shown as follows:
(1)
where is the initial sheet resistance of the
R-card at the perfect electric conducting (PEC)/R-card inter-
face, and is the sheet resistance at the far
end of the R-card, is the length of the R-card, and
is the distance along the R-card from the PEC arm.
B. Feed Section
The feed section of HFB resembles a dual polarized TEM
horn except that the end of each antenna arm is curved outward
gradually to be connected to the flat bowtie section, and the
internal space of the horn was filled with low loss dielectric
material. The geometry of the horn and the antenna arms was
LEE et al.: MODELING AND INVESTIGATION OF A GEOMETRICALLY COMPLEX UWB GPR ANTENNA USING FDTD
Fig. 2. Dimension and computation domain partitioning of the fully polarimetric dielectric filled HFB antenna.
chosen based upon the tradeoff among the dielectric constant,
size, weight, and cost. The objective was to obtain a surge
impedance of 100 to match to the characteristic impedance
of the feeding twin-coaxial cables shown at the bottom of
Fig. 1 (each cable has a characteristic impedance of 50 ohms).
Although tabulated characteristic (or surge) impedances for an
infinite TEM horn with arbitrary geometry are available [26],
[27], the exact impedance of a dual-polarization TEM horn
with dielectric filling is complicated to obtain analytically.
The experimental data obtained from [28] was used during
the construction of HFB prototype. Note that the center of
each coaxial cable was connected to one antenna arm and
each pair of the 50 coaxial cable feed one polarization.
A 0–180 broadband hybrid was used as a balun for each
pair of cables. Accurate FDTD models recently constructed to
calculate the surge impedance for such an antenna geometry
are employed here [29]. The prototype to be analyzed here
has a dielectric constant of 5. The plate angle of each antenna
arm is 11.5 . The horn angle itself is approximately 150 .
III. FDTD MODEL DESCRIPTION
A full scale model of the UWB HFB antenna prototype re-
quires a minimum of space. A spatial
cell size of 6.3 mm was chosen to accurately model the geomet-
rical details of the antenna and cable structure [30]. This yields
approximately 96 million unknowns. The FDTD grid is shown
in Fig. 2. All dimensions in the model were chosen to be as close
to the actual prototype as possible. The four antenna arms were
modeled as PEC plates, and the curved edges and surfaces were
approximated by staircases. Each tapered R-card attached to the
1985
end of the PEC arm is 63 cm in length and is implemented via a
conductive sheet. The ground was assumed to be a lossless half
space with relative permittivity of 5.
A. Heterogeneous FDTD Domain Partition
The antenna geometry under study is very complicated and
resides in a complex environment. A traditional FDTD approach
to represent the geometry would require either the storage of the
material properties for each cell or else a data organization sim-
ilar to what is used in the finite element method, which would
also require a significant amount of memory overhead. To mini-
mize the memory usage, we have adopted a partitioning scheme
[20]. The FDTD domain is divided into blocks. The size and
number of the blocks are judiciously chosen, so that the material
properties within most of the blocks are homogeneous. Within
the code, the FDTD algorithm is computed in different ways,
and based on the properties of the block, the appropriate FDTD
algorithm will be chosen. If the block is a perfect conductor, the
FDTD code will recognize this, and not perform any computa-
tions for that block. Thus, there is no need to store either the
fields or the material properties for that particular block. If the
block is an homogeneous dielectric, the material properties are
not treated as a function of the grid points within the block but
instead represented just as a constant parameter. Thus only the
field values need to be stored for each cell within that block. If
the block is an inhomogeneous dielectric, then the FDTD algo-
rithm used will assume a constant permeability and no conduc-
tivity. Thus, only the fields and permittivity must be stored for
each cell. In our case, we divide the geometry into 196 blocks
with only five of the blocks being heterogeneous as demon-
strated in Fig. 2.
1986 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004

Fig. 3. Coaxial cable modeling in rectangular FDTD grid and the TEM current excitation scheme. (a) Top view, (b) side view, and (c) J (t).

B. Feed Cable Modeling

In the discretized FDTD model, each coaxial cable has a
square cross sectional area with a single-cell PEC wire sur-
rounded by four PEC walls. As shown in Fig. 3(a), a relative di-
electric constant of 1.5 is specified between the center wire and
the PEC walls. Each cable is terminated with perfectly matched
layer at one end and connected to the tip of an antenna arm at
the other end. A balanced excitation is introduced to the oppo-
site pair of cables to excite one antenna polarization as shown
in Fig. 3(a) and (b). The time history of the response is also
recorded at the excitation position to obtain reflection and trans-
mission data. The reflection data is obtained with the ex-
citation and observation points co-located in the same cable and
cross-coupling data is obtained with the observation point
located at the second cable. A differential Gaussian pulse is Fig. 4. Resistive card overlay configurations for the PEC launcher section
chosen as the time-domain excitation current (R = 300
= , R = 3
= ).

(2) single layer. This assumption is valid when is much greater

than the penetration depth but much smaller than the free space
where , and . wavelength [31].
These parameters for the Gaussian pulse are determined so as In addition to the exponential taper described in Section II-A,
to provide significant spectral energy in the frequency range of a linear taper with the following taper function was also inves-
10 to 800 MHz. Fig. 3(c) illustrates the pulse. tigated using the FDTD model as a comparison
C. Resistive Card Modeling (3)
In the FDTD model, the R-card is modeled as a single-cell
layer with a tapered conductivity corresponding to the de- where is the initial sheet resistance of the R-card
sired sheet resistance . Conductivity along the direction at the PEC/R-card junction, is the end sheet
is calculated by where is the thickness of resistance. The taper length is equal to that of the previous
LEE et al.: MODELING AND INVESTIGATION OF A GEOMETRICALLY COMPLEX UWB GPR ANTENNA USING FDTD 1987

Fig. 5. S , S , and surge impedance of the HFB antenna. (a) Reflection coefficient S and S and (b) antenna surge impedance.

exponential taper, i.e., 0.63 m. As it will be shown shortly, a the same design. and provide the co-polarized backscat-
linear taper provides a better performance, i.e., lower reflection tering data. provides the cross-polarized kscattering data.
at low frequency end, due to relatively short taper length with A calibration procedure was carried out in a similar manner as
respect to wavelength. A more detailed analysis on this aspect done in real measurement using “short” and “matched” (PML)
can be found in [29]. Fig. 4 plots the linear resistive taper as well reference loads at the end of the feed cables
as its position relationship with respect to the antenna arm. The
lateral edges of the R-card were kept aligned to the edges of the
PEC arms to avoid undesired diffractions (see Fig. 1).
(4)
IV. CHARACTERISTICS OF DUAL-POLARIZED HFB In the above, is the response obtained with the coaxial
ANTENNA DESIGN cables connected to the antenna, is the response obtained
with the coaxial cables connected to matched load, is the
A. & and Input Impedance response obtained when the coaxial cables are shorted at the end
The simulated and measured reflection and transmission co- with a conducting wire, is the response obtained at coaxial
efficients, and , of the HFB design are compared in cable 2 with antenna connected when the excitation is applied
Fig. 5(a). Note that the antenna is located on the surface of a half to cable 1, and is the incident wave.
space with a dielectric of 5, corresponding to the dry sand in re- It is observed that the both linear and exponential taper have
ality. The is similar to since the both antenna arms have similar performance at frequency above 0.3 GHz where the
1988 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004

Fig. 7. Reflected (E ) field in time domain for HFB antennas with different
Fig. 6. Comparison of reflected electric field difference with various ground
profiles.
resistive card overlay configurations and using same conductivity profile.

taper length becomes comparable or longer than one wave-

length (considering dielectric constant of 5). It is also observed
that the linear taper produces lower reflection level than the
exponential taper at frequencies below 0.1 GHz. Overall, the re-
flection level is less than 10 dB above 0.05 GHz. This verifies
broadband characteristic of the HFB design. The measured
data is found to be on average 10 dB higher than that predicted
from the simulation. This difference is most likely caused by
the asymmetry of the construction of prototype antenna arms
and the feed structure. Good agreement between the measure-
ment and simulation is the result of the geometrical fidelity
between of the FDTD numerical model and the prototype,
including the R-card geometry, conductive plates, dielectric
filling and coaxial cable feed modeling. However, the prototype
measurement introduces additional environmental variables
Fig. 8. Comparison of co-polarized (E ) reflected field in time domain from
more difficult to control such as ground loss, slight asymmetry
of the antenna arm design due to hand-made fabrication, and HFB antenna with the different resistive cards (R ).
discrepancies between the equivalent conductive single layer
R-card used in the FDTD model and the thin film R-card
agrees with the significant variations shown in the data near 1.5
conductivity value.bac
ns position. Most importantly, the first reflection peak arising
The surge impedance can also be calculated from the as
from the feed point remain unaffected by the ground property,
shown in (5), often applying a time gate to keep only the first
as desired.
peak associated with the feed point near 0 ns position as shown
in Fig. 6 C. R-Card Performance Investigation
We investigate two parameters that play an important role in
(5)
minimizing reflections from the truncated antenna arms. The
first parameter is the overlay distance between the PEC and
where is the characteristic impedance of the twin-coaxial R-card. In the actual HFB prototype, a 5 cm overlay was used to
cable. The resultant surge impedance is shown in Fig. 5(b). For allow the electromagnetic energy to be coupled into the R-card
most of the band , the surge section because the R-card was coated with a protective insu-
impedance is found to be within range, as desired. lator and could not have a direct electrical contact with the an-
tenna arm. The second parameter is the far-end resistance value
B. Ground Effect that affects the tapering rate of the R-card. If the taper is done too
In order to see how the ground properties affect the surge rapidly, undesired diffractions would be produced by the R-card.
impedance of the HFB design, four different ground dielectric On the other hand, if the taper is too slow, the far-end reflection
constants: 5, 7, 9, and 11 are simulated. Fig. 6 shows the re- may still be too strong.
flected field from 0 to 3 ns. The height of the antenna feed above To investigate the effect of PEC and R-card overlay distances,
the ground is equal to 0.1 m. This causes the reflection from the following three cases were simulated as shown in Fig. 4. In
the ground surface to be delayed by approximately 1.5 ns since case 1 through 3, the overlay distances are 11.3, 5, and 0 cm,
the antenna dielectric filler has a relative permittivity of 5. This respectively. The simulated reflection responses are plotted in
LEE et al.: MODELING AND INVESTIGATION OF A GEOMETRICALLY COMPLEX UWB GPR ANTENNA USING FDTD 1989

Fig. 9. Snap shots from FDTD simulation for E field strength in dB scale where R = 300
= . (a) t = 7:4539 ns with R-card attached-(dB) scale;
(b) t = 7:4539 ns without R-card-(dB) scale; (c) t = 13:0954 ns with R-card attached-(dB) scale; (d) t = 13:0954 ns without R-card-(dB) scale.

Fig. 7. As expected, the overlay distance of the tapered R-card
affects the reflection at the PEC end. Note that the R-card in the
overlay section is shorted out by the PEC, this section would
have an effective resistance of zero regardless of the R-card
value. The larger geometric discontinuity in Case 3 provides the
stronger junction reflection observed in the figure. Case 1 and 2
provide a smoother transition and result in a 35 dB reflected
field at the end of the R-card. Based on the simulations, we con-
cluded that a linear-tapered R-card with either a 11.3 or 5 cm
overlay at the PEC/R-card does the best job of suppressing the
reflections.
To optimize the choice of , values of 100, 200, 300, and
400 were implemented and simulated separately. From the
reflected field observed at the feed point, the amount of end-
reflection suppression was compared as shown in Fig. 8, where
late time (after 20 ns) antenna reflections can be observed. These
results indicate that provides the maximal
suppression of the arm end reflections.
D. Antenna Ringing
Fig. 9 compares snapshots of the instantaneous field dis-
tribution in the vertical (or ) plane with and without the
R-card attached to the HFB antenna arms. Without the R-card,
significant diffraction and reflection at the end of the PEC arms
are observed. The reflected fields later propagate back to the
observation point inside the cables as shown in Fig. 9(b). On
the other hand, the R-card extension significantly reduces the
diffraction and reflection at the ends as depicted in Fig. 9(a) and
lowers the antenna ringing by approximately 20 dB. Note that
the signals that propagate back to the feed point are partially re-
flected due to the imperfect matching. This reflected fields gen-
erate the secondary reflection. This process repeats and becomes
the well known “antenna ringing” effect, a major clutter source
in GPR measurements.
E. Radiated Field Distribution & Polarization
The near-field radiation characteristics are investigated next.
Fig. 10 depicts the simulated horizontal co-polarized and cross-
polarized field distributions at a plane 40 cm below the antenna
aperture, (corresponding to the ground surface plane), at the
center frequency of 400 MHz. The cases with and without the
R-card are also plotted for comparison. The fields are nearly
linearly polarized in the principal planes. The results with the
R-card clearly show a more uniform distribution, because the
1990
Fig. 10. Comparison of co- and cross-polarized aperture field distributions at f = 400 MHz, depth z = 40 cm or 0.53 
= in R-card.
(a) Co-polarized field with R-card, (b) cross-polarized field with R-card, (c) co-polarized field without R-card, and (d) cross-polarized field without R-card.
diffracted fields from the antenna arm ends modify the radiated
fields that otherwise would have been close to simple spherical
wavefronts. The more uniform field distributions simplify the
subsequent signal processing and inverse problem and improve
the overall detection/classification capabilities of a GPR system.
As the observation point moves away from the principal
planes, the level of depolarization increases and reaches a
maximum of approximately 12 dB between the two antenna
polarizations. This is, of course, due to the spherical nature
of the wavefront. We note that the cross-polarized field levels
with the R-card present are a little bit higher. This again may
be caused by distributed diffractions along the resistive cards.
V. CONCLUSION
In this work, a detailed FDTD model was used to incorporate
realistic features of UWB HFB antennas such as feeding
cables, dielectric loading and tapered resistive terminations. The
FDTD model is flexible enough to model different geometries,
structures, and materials for both the antenna and the ground
medium. Fully-polarimetric simulations were performed to
obtain the radiation characteristics of HFB antennas over a broad
frequency range. A parametric study on the effect of the resistive
taper of the R-card termination was also performed. It was
found that a linear taper performs better than the commonly
used exponential taper for short taper length. It was also
found that a proper overlapping between the PEC and R-card
improves the transition and reduces the diffraction at the end
of PEC. The R-card termination also significantly reduces
the undesired antenna ringing. The surge impedance of the
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
,R = 300
HFB antenna was calculated from the reflection coefficients
and was found to be approximately 100 ohms over the entire
frequency band of interest. This result confirms the broadband
characteristic of the HFB design. The FDTD model also provided
useful visualization of dynamic field distributions that can
help identify undesired radiations and reflections sources. The
near-field distributions of the co-polarized and cross-polarized
fields were examined. This information is particularly useful
in GPR applications where the depth of the target is unknown.
Overall, the simulated results confirm that the optimized HFB
antenna design is a very attractive choice for broadband, fully
polarimetric GPR applications.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors acknowledge the reviewers for their helpful
comments.
REFERENCES
[1] L. Peter Jr, J. D. Young, and J. Daniels, “Ground penetration radar
as a subsurface environmental sensing tool,” Proc. IEEE, vol. 82, pp.
1802–1822, Dec. 1994.
[2] S. Agosti, G. G. Gentili, and S. Spagnolini, “Electromagnetic inversion
of monostatic GPR: application to pavement profile,” in Proc. Int. Conf.
Electromag. Adv. Applicat. (ICEAA’97), 1997, pp. 491–494.
[3] L. C. Chan, D. L. Moffatt, and L. Peters Jr., “A characterization of sub-
surface radar targets,” Proc. IEEE, vol. 67, pp. 91–110, July 1979.
[4] C.-C. Chen, S. Nag, W. Burnside, J. Halman, K. Shubert, and L. Peters
Jr, “A stand-off, focused-beam land mine radar,” IEEE Trans. Geosci.
Remote Sensing, vol. 38, pp. 507–514, Jan. 1998.
[5] C.-C. Chen, K. R. Rao, and R. Lee, “A new ultra-wide bandwidth dielec-
tric rod antenna for ground penetrating radar applications,” IEEE Trans.
Antennas Propagat., vol. 51, pp. 371–377, Mar. 2003.
LEE et al.: MODELING AND INVESTIGATION OF A GEOMETRICALLY COMPLEX UWB GPR ANTENNA USING FDTD
[6] C.-C. Chen and L. Peters Jr, “Buried unexploded ordnance identification
via complex natural resonances,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol.
45, pp. 1645–1654, Nov. 1997.
[7] C. C. Chen, B. Higgins, K. O’Neil, and R. Detsch, “Ultrawide-band-
width fully-polarimetric ground penetrating radar classification of sub-
surface unexploded ordnance,” IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sensing,
vol. 39, pp. 1259–1270, June 2001.
[8] T. P. Montoya and G. S. Smith, “Land mine detection using a ground-
penetrating radar based on resistively loaded vee dipoles,” IEEE Trans.
Antennas Propagat., vol. 47, pp. 1795–1806, Dec. 1999.
[9] J. Hugenshmidt, “A one-to-one comparison between radar results and
reality on a concrete bridge,” in Proc. 9th Int. GPR Conf., vol. SPIE-
4758, May 2001, pp. 427–432.
[10] M. Higgins and C.-C. Chen, “Nondestructive evaluation of soil hardness
using elevated focused-beam radar,” in Proc. 9th Int. GPR Conf., vol.
SPIE-4758, May 2001, pp. 54–57.
[11] M. Moghaddam, W. C. Chew, B. Anderson, E. Yannakis, and Q. H. Liu,
“Computation of transient electromagnetic waves in inhomogeneous
media,” Radio Sci., vol. 26, pp. 265–273, Jan. 1991.
[12] S. J. Radzevicius, J. J. Pariels, and C.-C. Chen, “GPR H-Plane Antenna
Patterns for a horizontal dipole on a half space interface,” in Proc. 8th
Int. GPR Conf., vol. SPIE-4084, Gold Coast, Australia, June 2000.
[13] C. C. Chen and J. D. Young, “Unfurlable folded-dipole UWB antenna
for mars explorer subsurface sensing,” in Proc. 8th Int. GPR Conf., vol.
SPIE-4084, Gold Coast, Australia, Jun. 2000.
[14] M. Moghaddam, E. J. Yannakakis, W. C. Chew, and C. Randoll, “Mod-
eling of the subsurface interface radar,” J. Electromag. Waves Applicat.,
vol. 5, pp. 17–39, 1991.
[15] J. M. Bourgeois and G. S. Smith, “A fully three-dimensional simula-
tion of a ground-penetrating radar: FDTD theory compared with exper-
iment,” IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sensing, vol. 34, pp. 36–44, 1996.
[16] K. R. Rao, K. H. Lee, C. C. Chen, and R. Lee, “Application of full-
polarmetric ground penetration radar for buried UXO Classification,”
The Ohio State Univ., ElectroSci. Lab., Tech. Rep. 738 520-1, Feb. 2001.
[17] K.-H. Lee, N. V. Venkatarayalu, and C.-C. Chen, “Numerical modeling
development for characterizing complex gpr problems,” in Proc. Int.
GPR Conf., vol. SPIE-4758, May 2002, pp. 625–652.
[18] F. L. Teixeira, W. C. Chew, M. Straka, M. L. Orstaglio, and T. Wang, “Fi-
nite-difference time-domain simulation of ground penetrating radar on
dispersive inhomogeneous, and conductive soils,” IEEE Trans. Geosci.
Remote Sensing, vol. 36, pp. 1928–1937, Nov. 1998.
[19] L. Gurel and U. Oguz, “Three-dimensional FDTD modeling of a ground
penetrating radar,” IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sensing, vol. 38, pp.
1513–1521, Jul. 2000.
[20] J. Nehrbass, “Physics based partitioning,” in Proc. 26th General As-
sembly for URSI, Ontario, Canada, Aug. 2000.
[21] F. L. Teixeira and W. C. Chew, “Finite-difference simulation of transient
electromagnetics fields for cylindrical geometries in complex media,”
IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sensing, vol. 38, pp. 1530–1543, July 2000.
[22] K.-H. Lee, N. Venkalayalu, C.-C. Chen, F. L. Teixeira, and R. Lee, “Ap-
plication of full-polarmetric ground penetration radar for buried UXO
Classification (II),” The Ohio State Univ., ElectroSci. Lab., Tech. Rep.
778 520, May 2002.
[23] C. Handel, I. J. Gupta, and W. D. Burnside, “Low frequency modification
of a dual chamber compact range,” The Ohio State Univ., ElectroSci.
Lab., Tech. Rep. 732 264, Sep. 1997.
[24] L. Chaung, T. Chang, and W. D. Burnside, “An ultrawide-bandwidth
tapered resistive TEM horn antenna,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat.,
vol. 48, pp. 1848–1857, Dec. 2000.
[25] M. S. A. Mahmoud, T.-H. Lee, and W. D. Burnside, “Enhanced com-
pactrange reflector concept using an R-card fence: two-dimensional
case,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 49, pp. 419–428, Mar.
2001.
[26] F. C. Yang and K. S. H. Lee, “Impedance of a Two-Conical-Plate Trans-
mission Line,” Tech. Rep., Sensor and Simulation Company, Nov. 1976.
[27] H. M. Shen, R. W. P. King, and T. T. Wu, “V-conical antenna,” IEEE
Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 36, pp. 1519–1525, Nov. 1988.
[28] C. C. Chen, “A new ground penetrating radar antenna design—the
horn-fed bowtie (HFB),” in Proc. Antenna Measurement Techniques
Association (AMTA) Symp., Nov. 1997, pp. 67–74.
[29] N. Venkatarayalu, C.-C. Chen, F. L. Teixeira, and R. Lee, “Modeling
of ultrawide-band dielectric horn antennas using FDTD,” IEEE Trans.
Antennas Propagat., vol. 52, pp. 1318–1323, May 2004.
[30] A. Taflove, Computational Electrodynamics. Norwood, MA: Artech
House, 1995.
[31] T. B. A. Senior, “Approximate boundary conditions,” IEEE Trans. An-
tennas Propagat., vol. 29, pp. 826–829, Sept. 1981.
1991
Kwan-Ho Lee (M’02) received the B.S. degree from
the Department of Radio Science and Engineering,
Kwangwoon University, Seoul, Korea, in 1997 and
the M.S. degree in electrical engineering from The
Ohio State University, Columbus, in 1999, where he
is currently working toward the Ph.D. degree.
Since 1997, he has been a Graduate Research
Associate at the ElectroScience Laboratory, De-
partment of Electrical Engineering, The Ohio State
University. His research interests include com-
putational electromagnetics, ultrawide-bandwidth
antenna development, subsurface target detections and classifications, RF
circuits and object oriented programming.
Chi-Chih Chen (S’92–M’97) was born in Taiwan,
R.O.C., in 1966. He received the B.S.E.E. degree
from the National Taiwan University, Taiwan,
R.O.C., in 1988 and the M.S.E.E. and Ph.D. degrees
from The Ohio State University, Columbus, in 1993
and 1997, respectively.
He joined the ElectroScience Laboratory, The
Ohio State University, as a Postdoctoral Researcher
in 1997 and became a Senior Research Associate in
1999. His main research interests include the ground
penetrating radar, UWB antenna designs, radar target
detection and classification methods, automobile radar systems. In recent years,
his research activities have been focused on the detection and classification of
buried landmines, unexploded ordnance and underground pipes.
Dr. Chen is a Member of Sigma Xi and Phi Kappa Phi.
Fernando L. Teixeira (S’89–M’93) received the
B.S. and M.S. degree in electrical engineering from
the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro
(PUC-Rio), Brazil, in 1991 and 1995, respectively,
and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from
the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, in
1999.
From 1999 to 2000, he was a Postdoctoral Re-
search Associate with the Research Laboratory of
Electronics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
(MIT), Cambridge. Since 2000, he has been an
Assistant Professor at the ElectroScience Laboratory (ESL) and the Depart-
ment of Electrical Engineering, The Ohio State University, Columbus. His
current research interests include analytical and numerical techniques for wave
propagation and scattering problems in communication, sensing, and devices
applications. He has edited one book Geometric Methods for Computational
Electromagnetics (PIER 32, EMW: Cambridge, MA, 2001), and has published
over 30 journal articles and 50 conference papers in those areas.
Dr. Teixeira is a Member of Phi Kappa Phi. He was awarded the Raj Mittra
Outstanding Research Award from the University of Illinois, and a 1998 MTT-S
Graduate Fellowship Award. He received paper awards at 1999 USNC/URSI
National Symposium (Orlando, FL), and received a Young Scientist Award at
the 2002 URSI General Assembly. He was the Technical Program Coordinator
of the Progress in Electromagnetics Research Symposium (PIERS), Cambridge,
MA, in 2000.
Robert Lee (M’92) received the B.S.E.E. degree in
1983 from Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA, and the
M.S.E.E. and Ph.D. degree in 1988 and 1990, respec-
tively, from the University of Arizona, Tucson.
From 1983 to 1984, he worked for Microwave
Semiconductor Corporation, Somerset, NJ, as a
Microwave Engineer. From 1984 to 1986, he was
a Member of the Technical Staff, Hughes Aircraft
Company, Tucson, AZ. From 1986 to 1990, he was
a Research Assistant at the University of Arizona.
During summer 1987 through 1989, he worked at
Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, NM. Since 1990, he has been
at The Ohio State University, where he is currently a Professor. His major
research interests are in the development and application of numerical methods
for electromagnetics.
1992 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
Radiation Properties of an Arbitrarily Flanged
Parallel-Plate Waveguide
Dao Ngoc Chien, Student Member, IEEE, Kazuo Tanaka, Member, IEEE, and Masahiro Tanaka, Member, IEEE
Abstract—The radiation properties of an arbitrarily flanged par-
allel-plate waveguide are investigated by means of the boundary
integral equations that are called guided-mode extracted integral
equations. The boundary integral equations derived in this paper
can be solved by the conventional boundary-element method. Nu-
merical results are presented for a number of cases of flanged par-
allel-plate waveguide. Reflection coefficient, reflected and radiated
powers as well as radiation patterns are numerically calculated for
the incidence of transverse electric guided-mode wave.
Index Terms—Boundary-element method (BEM), boundary
integral equations (BIE), electromagnetic radiation, numerical
analysis, parallel-plate waveguides (PPW).
I. INTRODUCTION
T HERE has been remarkable progress in the development
of communication systems over the last decade. Signif-
icant improvements in noise figure, gain, output power, and
efficiency have been achieved at millimeter-wave frequencies.
However, the demand of the wireless broadband communi-
cation at millimeter-wave frequency recently increases with
activities of digital multimedia-contents circulation. One of
the problems of millimeter-wave communication is the large
transmission loss in free space. For instance, the transmission
loss of the signal at 60 GHz frequency for 5 m distance be-
tween transmitter and receiver is about 82 dB [1]. Therefore,
the antenna with high output radiation power is required to
compensate the large transmission loss.
The flange-shaped parallel-plate waveguide (PPW) is known
well as a fundamental structure extensively used for electro-
magnetic wave radiation (as, e.g., in feed horns, flush-mounted
antennas, etc.). So far, even though a closed-form solution to
the problem of the flanged PPW radiation is unavailable, the
waveguide-radiation behavior has been well understood using
a number of numerical techniques and approximate theories
[2]–[13]. However, since most of the studies have based on the
approximation solution, the presented results have restricted to
the problem of perpendicularly flanged PPW. As far as we know,
no one has reported to the problem of an arbitrarily flanged PPW
that expects to give high output radiation power.
In this paper, the radiation properties of an arbitrarily
flanged PPW are investigated by the boundary-element method
(BEM) based on the guided-mode extracted integral equations
Manuscript received July 9, 2003. The work of D. N. Chien was supported
by the Rotary Yoneyama Memorial Foundation, Inc., Japan, under a Yoneyama
Scholarship.
The authors are with the Department of Electronics and Computer Engi-
neering, Gifu University, Gifu 501-1193, Japan (e-mail: chien@tnk.info.gifu-
u.ac.jp).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2004.832323
0018-926X/04$20.00 © 2004 IEEE
(GMEIEs). We derive GMEIEs for the problems of dielectric
filled and unfilled PPW having an arbitrarily flanged surface.
By treating these problems, we can easily understand the ad-
vantages of GMEIEs compared with other techniques proposed
before. Since the method in this paper does not employ any
approximation, the results are accurate in principle. The numer-
ical results of computer simulations are presented, in which,
the reflection coefficient, the reflected and radiated powers as
well as the radiation pattern are calculated numerically for the
incidence of TE guided-mode wave. The results are compared
with those reported in the literature, and are confirmed by the
law of energy conservation.
II. PPW WITH AN ARBITRARILY FLANGED SURFACE
A. Formulation of the Reflection Coefficient in Terms of
GMEIEs
Consider a dielectric filled PPW of width having a tilted
flange surface radiating into a free space as shown in Fig. 1(a).
The dielectric is with refractive index of . The waveguide is
assumed to be satisfied the single-mode condition.
Referring to Fig. 1(d), we denote the actual boundaries (solid
lines) of the waveguide by – . The boundary (dotted
line) does not express an actual boundary, but rather express a
virtual boundary. The whole space is assumed to be magneti-
cally homogeneous with a magnetic permeability
H/m. In the following analysis, a harmonic time depen-
dence is supposed and suppressed for the electromag-
netic field quantities, the free-space wave number is denoted by
, where is the velocity of light in a vacuum. Since
the waveguide is assumed to be infinite-extended in the -direc-
tion, all field quantities are independent of (i.e., )
and thus the electromagnetic field can be decomposed in terms
of TE mode.
To derive GMEIEs, we assume that a dominant guided-
mode wave is incident upon the aperture in the tilted flange sur-
face from inside of the waveguide. Since the electric fields have
only a -component under the above-mentioned condition, we
denote the electric fields of the -component by
(1)
in the coordinate systems and , as shown in
Fig. 1(a). The incident guided-mode wave , the reflected
guided-mode wave , and the radiated wave are
used to express electric field quantities.
We first consider the case in which an observation point
is in the region surrounded by the boundary
. From Maxwell’s equations and Green’s theorem,
CHIEN et al.: RADIATION PROPERTIES OF AN ARBITRARILY FLANGED PPW 1993

where denotes the derivative with respect to the unit

normal vector to boundary C as shown in Fig. 1(d). The
boundary condition of perfect electric conductor, on
, is enforced in the process of deriving
(2). In (2), represents Green’s function in free space,
whose refractive index is given by , and it is expressed as

(3)

with denotes the zeroth-order Hankel function of

the second kind. As can be seen, it is difficult to solve the
boundary integral (2) by use of the conventional BEM or
method of moments (MoM) directly because of that the (2)
has an infinite-length integral boundary . To overcome
this difficulty, we use the previously proposed idea [14]–[18]
that: Even though the total electric fields near the aperture are
very complicated, only the reflected guided-mode wave can
survive at points far away from the aperture. Therefore we
decompose the total electric fields on the boundary
into the field components as

(4)

and we call the field the disturbed field. In (4), is the

reflection coefficient. We also express the total electric fields
on the boundary by the same notation with the
disturbed field as follows:

(5)

In (4), it is possible to consider that the disturbed field will

vanish at points far away from the aperture.
Substituting (4) and (5) into (2), we obtain an integral equa-
tion that includes the semi-infinite line integrals of the guided-
mode wave along the boundary as follows:

(6)

with

(7)

Fig. 1. (a)–(c) Models of arbitrarily flanged PPW. (b) Location of the Here the Green’s theorem for the guided-mode waves in
boundaries on integral equations. the region surrounded by the boundary is applied
as
the well-known boundary integral equation (BIE) for the total
electric field is given by

(8)
(2)
1994 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004

to the process of deriving (6). Since the boundary is a virtual where

boundary, theoretically, we can obtain the (8) with arbitrary po-
sition of the boundary .
To derive the expression of the reflection coefficient in (17)
terms of GMEIE, we put the observation point to far away
from the aperture. Under this condition, it is possible to approx- (18)
imate Green’s function by the asymptotic expression as
Since will vanish at points far away from the aperture,
(9) the integral boundary , which has infinite length, can
be regarded as finite length in (16).
with When the observation point is in the free space region that
surrounded by the boundary , as shown in
(10) Fig. 1(d), the well-known BIE for the total electric fields is given
by
(11)

Substituting (9) into (6) and dividing both sides of the resultant
equation by , we can obtain the relation

(19)

(12) It can be seen that the (19) has the integral boundary
also with semi-infinite length. However, it is easy to truncate
the boundary in the numerical solution procedure at a
with finite length where the total electric fields are enough small to
be regarded as vanished.
The BIEs (16) and (19) are equations to be solved numeri-
cally by using the conventional BEM or MM for the problem of
an arbitrarily flanged PPW as shown in Fig. 1(a)–(c). Once the
(13) fields on all the boundaries have been obtained. The reflection
coefficient can be obtained by the use of (15). And fields at
Since it is impossible for a reflected radiation field to exist at any point can also be calculated by the boundary integral repre-
points in the waveguide far away from the aperture, we can set sentations similar to (16) and (19).

(14) B. Radiation Fields in the Free Space

So if we use (14) in (12), we can find that the reflection coeffi- The radiation field in the free-space region can be
cient can be expressed in terms of GMEIE as expressed by using the asymptotic form of Green’s function in
free-space with the refractive index of as follows:

(20)

(15) with

Physically, the reflection coefficient is an invariable value for a

specific structure of the waveguide and thus we can use (15) to
verify the independence of the numerical results on the location
of the virtual boundary .
Substitution of (15) into (6) yields
(16)
(21)
So far, we have discussed to the case in which a dielectric with
the refractive index of is filled inside the waveguide. For the
case of dielectric unfilled PPW, only one GMEIE is required.
Because it is easy to derive by using the same procedure as that
used in the above derivation of (16), it is not necessary to show
here for saving space.
CHIEN et al.: RADIATION PROPERTIES OF AN ARBITRARILY FLANGED PPW 1995

TABLE I
COMPARISON BETWEEN THE VARIOUS METHODS USED TO CALCULATE THE
REFLECTION COEFFICIENT R OF A DIELECTRIC UNFILLED PPW HAVING A
PERPENDICULAR FLANGE SURFACE FOR d= = 0:5001

TABLE II
REFLECTED POWER 0 , RADIATED POWER 0 , AND THEIR TOTAL
0 OF A DIELECTRIC FILLED PPW HAVING A TILTED
FLANGE SURFACE FOR d= = 0:5001, AND n = 1:6

j j
Fig. 3. (a) Distribution of the disturbed field @E =@n on the boundary
j j
C . (b) Distribution of the total field @E =@n on the boundary C . The
parameters used in calculations are the same as for Fig. 2, the virtual boundary
C is located at k a = 2. 0
Fig. 2. Reflection coefficient R of a dielectric filled PPW having a tilted
flange surface as a function of location of the virtual boundary C for
d= = 0:5001; n = 1:6, and ' = 10 .

III. NUMERICAL RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The BIEs derived in this paper were solved with using the
conventional BEM. The quadratic functions are used as basic
functions, and the delta functions are used as testing functions.

A. Accuracy and Convergence Tests

We first consider the problem of a dielectric unfilled PPW
having a perpendicular flange surface. Many papers have re-
ported to this problem before and thus we can compare our
results with those obtained by the methods appearing in pre-
viously published papers. In Table I the results of comparison
for reflection coefficient , including amplitude and phase, of
Fig. 4. Radiated power 0 as a function of refractive index n of a dielectric
the incident guided-mode wave are presented. It can be filled PPW having a perpendicular flange surface of width d= = 0:5001.
seen that our results are in good agreement with the results
reported in the literature. Notice that owing to the different
time convention used, there is a minus sign differ- These numerical results show the validity of the method in
ence in the phase of reflection coefficient in the literature. this paper.
1996 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004

Fig. 5. Numerical results of a dielectric filled PPW having a tilted flange Fig. 7. Numerical results of a dielectric filled PPW having a tapered flange
surface for d= = 0:5001 and n = 1:6. (a) Dependence of radiated power surface for d= = 0:5001 and n = 1:6. (a) Dependence of radiated power
0 on tilting angle '. (b) Typical radiation patterns. 0 on tapering angle '. (b) Typical radiation patterns.

this kind of problem before. In Table II the results of reflected

power , radiated power , and their total are
presented for the case of , and . As can
be seen, the results satisfy the energy conservation law within
an accuracy of 1% well.
In Section II, mathematically and physically, it has been
shown that the reflection coefficient is independent of loca-
tion of the virtual boundary . For numerical demonstration,
the reflection coefficient of a dielectric filled PPW having a
tilted flange surface as a function of location of the virtual
boundary is plotted in Fig. 2 for ,
and .
It is observed that the reflection coefficient is independent of
location of the virtual boundary , except at . This
error is caused by the numerical method used, because when
Fig. 6. Relationship between the angle of beam center and the tilting angle of the virtual boundary approaches the aperture the segments of
a dielectric filled PPW having a tilted flange surface for d= = 0:5001 and discretized boundary approach zero.
n = 1 :6 .
The validity of truncation of the infinite-length boundaries
in the numerical solution procedure is proved numerically in
To verify the feasibility of the method in this paper, we next Fig. 3(a) and (b). Where Fig. 3(a) shows distribution of the dis-
apply the method to the problem of a dielectric filled PPW turbed field on boundary , and Fig. 3(b) shows
having a tilted flange surface as shown in Fig. 1(a). Because distribution of the total field on boundary . The
it seems to be difficult to solve using the methods based on parameters used in calculations are the same as for Fig. 2, the
approximate theories, to our knowledge, no one has reported to virtual boundary is located at .
CHIEN et al.: RADIATION PROPERTIES OF AN ARBITRARILY FLANGED PPW 1997

Fig. 8. Numerical results of a dielectric filled PPW having an up-tapered aperture for d= = 0:5001 and n = 1:6. (a) Dependence of radiated power 0
on tapering width w=d for h=d = 0:5. (b) Typical radiation patterns of (a)-case. (c) Dependence of radiated power 0 on tapering height h=d for w=d = 2.
(d) Typical radiation patterns of (c)-case.

From Fig. 3, it is found that the use of BEM based on GMEIEs
is possible to treat waveguide discontinuity problems as an iso-
lated object of finite size. So that it is suitable for the basic
theory of computer-aided design (CAD) software for waveguide
circuits.
B. Examples
In the first sequence of examples we consider the conven-
tional problem of a dielectric filled PPW having a perpendicular
flange surface. The result of radiated power as a function of
refractive index is shown in Fig. 4 for . beam is perpendicular to the flange surface, but for the tilting
From Fig. 4, it is evident improvement of radiated power of a
dielectric filled PPW compared with a dielectric unfilled PPW.
Since most of the solid dielectrics have the index larger than
approximate 1.4, we choose the dielectric with index of 1.6 for
the next investigations.
In subsequent examples we apply the method to a number of
cases of arbitrarily flanged PPW as shown in Fig. 1(a)–(c). The
results of computer simulations are shown below.
1) PPW Having a Tilted Flange Surface [Fig. 1(a)]: For a
dielectric filled PPW of width having a tilted
flange surface, the dependence of radiated power on the
tilting angle is shown in Fig. 5(a), and the typical radiation
patterns are plotted in Fig. 5(b).
The results in Fig. 5 show that the radiated power of a dielec-
tric filled PPW can be improved by the use of a tilted flange sur-
face, and the symmetry of radiation pattern is maintained even
though changing the tilting angle. In particular, from Fig. 5(b)
it is found that the angle of beam center (i.e., the angle of center
of radiation pattern) with respect to the -axis is changed with
changing the tilting angle. In order to see the relationship be-
tween the angle of beam center and the tilting angle , we
numerically plot that relationship in Fig. 6.
It is observed that for the tilting angle less than 15 the
above-mentioned relationship is linear, i.e., the center axis of
angle larger than 15 that relationship is nonlinear. This effect
may be important in the prediction of radiation properties from
antennas.
2) PPW Having a Tapered Flange Surface [Fig. 1(b)]: For
the case of a dielectric filled PPW having a tapered flange sur-
face with and , the dependence of ra-
diated power on the tapering angle is shown in Fig. 7(a),
and the typical radiation patterns are plotted in Fig. 7(b).
In Fig. 7(a), the weak effect of change of tapering angle on
radiated power is observed. But on the contrary, the strong
effect of that on radiation pattern is found from Fig. 7(b). It
seems obvious that the beam width decreases and the far-field
intensity increases with up-tapering the flange surface. This is an
1998 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
interesting and important result for millimeter-wave free-space
communication systems.
3) PPW Having an Up-Tapered Aperture [Fig. 1(c)]: The
radiated power as functions of tapering width and ta-
pering height , as shown in Fig. 1(c), are respectively shown
in Fig. 8(a) and (c) for . Typically, the
corresponding radiation patterns are shown in Fig. 8(b) and (d).
Notice that in Fig. 8(a) and (b) the tapering height is
given by , and in Fig. 8(c) and (d) the tapering width
is given by . From Fig. 8, it is found that the radiated
power of a dielectric filled PPW can be improved significantly
by using an up-tapered aperture. In particular, as shown in
Fig. 8(c), the radiated power is improved to approximate 0.99
by a tapering height , i.e., only 1% of
power is reflected. The strong effect on radiation patterns is
also found by changing the tapering parameters. However, it
is observed from Fig. 8(d) that the number of lobe of radiation
pattern is more than one, and the far-field intensity fluctuates
with increasing the size of aperture. Let us note that these
results, which are very interesting and potentially important in
design of antennas, have not shown by any researcher so far.
IV. CONCLUSION
The radiation properties of a dielectric filled and unfilled
PPW having an arbitrarily flanged surface have been studied
by the BEM based on GMEIEs. Based on the theory developed
in Section II, the typical numerical evaluations have been per-
formed for the case of incident guided-mode wave. The
numerical results were confirmed by using the law of energy
conservation. It has been found that the numerical results are
in good agreement with previous results and physical consid-
eration.
It is apparent that the method in this paper is suitable for
the basic theory of CAD)software for the antennas systems.
Since we do not employ any approximations, such as simple
end-shape, in the formulation of GMEIEs used in this paper, so
that it is easy to extend the GMEIEs to more complicated wave-
guide circuits that have more than one port, etc.
REFERENCES
[1] H. Shiomi and S. Yamamoto, “Numerical simulation of fat dielectric
loaded waveguide antenna using FDTD method,” in IEICE Proc. Int.
Symp. Antennas and Propagation ISAP i-02, Nov. 2002, pp. 520–523.
[2] R. C. Rudduck and D. C. F. Wu, “Slope diffraction analysis of TEM par-
allel-plate guide radiation patterns,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat.,
vol. AP-17, pp. 797–799, Nov. 1969.
[3] D. C. F. Wu, R. C. Rudduck, and E. L. Pelton, “Application of a surface
integration technique to parallel-plate waveguide radiation-pattern anal-
ysis,” IEEE Trans. Antennas a Propagat., vol. AP-17, pp. 280–285, May
1969.
[4] S. W. Lee, “Ray theory of diffraction by open-ended waveguide, I, field
in waveguides,” J. Math. Phys., vol. 11, pp. 2830–2850, 1970.
[5] K. Hongo, “Diffraction by a flanged parallel-plate waveguide,” Radio
Sci., vol. 7, pp. 955–963, Oct. 1972.
[6] T. Itoh and R. Mittra, “TEM reflection from a flanged and dielectric-
filled parallel-plate waveguide,” Radio Sci., vol. 9, pp. 849–855, Oct.
1974.
[7] K. Hongo, Y. Ogawa, T. Itoh, and K. Ogusu, “Field distribution in a
flanged parallel-plate waveguide,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol.
AP-23, pp. 558–560, July 1975.
[8] S. Lee and L. Grun, “Radiation from flanged waveguide: Comparison of
solutions,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. AP-30, pp. 147–148,
Jan. 1982.
[9] M. S. Leong, P. S. Kooi, and XQXQXQ Chandra, “Radiation from a
flanged parallel-plate waveguide: Solution by moment method with in-
clusion of edge condition,” in Proc. Inst. Elect. Eng. Microwaves, An-
tenna and Propagation, vol. 135, Aug. 1988, pp. 249–255.
[10] C. M. Butler, C. C. Courtney, P. D. Mannikko, and J. W. Silvestro,
“Flanged parallel-plate waveguide coupled to a conducting cylinder,”
in Proc. Inst. Elect. Eng. Microwaves, Antenna and Propagation, vol.
138, Dec. 1991, pp. 549–558.
[11] C. H. Kim, H. J. Eom, and T. J. Park, “A series solution for TM-mode ra-
diation from a flanged parallel-plate waveguide,” IEEE Trans. Antennas
Propagat., vol. 41, pp. 1469–1471, Oct. 1993.
[12] T. J. Park and H. J. Eom, “Analytic solution for TE-mode radiation
from a flanged parallel-plate waveguide,” in Proc. Inst. Elect. Eng. Mi-
crowaves, Antenna and Propagation, vol. 140, Oct. 1993, pp. 387–389.
[13] J. W. Lee, H. J. Eom, and J. H. Lee, “TM-wave radiation from flanged
parallel plate into dielectric slab,” in Proc. Inst. Elect. Eng. Microwaves,
Antenna and Propagation, vol. 143, June 1996, pp. 207–210.
[14] M. Tanaka and K. Tanaka, “Computer simulation for two-dimensional
near-field optics with use of a metal-coated dielectric probe,” J. Opt. Soc.
Amer. A, Opt. Image Sci., vol. 18, pp. 919–925, Apr. 2001.
[15] D. N. Chien, M. Tanaka, and K. Tanaka, “Numerical simulation of an ar-
bitrarily ended asymmetrical slab waveguide by guided-mode extracted
integral equations,” J. Opt. Soc. Amer. A, Opt. Image Sci., vol. 19, pp.
1649–1657, Aug. 2002.
[16] D. N. Chien, K. Tanaka, and M. Tanaka, “Accurate analysis of power
coupling between two arbitrarily ended dielectric slab waveguides by
boundary-element method,” J. Opt. Soc. Amer. A, Opt. Image Sci., vol.
20, pp. 1608–1616, Aug. 2003.
[17] , “Optimum design of power coupling between two dielectric slab
waveguides by the boundary-element method based on guided-mode ex-
tracted integration equation,” IEICE Trans. Electron., vol. E86-C, Nov.
2003.
[18] , “Guided wave equivalents of Snell’s and Brewster’s Laws,” Opt.
Commun., vol. 225, pp. 319–329, Oct. 2003.
Dao Ngoc Chien (S’03) received the B.E. de-
gree from the Department of Telecommunication
Systems, Faculty of Electronics and Telecommu-
nications, Hanoi University of Technology, Hanoi,
Vietnam, in 1997 and the M.S. degree from the De-
partment of Electronics and Computer Engineering,
Gifu University, Gifu, Japan, in 2002, where he is
currently working toward the Ph.D. degree.
In 1997, he became a Teaching Assistant in the De-
partment of Telecommunication Systems, Faculty of
Electronics and Telecommunications, Hanoi Univer-
sity of Technology. He is currently on leave from Hanoi University of Tech-
nology and is a Visiting Researcher in the Department of Electronics and Com-
puter Engineering, Gifu University. His current research interests are the CAD
of optical waveguide circuits, and waveguide technology for antennas and feeds.
Mr. Chien is a Student Member of the Optical Society of America (OSA),
Washington, DC, and the Institute of Electrical, Information and Communica-
tion Engineers (IEICE), Japan. He was awarded a Yoneyama Scholarship by the
Rotary Yoneyama Memorial Foundation, Inc., Japan.
Kazuo Tanaka (M’75) received the B.E., M.S., and
Ph.D., degrees from the Department of Communica-
tions Engineering, Osaka University, Osaka, Japan,
in 1970, 1972, and 1975, respectively.
In 1975, he became a Research Associate in the
Department of Electrical Engineering, Gifu Univer-
sity, Gifu, Japan, where he became an Associate Pro-
fessor in 1985 and a Professor in 1990. His research
since 1970 has been a general-relativistic electromag-
netic theory and application, radiographic image pro-
cessing and computational electromagnetic and he is
currently interested in the CAD of integral optical circuits, near-field optical cir-
cuits and simulation of Anderson localization hypothesis of ball-lightning. He
was a Visiting Professor at the University of Toronto, ON, Canada, in 1994.
Dr. Tanaka was awarded the Uchida Paper Award by the Japan Society of
Medical Imaging and Information Science. He was a Chair of the Technical
Group of Electromagnetic Theory of the Institute of Electrical, Information and
Communication Engineers (IEICE), Japan.
CHIEN et al.: RADIATION PROPERTIES OF AN ARBITRARILY FLANGED PPW 1999

Masahiro Tanaka (M’00) received the B.E. and

M.S. degrees from the Department of Electrical
and Computer Engineering, Gifu University, Gifu,
Japan, in 1992 and 1994, respectively, and the Ph.D.
degree from the Department of Communication
Engineering, Osaka University, Osaka, Japan, in
2002.
He was a Research Associate at Tokoha-Gakuen
Hamamatsu University, Japan, from 1994 to 1996.
He joined the Department of Electrical and Computer
Engineering, Gifu University, as a Research Assistant
in 1996. He was a Visiting Researcher at the Department of Electrical and Com-
puter Engineering, The University of Arizona, Tempe, from 1997 to 1998. His
research interests are the CAD of optical waveguide circuits and near-field op-
tical circuits.
2000 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
Scan Blindness Free Phased Array Design Using
PBG Materials
Lijun Zhang, Jesus A. Castaneda, and Nicolaos G. Alexopoulos, Fellow, IEEE
Abstract—Scan blindness occurs for phased arrays when propa-
gation constants of Floquet modes (space harmonics) coincide with
those of surface waves supported by the array structure. In this
paper, we studied the possibility of using photonic band-gap (PBG)
substrate to eliminate scan blindness. A specially designed printed
PBG substrate can suppress surface wave propagation inside its
bandgap range, therefore it can be used to eliminate scan blind-
ness. In this paper, we presented a method of moments (MoM) anal-
ysis of the scan properties of dipole arrays on PBG substrates with
ominidirectional bandgap(s). We found that scan blindness is com-
pletely eliminated. The elimination of scan blindness makes PBG
materials very attractive in phased array design.
Index Terms—Phased array, photonic band-gap (PBG) sub-
strate, scan blindness.
I. INTRODUCTION
S CAN blindness for phased arrays can be traced to the forced
surface waves by phase matching with those of the Floquet
modes (space harmonics). This is common for printed arrays on
dielectric substrates, phased arrays with radomes, etc. [1]–[3].
Scan blindness limits the scan range and lowers the antenna ef-
ficiency, therefore it must be considered in phased array design.
Many efforts have been devoted to eliminate scan blindness,
for example, the subarray technique is used to suppress scan
blindness but at the expense of a larger unit cell size, which
causes an increase in power loss to the grating lobes [3]. But
the idea of using subarray to perturb the phase progression
of surface waves in the substrate is quite an inspring idea.
In [4] the authors studied the scan properties of antennas on
perturbed inhomogeneous substrates, and they found that the
inhomogeneous substrate can mitigate the scan blindness for
proper designed substrate media. Scan properties of phased
arrays on ferrite substrates have been investigated in [5], the
scan properties of dipole arrays in a two-layer structure have
been studied in [6], [7]. It is found that in a two layer structure
it is possible to select the parameters to prevent the excitation
of any surface waves, therefore to eliminate scan blindness.
This however may be a very narrow band operation.
Manuscript received May 4, 2001; revised March 26, 2003. This work was
supported in part by MURI.
L. Zhang and J. A. Castaneda were with the Department of Electrical En-
gineering, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1544 USA. They
are now with Broadcom Corporation, Irvine, CA 92619-7013 USA (e-mail:
lzhang@broadcom.com; jcastan@broadcom.com).
N. G. Alexopoulos is with the Department of Electrical and Computer En-
gineering, University of California, Irvine, CA 92695-2625 USA (e-mail: al-
fios@uci.edu).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2004.832516
0018-926X/04$20.00 © 2004 IEEE
In this paper photonic band-gap (PBG) materials are used
as antenna substrates to treat the scan blindness problem. PBG
materials are essentially periodic structures whose dispersive
properties may be controlled by the periodicity and the electro-
magnetic properties of lattice elements [8]. For PBG materials
realized on dielectric substrates, surface waves can be con-
trolled. For example, they can be suppressed along certain
direction for PBG materials with partial bandgaps or along
any direction for those with ominidirectional (or complete)
bandgaps [9]–[12] inside a certain frequency range. Such prop-
erties of PBG could be used to eliminate scan blindness. In
[13] the authors studied the active array pattern of phased
arrays on a PBG substrate which is composed of air holes
inside a dielectric substrate, but since that kind of material with
finite thickness does not have an ominidirectional bandgap,
the scan blindness cannot be eliminated completely.
Recently, a novel printed PBG substrate with ominidirec-
tional bandgap was presented in [9], [10]. In this PBG material,
periodic metallic patches are printed on a substrate and each
patch is connected to the ground plane through a via. It is both
experimentally and numerically verified that this PBG material
has a complete surface wave bandgap. In [11] a planar PBG
without any via was also fabricated and an ominidirectional
bandgap was reported. In this paper our analysis is based on
the first kind of PBG substrate in [9], [10], however we believe
that any PBG substrate with complete bandgap can eliminate
scan blindness.
In this paper, we first present the theorectical method of
moments (MoM) formulation for the array analysis, then we
discuss the surface-wave bandgap properties of the PBG ma-
terials. After that we present detailed theoretical case studies
for phased arrays on PBG substrates, from low permittivity
to high permittivity substrates, from thin to thick substrates.
Finally, waveguide simulator experimental results are presented
to validate the theory and the code we developed.
II. NUMERICAL ANALYSIS: THE METHOD OF MOMENTS
In Fig. 1, we show the PBG material [9] and a dipole phased
array printed on it. The unit cell of the PBG is around .
For phased arrays the radiating dipole is printed in every by
PBG unit cell, here in the figure the dipole is printed in every
2-by-2 PBG unit cells as an example.
Printed arrays on uniform substrate and their scan blindness
phenomenon have been extensively analyzed using a MoM in
[1], [2]. The MoM is a very fast and accurate full-wave analysis
method for the analysis of phased array and therefore is used in
ZHANG et al.: SCAN BLINDNESS FREE PHASED ARRAY DESIGN USING PBG MATERIALS 2001

A. Current Expansion From Attachment Modes

For the specific PBG structure, it is more advantageous to
use the entire domain basis (EDB) function and the attachment
mode expansion technique in the MoM solution to achieve fast
convergence [16]. Since in this paper we are also interested in
thick substrates, we used more than one attachment mode. The
current expansion for each attachment mode is obtained through
the solving of a Sturm-Liouville problem with a line current
source excitation inside an equivalent cavity. Current distribu-
tions for attachment modes on each patch-via in the unit cell of
PBG is given in the following equations,

(4)

where

Fig. 1. Structure of the phased dipole array on a PBG substrate. The top
figure shows 3-by-3 unit cells of the PBG substrate. The bottom figure gives (5)
the top view of a unit cell of the infinite phased dipole array printed on the
PBG susbstrate. Some key parameters are: patch size L by W , gap between
4 4 4
patches g , via size x by y , dipole size D (length) by w (width), substrate (6)
thickness h and substrate permittivity  .
(7)

our analysis. The Dyadic Green’s function, which is the electric where stands for the number of attachment modes,
field caused by an infinite array of such dipoles is given by and are the center coordinates of each patch

(1)
(8)

where and are the Floquet’s propagation constants deter-

mined by the scan angle, and are the array period, is the (9)
free space impedance. The dyadic quantity is defined in the
following [15] (10)

(also see (11) shown at the bottom of the page), and similarly
(2) for .

On metallic surfaces tangential electric fields should be zero B. Entire Domain Current Expansion on the Dipole and Patch
Current expansions on each patch are simply entire domain
basis functions given as follows:
(3)

where is the tangential dyadic and is the current expansion

which will be discussed in following parts. (12)

for

(11)

for .
2002 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004

(13)

(14)

Current expansion on the dipole follows:

(15)
where is the number of entire domain basis functions
used in the dipole current expansion.

C. Final Matrix Equation

Fig. 2. Surface wave bandgap of the PBG substrate. h = 2:3855 mm, lenx =
After weighting on (3), the following matrix equation is leny = 2:88 mm, W = L = 2:061 mm, g = 0:819 mm,  = 4:4.
obtained:

(16)

The total matrix size is , with

the number of PBG patches in each unite cell of the array.
Each submatrix entry results from the current basis function
from structure type and the weighting function from
structure type , with , from , , standing for attachment
mode, entire domain basis (EDB) function on patch, or EDB on
dipole, respectively. The matrix entries are given as

(17)
(18)
(19)
(20)
(21) Fig. 3. Convergence of the input impedance versus the number of Floquet
modes and the number of EDB functions. Impedances are for broadside scan.
(22)
(23) materials. Here we present some simulation data of the printed
(24) PBG material calculated using three different methods which
are the MoM, the finite-element-integral-equation method (FE-
(25)
IEM) [17] and the FE perfect-matched-layer method (FE-PML)
Notice that , are local indexes for submatrices. For detailed [14].
formulation of the matrix entries please refer to [18], they are Fig. 2, shows the eigenmodes of the PBG material with pa-
omitted here for brevity. rameters given in the caption of the Figure. , , and are
The input impedance of the dipole is calculated as vertices of a reduced Brillouin zone. From to , the waves
are propagating along the direction, varies from 0 to .
From to , the waves are propagating at an angle between
(26)
0 and 45 with respect to the direction, where and
varies from 0 to . From to , waves are propagating
(27) along the 45 and both and varies from or to 0.
The MoM and FE based codes produce consistent results.
where is the width of voltage gap source, and is the
The MoM code only searches for bounded modes, therefore, it
width of the dipole.
stops when it intercepts the light line in the air (straight line in
this figure) for the second mode. Between the first and second
III. SURFACE WAVE BANDGAP OF PRINTED PBG SUBSTRATES mode is the surface wave bandgap. The higher band edge is
The MoM procedure discussed in the previous section can determined by the interception point of the second mode and
also be used to calculate the bandgap properties of printed PBG the light line. Simulation suggests that the second mode is
ZHANG et al.: SCAN BLINDNESS FREE PHASED ARRAY DESIGN USING PBG MATERIALS
Fig. 4. Comparison of the scanned impedances for the dipole array on PBG and uniform substrates. FREQ = 13:0 GHz.  = 2:2. For PBG case dipole size
2 0
is 8.982 mm 0.06 mm, broadside impedance is Z = 71:083 j 0:032
. Array unit cell is 0:4992 . For uniform case the dipole size is tuned to have a
resonance at broadside.
radiating inside the bandgap. In the FE-PML calculation, the
eigen frequencies are complex inside the bandgap region for
given real propagation constants, which implies that modes
inside this bandgap region are damping in the lateral direction.
The leakage properties of these modes need further investigation,
and some similar work has been done in [12] on dielectric
PBGs. The good agreement between the MoM and FEM based
codes verifies the validity of the MoM analysis.
IV. NUMERICAL RESULTS ON PHASED ARRAY
In the first example of phased array, one unit cell is made of
one dipole in the middle of two by two PBG unit cells. Dipoles
in the rectangular array are separated by mm
in and directions, respectively. The substrate thickness is
mm, , mm,
mm, mm. The surface wave bandgap is
between 9.55 and 14.10 GHz.
Fig. 3 shows convergence plot of the input impedance versus
the number of Floquet modes and the number of entire domain
basis (EDB) functions for patch current. In the axis, is
the highest index of the Floquet mode, which means that the
total number of Floquet modes is . It is seen that the
impedance converges as the number of the Floquet modes and
the EDB functions are increased. In our following calculation,
we use for the Floquet modes and 16 EDB functions.
The reflection of the array at two different frequencies are
plotted in Figs. 4 and 5. In Fig. 4, the array operates at 13.0 GHz.
For the case with uniform substrate scan blindness occurs at
69.0 in the -plane, there is no blindness in the -plane be-
cause of polarization mismatch. For the PBG case, there is no
blindness spot. In Fig. 5 the operating frequency is at 13.5 GHz.
Since the array unit cell is greater than , a grating lobe
2003
occurs for both the uniform and PBG substrate. For the array
on the uniform substrate, the scan blindness spot moves toward
broadside comparing to the 13.0 GHz case. There is no blind-
ness spot for the array on the PBG substrate.
In the next example, a substrate with higher dielectric con-
stant is picked. The PBG lattice sizes are
, patch width mm, mm,
. One array unit is made of one dipole in the middle of
four-by-four PBG units. The surface wave bandgap is from 9.25
to 12.85 GHz. Fig. 6 shows the scanned impedance at 12.8 GHz.
For the case on uniform substrate, the blindness spot moves to-
ward the broadside when the permittivity is higher. Again, no
blindness spot is observed for the PBG case.
Compact arrays can be realized on high permittivity sub-
strates, however strong surface waves excited in the substrate
cause problems such as small scan range, strong mutual
coupling between elements, low efficiency, etc. Use of PBG
substrate can avoid the formentioned drawbacks.
In the third example, an array on a thick substrate is analyzed.
Thicker substrate provides wider bandwidth. A unit of the array
is made of one dipole in the middle of four by four PBG unit
cells. The substrate thickness is mm, ,
with the PBG unit period of mm,
mm and mm. The bandgap is from 9.7 to
15.1 GHz. Fig. 7 shows the scanned impedance. Again no scan
blindness exists for the array on the PBG substrate.
V. PBG SUBSTRATE DESIGN PROCEDURES
In practical phased array design, the most important issue is
how to design the PBG substrate. For example, given the sub-
strate thickness ( ), permittivity ( ), array unit cell size ( ),
2004 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004

Fig. 5. Scan impedance of the dipole array on PBG substrate. FREQ = 13:5 GHz, dipole 8.668 mm 2 0.06 mm, broadside impedance is Z = 62:635 +
0 085
. Array unit cell is 0:5184
j : .

Fig. 6. Scan impedance of the dipole array on PBG and uniform substrates.  = 4:4. FREQ = 12:8 GHz. For PBG case, dipole length is 7.14 mm, broadside
0
impedance is Z = 50:30 j 0:08
. Array unit cell is 0:49152 .

how to design the PBG substrate to meet the bandgap and band- In the array design, one also needs to consider the effects of
width requirement ( ). The suggested steps are listed in the feeding and the radiating element loading.
the following:

(1) Design a reference PBG substrate, with VI. EXPERIMENTS

given h, r , a; b, the bandgap is denoted as
4
fref ; fref , A large phased array is always an extremely costly piece
(2) Scale the unit cell size a; b to make the of hardware, and unfortunately some phenomena are related to
4
new bandgap to be f~; ~f , which is close to the size specifically. A commonly used method to examine the scan
aiming frequency f; f, 4 properties of phased arrays is called waveguide simulator, which
(3) Fine tune the gap between the patches, provides a compact and inexpensive test piece for phased arrays.
(4) Check the loading effect. Go back to step For references on the theory of waveguide simulator, please
3 if necessary. refer to [19], [20].
ZHANG et al.: SCAN BLINDNESS FREE PHASED ARRAY DESIGN USING PBG MATERIALS 2005

Fig. 7. Scanned impedance of a dipole array on thick PBG substrate. FREQ = 13:0 GHz, Dipole length is 9.766 mm, broadside impedance is Z = 82 43 0
:
j 0 15
.
:

The experimental setup is explained in Fig. 8[18]. An S-band

WR284 rectangular waveguide is used, the inner dimensions are
2.84 inches by 1.34 inches. The single mode ( ) band is
between 2.60 and 3.95 GHz. The PBG substrate is fabricated
and then press fitted into the waveguide, a shorting plate is added
at the bottom of the substrate ground plane. The coax is fed
through two holes drilled from the waveguide broadside wall.
The substrate is put into a shallow waveguide section so that
we can access the monopole to solder it to the inner conductor
of the coax excitation. Another long waveguide section is put
above the shallow section to allow the excited high order modes
be attenuated, and finally a matched load is put at the end to
simulate the wave propagation in free space.
The waveguide simulator models the phased array with an
-plane scan angle governed by the following equation:

(28)
Fig. 8. Waveguide simulator experimental setup.

with which is the broadside dimension of the wave-
guide and the free space wavelength. For frequencies from
2.6 to 3.9 GHz, the simulated scan range is from 51.22 to
31.32 .
In the experiment, a power divider was used and the two
outputs are connected to two coax cables used to excite the
monopoles. The return loss is measured at the input of the power
divider, and then de-embedded to obtain the reflection coeffi-
cient at the feeding point of the monopole. The substrate is a
RT 5870 Duriod board, with , the thickness is
390 mil.
In the first case we fabricated a PBG substrate using one
layer of this board, the metal patch size is 8.9 mm by 10.5 mm,
with a period of 17.018 mm by 18.034 mm. By mirroring, the
equivalent dipole is between every two by four PBG unit cells.
The monopole length is 16.32 mm. The experimental and MoM
simulation data are plotted in Fig. 9, where consistency can be
observed between the two.
In the second case, we fabricated a PBG material with double
substrate thickness, the surface wave bandgap is between 1.9
and 3.9 GHz. The patch size is 6.5 mm by 7.5 mm. The
monopole length is 21.0 mm. Results are shown in Fig. 10.
For the uniform substrate, scan blindness occurs at 3.7 GHz,
which is corresponding to an -plane scan angle of 34 from
the broadside. This agrees with the scan angle predicted by the
following [1]:
(29)
where is the surface wave propagation constant,
mm is the period of the PBG in broadside. The nonunit
2006
Fig. 9. Waveguide simulator results for dipole array on PBG substrate.
Fig. 10. Waveguide simulator results for dipole array on PBG and
corresponding uniform substrate with substrate thickness twice those in
Fig. 9.
reflection at scan blindness point is due to the loss associated
with the waveguide simulator set up and possibly loss in the
susbtrate. Mismatch between the simulation and measurement
for the PBG case may be due to the nonlongitudinal currents
excited on the patches and vias which affects the waveguide
simulator accuracy. For a resonance frequency at 3.25 GHz, the
substrate thickness is . The good agreement verifies that
the MoM analysis is also valid for thick substrates.
VII. CONCLUSION
Scan properties of phased arrays on PBG substrates have been
investigated. Through the example of printed dipoles on PBG
substrates, it is found in both simulation and experiment that
scan blindness can be completely eliminated, due to the sup-
pression of surface wave propagation inside PBG substrates.
PBG substrates, especially those with complete surface wave
bandgaps, will find extensive applications in printed antennas
and arrays.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to acknowledge Prof. F. De Flaviis
and Mr. R. Ramirez from the University of California at Irvine
for their kind help in the waveguide experiments. The authors
would like to thank Prof. D. Yang from the University of Illi-
nois at Chicago for helpful suggestions on the use of attachment
modes in the MoM solution.
REFERENCES
[1] D. M. Pozar and D. H. Schaubert, “Scan blindness in infinite phased
arrays of printed dipoles,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 32, pp.
602–610, June 1984.
[2] , “Analysis of an infinite array of rectangular microstrip patches
with idealized probe feeds,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 32,
pp. 1101–1107, Oct. 1984.
[3] D. M. Pozar, “Scanning characteristics of infinite arrays of printed
antenna subarrays,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 40, pp.
666–674, June 1992.
[4] W. J. Tsay and D. M. Pozar, “Radiation and scattering from infinite pe-
riodic printed antennas with inhomogeneous media,” IEEE Trans. An-
tennas Propagat., vol. 46, pp. 1641–1650, Nov. 1998.
[5] H. Y. Yang and J. A. Castaneda, “Infinite phased arrays of microstrip
antennas on generalized anisotropic substrates,” Electromagn., vol. 11,
no. 1, pp. 107–124, Jan.-Mar. 1991.
[6] J. A. Castaneda, “Infinite phased array of microstrip dipoles in two
layers,” Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles, 1988.
[7] J. Castaneda and N. G. Alexopoulos, “Infinite arrays of microstrip
dipoles with a superstrate (cover) layer,” in Proc. Antennas and Prop-
agation Int. Symp., vol. 2, 1985, pp. 713–717.
[8] E. Yablonovitch, “Photonic band-gap structures,” J. Opt. Soc. Amer. B,
vol. 10, no. 2, pp. 283–295, Feb. 1993.
[9] D. Sievenpiper, L. Zhang, R. F. J. Broas, N. G. Alexopoulos, and
E. Yablonovitch, “High-impedance electromagnetic surfaces with
a forbidden frequency band,” IEEE Trans. Microwave Theory and
Techniques, vol. 47, pp. 2059–2074, Nov. 1999.
[10] D. Sievenpiper, “High-impedance electromagnetic surfaces,” Ph.D. dis-
sertation, Univ. California, Los Angeles, 1999.
[11] F. R. Yang, K. P. Ma, Y. Qian, and T. Itoh, “A novel TEM waveguide
using uniplanar compact photonic-bandgap (UC-PBG) structure,” IEEE
Trans. Microwave Theory and Techniques, vol. 47, pp. 2092–2098, Nov.
1999.
[12] H. Y. Yang, “Characteristics of guided and leaky waves on multilayer
thin-film structures with planar material gratings,” IEEE Trans. Mi-
crowave Theory and Techniques, vol. 45, pp. 428–435, Mar. 1997.
[13] P. K. Kelly, L. Diaz, M. Piket-May, and I. Rumsey, “Investigation of
scan blindness mitigation using photonic bandgap structure in phased
arrays,” in Proc. SPIE, vol. 3464, July 1999, pp. 239–248.
[14] L. Zhang, N. G. Alexopoulos, D. Sievenpiper, and E. Yablonovitch, “An
efficient finite-element method for the analysis of photonic band-gap
materials,” in Proc. IEEE Int. Microwave Symp. Dig., vol. 4, 1999, pp.
1703–1706.
[15] I. E. Rana and N. G. Alexopoulos, “Current distribution and input
impedance of printed dipoles,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol.
29, pp. 99–105, 1981.
[16] J. T. Aberle and D. M. Pozar, “Analysis of infinite arrays of probe-fed
rectangular microstrip patches using a rigorous feed model,” IEE Proc.,
pt. H, vol. 136, no. 2, pp. 109–119, Apr. 1989.
[17] L. Zhang and N. G. Alexopoulos, “Finite-element based techniques
for the modeling of PBG materials,” Electromagn., Special Issue on
Theory and Applications of Photonic Band-Gap Materials, vol. 19, pp.
225–239, May-June 1999.
[18] L. Zhang, “Numerical characterization of electromagnetic band-gap ma-
terials and applications in printed antennas and arrays,” Ph.D. disserta-
tion, Univ. Calif., Los Angeles, 2000.
[19] P. W. Hannan and M. A. Balfour, “Simulation of a phase-array antenna
in waveguide,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 13, pp. 342–353,
May 1965.
[20] N. Amitay, V. Galindo, and C. P. Wu, Theory and Analysis of Phased
Array Antennas. New York: Wiley-Interscience, 1972, pp. 59–63.
ZHANG et al.: SCAN BLINDNESS FREE PHASED ARRAY DESIGN USING PBG MATERIALS
Lijun Zhang received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in electrical engineering from
University of Science and Technology of China, in 1993 and 1996, respectively,
and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the Department of Electrical
Engineering, University of California, Los Angeles, in 2000.
From June 2000 to December 2000, he was with Agilent Technology in West
Lake Village, CA, working on RF-CMOS CAD. Since December 2000, he has
been working for Broadcom Corporation, Irvine, CA, in the areas of on chip
passives modeling and wireless radio transceiver design.
Jesus A. Castaneda received the B.S. degree in physics from Saint Mary’s Col-
lege, Moraga, CA, in 1970, and the M.S.E.E. and Ph.D.E.E. degrees from the
Department of Electrical Engineering, University of California, Los Angeles
(UCLA), in 1978, 1981, and 1988, respectively.
From 1978 to 1985, he was with the Antenna Department, Radar Systems
Group, Hughes Aircraft Company, working in the area of microwave antenna
design and analysis, including electronically scanned antenna arrays. Other
work areas included planar arrays, frequency selective surfaces, radomes,
and adaptive arrays. From 1986 to 1997, he was with Phraxos Research and
Development, Inc. as Senior Research Engineer and Engineering Manager
with responsibility for the technical management of projects in the area of
electromagnetic modeling for microwave and millimeter wave applications.
From 1995 to 2000, he was a Senior Lecturer at the School of Engineering
and Applied Science, UCLA. Since 2000, he has been with Broadcom
Corporation, Irvine, CA, as a Senior Principal Scientist working in the
areas of antennas for wireless systems and on-chip passives design.
2007
Nicoloas G. Alexopoulos (S’68–M’69–SM’82–F’87) received the B.S.E.E.,
M.S.E.E., and Ph.D.E.E. degrees from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor,
in 1965, 1967, and 1968, respectively.
He was a member of the faculty in the Department of Electrical Engineering,
University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), from 1969 to 1996. While at
UCLA, he served as Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs from 1986 to 1987,
and Chair of the Electrical Engineering Department from 1987 to 1992. Under
his leadership and tenure as Chair the department doubled in size, created a
highly successful Corporate Affiliates Program, raised more than $30 million
in gifts and endowments and established the High Frequency Electronics
Laboratory. In 1997, he joined the Electrical Engineering and Computer
Science Department, University of California, Irvine, and has been Dean
of The Henry Samueli School of Engineering. As Dean he led the efforts
to establish The Integrated Nanosystems Research Facility, The Biomedical
Engineering Department, The Center for Pervasive Communications and
Computing, The California Institute for Telecommunications and Information
Technology, supported the establishment of The National Fuel Cell Research
Center and initiated The Arts, Computing and Engineering Program. In
addition, he is the Principal Investigator of the University of California
Irvine Mathematics Engineering Science Achievement Program (MESA)
and Co-PI of The National Science Foundation UC Systemwide California
Alliance for Minority Participation (CAMP). His research contributions over
time include the first contributions in the interaction of electromagnetic
waves with active surfaces and particles in the early 1970s. He was the
first to define and publish on Active and Passive Magnetic Walls (PBG
and EBG structures) and their realization with artificial periodic structures
and specifically arrays of antennas terminated at variable load impedances.
He demonstrated how such surfaces can be used for beam scanning, and
radar cross section elimination or enhancement. Subsequently he focused on
developing, with his students, a single full wave theory for the simultaneous
design of microstrip circuits and printed antennas, thus taking into account
all wave phenomena and mutual interactions. This work also led to the
study of substrate-superstrate effects and anisotropic and gyrotropic substrate
materials. This body of research contributed significant progress in the use
of the MoMs for the development of useful design algorithms for microstrip
antennas and circuits. More recently, he and his students focused in the
development of percolation theory and its applications in materials and
wave propagation in complex media, as well as the design of artificial
materials. Presently, he is working on the integration of the above mentioned
experience in the research of electromagnetically metamorphic objects and
interfaces. He has more than 250 publications and lectures on a variety
of subjects including a popular lecture on “The Genesis and Destruction
of The First Research University; The Library/Museum of Alexandria.”
Dr. Alexopoulos was the corecipient (with his students) of the Schelkunoff
Award in 1985 and 1998.
2008 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
Fractile Arrays: A New Class of Tiled Arrays With
Fractal Boundaries
Douglas H. Werner, Senior Member, IEEE, Waroth Kuhirun, and Pingjuan L. Werner, Senior Member, IEEE
Abstract—In this paper, a new class of antenna arrays are in-
troduced, which we call fractile arrays. A fractile array is defined
as any array with a fractal boundary contour that tiles the plane
without gaps or overlaps. It will be shown that the unique geo-
metrical features of fractiles may be exploited in order to make
available a family of deterministic arrays that offer several highly
desirable performance advantages over their conventional peri-
odic planar array counterparts. Most notably, fractile arrays have
no grating lobes even when the minimum spacing between ele-
ments is increased to at least one-wavelength. This has led to the
development of a new design methodology for modular broadband
low-sidelobe arrays that is based on fractal tilings. Several exam-
ples of fractile arrays will be considered including Peano–Gosper,
terdragon, 6-terdragon, and fudgeflake arrays. Efficient iterative
procedures for calculating the radiation patterns of these fractile
arrays to arbitrary stage of growth are also introduced in this
paper.
Index Terms—Fractal antennas, fractal arrays, broad-band
arrays, grating lobes, low-sidelobe arrays.
I. INTRODUCTION
S EVERAL book chapters and review articles have been pub-
lished recently that deal with the subject of fractal antenna
engineering [1]–[5]. A considerable amount of this literature is
devoted to new concepts for antenna arrays that employ fractal
geometries in their design. The first application of fractal geom-
etry to antenna array theory was proposed by Kim and Jaggard
[3], [5], [6], where properties of random fractals were used to
develop a design methodology for quasirandom arrays. These
quasirandom arrays were shown to possess radiation character-
istics capable of bridging the gap between those produced by
completely ordered (i.e., periodic) arrays and completely disor-
dered (i.e., random) arrays.
The design of multiband and low-sidelobe linear arrays based
on a Cantor fractal distribution of elements was considered in
[1], [3], [5], [7]. Other properties of Cantor fractal linear arrays
have been studied more recently in [2], [3], [5]. The electro-
magnetic radiation produced by planar concentric-ring Cantor
arrays was investigated in [3], [5], [8]. These arrays were gener-
ated using polyadic Cantor bars, which are described by their
similarity fractal dimension, number of gaps, and lacunarity
Manuscript received June 16, 2003; revised August 18, 2003.
The authors are with the The Pennsylvania State University, Depart-
ment of Electrical Engineering, University Park, PA 16802 USA (e-mail:
dhw@psu.edu).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2004.832327
0018-926X/04$20.00 © 2004 IEEE
parameter. Planar fractal array configurations, based on Sier-
pinski carpets, were also considered in [2], [3], [5], [9]. The
fact that Sierpinski carpet and related arrays can be generated
recursively (i.e., via successive stages of growth starting with a
simple generating array) has been exploited in order to develop
rapid algorithms for use in efficient radiation pattern computa-
tions and adaptive beamforming, especially for arrays with mul-
tiple stages of growth that contain a relatively large number of
elements [2], [3], [5]. The Cantor linear and Sierpinski carpet
planar fractal arrays have also been shown to be examples of
deterministically thinned arrays [2], [3], [5].
More recently, a new type of deterministic fractal array was
introduced in [10]–[12] that is based on the Peano–Gosper
family of space-filling curves. The elements of the array are
uniformly distributed along a Peano–Gosper curve, which
leads to a planar array configuration with parallelogram cells
that is bounded by a closed Koch-type fractal curve. These
unique properties were exploited in [10]–[12] to develop a
design methodology for deterministic arrays that have no
grating lobes even when the minimum spacing between ele-
ments is increased to at least one wavelength. Hence, these
Peano–Gosper arrays are relatively broadband when compared
to more conventional periodic planar arrays with square or
rectangular cells and regular boundary contours. This type of
fractal array differs fundamentally from other types of fractal
array configurations that have been studied previously, such as
those reported in [1]–[9], which have regular boundaries with
elements distributed in a fractal pattern on the interior of the
array. However, in direct contrast to this, the boundary contour
of the Peano–Gosper array is fractal but the elements on the
interior of the array do not follow a fractal distribution.
A new category of fractal arrays, which we call fractile ar-
rays, will be introduced in this paper. A fractile array is defined
to be any array which has a fractal boundary contour that tiles
the plane. Tilings of the plane using fractal shaped tiles have
been considered in [13]–[15]. These fractal tiles, or fractiles,
represent a unique subset of all possible tile geometries that can
be used to cover the plane without gaps or overlaps. Here we
exploit the unique geometrical properties of fractiles to develop
a new design methodology for modular broadband low-sidelobe
antenna arrays.
In Section II-A we demonstrate that the Peano–Gosper arrays
recently considered in [10]–[12] may be classified as fractile
arrays. The radiation characteristics of other types of fractile
arrays will also be investigated in this paper. These include the
tredragon, 6-terdragon, and fudgeflake fractile arrays discussed
in Section II-B, Section II-C, and Section II-D, respectively.
WERNER et al.: FRACTILE ARRAYS: A NEW CLASS OF TILED ARRAYS WITH FRACTAL BOUNDARIES
(a)
(b)
(c)
Fig. 1. Gosper island fractiles and their corresponding Peano–Gosper curves
for (a) stage 1, (b) stage 2, and (c) stage 4.
II. SOME EXAMPLES OF FRACTILE ARRAYS
A. The Peano–Gosper Fractile Array
The radiation properties of Peano–Gosper arrays have been
recently investigated in [10]–[12]. These arrays derive their
name from the fact that the elements are uniformly distributed
along a space-filling Peano–Gosper curve. This results in a
deterministic planar array configuration composed of a unique
arrangement of parallelogram cells that is bounded by a variant
of an irregular closed Koch fractal curve. It was shown in
[10]–[12] that these arrays exhibit relatively broadband low
side-lobe performance when compared to their conventional
counterparts.
Here, we show that Peano–Gosper arrays are in actuality a
type of fractile array. In order to see this, it is convenient to
start by considering the sequence of Gosper islands illustrated in
Fig. 1. Also shown in Fig. 1 are the Peano–Gosper curves that fill
the interior of the associated Gosper islands. The array elements
are assumed to be equally spaced along these Peano–Gosper
curves [10]–[12]. For example, the generating array represented
2009
Fig. 2. First three stages in the construction of a terdragon curve. The initiator
is shown in (a) as a dashed line superimposed on the stage 1 generator. The
generator (unscaled) is shown again in (b) as the dashed curve superimposed on
the stage 2 terdragon curve. The stage 3 terdragon curve is shown in (c).
by the stage 1 Peano–Gosper curve shown in Fig. 1(a) con-
tains a total of eight elements, while the stage 2 Peano–Gosper
array represented by the curve shown in Fig. 1(b) contains 50
elements.
Fig. 1(b) indicates that seven stage 1 Gosper islands can be
tiled together to form a stage 2 Gosper island. Likewise, seven
stage 2 Gosper islands can be tiled together in a similar way
to form a stage 3 Gosper island, and so on. Fig. 1(c) shows a
stage 4 Gosper island (which consists of seven stage 3 Gosper
islands tiled together) as well as the corresponding stage 4
Peano–Gosper curve that fills its interior. The tiling process
depicted in Fig. 1 can be repeated to produce Gosper islands
having any desired stage of growth. This implies that Gosper
island tiles are self-similar since they may be divided into
seven equal tiles that are similar to the whole [13]. Moreover, it
follows that the boundary of these Gosper island tiles is repre-
sented by a type of Koch fractal curve. It is also obvious from
Fig. 1 that these Gosper islands are examples of fractiles since
they can be used to tile the plane. Finally, because each Gosper
island has a corresponding Peano–Gosper curve that fills its
interior, then we are led to the conclusion that Peano–Gosper
arrays do in fact belong to the family of fractile arrays.
B. The Terdragon Fractile Array
In this section, we will introduce the terdragon fractile array
as well as derive a useful compact product representation for the
corresponding array factor. The terdragon is a member of the
family of space-filling dragon curves [14]. The first three stages
in the construction of a terdragon curve are shown in Fig. 2. The
initiator for the terdragon curve is indicated in Fig. 2(a) by the
dashed line segment of unit length. The generator for the ter-
dragon curve is obtained from the initiator by replacing it with
a three-sided polygon as shown in Fig. 2(a), where each side
has a length of . Now in order to obtain the stage
construction of the terdragon curve shown in Fig. 2(b), each of
the three sides of the generator polygon at stage (shown
2010 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004

Fig. 3. Element locations and associated current distributions for the (a) stage 1, (b) stage 3, and (c) stage 6 terdragon fractile arrays. The spacing d between
consecutive array elements uniformly distributed along the terdragon curve is assumed to be the same for each stage.

reproduced in Fig. 2(b) as the dashed curve) are replaced by an TABLE I

EXPRESSIONS OF x AND y IN TERMS OF THE PARAMETERS d AND 
appropriately scaled, rotated, and translated copy of the entire
generator. This iterative process may be repeated to generate
terdragon curves up to an arbitrary stage of growth . For in-
stance, the stage construction of the terdragon curve is
shown in Fig. 2(c) superimposed on a copy of the stage
curve from Fig. 2(b). The geometry for a stage 1, a stage 3, and
a stage 6 fractile array based on the terdragon curve are shown
in Fig. 3. Fig. 3 also indicates the location of the elements in
the plane and their corresponding values of current am-
plitude excitation. For this example, the minimum spacing be-
tween array elements is held fixed at a value of for each
stage of growth. The nonuniform current amplitude distribu-
tions arise from the fact that the initiator consists of a uniformly
excited two-element linear array with spacing between the ele-
ments denoted by . Hence, we can consider the generator
array shown in Fig. 3(a) to be composed of three copies of the
two-element initiator array appropriately rotated and translated.
In this case there are two instances where two of the array ele-
ments will share a common location. From a physical point of
view the two colocated elements can be interpreted as a single
element having twice the value of current amplitude excitation.
With this in mind the mathematical six-element uniformly ex-
cited array model can be replaced by a physically equivalent
four-element array model that has a nonuniform current dis-
tribution of 1:2:2:1. This process is then repeated to generate
higher-order versions of the fractile array.
Fig. 4. First stage in the construction of a 6-terdragon fractile. The initiator is
The array factor for a stage terdragon fractile array may be shown as the dashed curve superimposed on the stage 1 generator shown as the
conveniently expressed in terms of a product of matrices solid curve.
WERNER et al.: FRACTILE ARRAYS: A NEW CLASS OF TILED ARRAYS WITH FRACTAL BOUNDARIES 2011

Fig. 6. 6-terdragon fractile arrays for (a) stage 4 and (b) stage 6.

Fig. 5. Element locations and associated current distributions for the (a) stage
1, (b) stage 2 and (c) stage 3 6-terdragon fractile arrays. The spacing d
between consecutive array elements uniformly distributed along the 6-terdragon
curve is assumed to be the same for each stage.

which are pre-multiplied by a vector and postmultiplied by

a vector such that

(1)

where

(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
(6)

(7)

(8) Fig. 7. The first three stages in the construction of a fudgeflake fractile.
The initiator is shown in (a) as the dashed curve superimposed on the stage 1
(9) generator. The generator (unscaled) is shown again in (b) as the dashed curve
superimposed on the stage 2 fudgeflake. The stage 3 fudgeflake curve is shown
in (c).
(10)

(12)
(11) (13)
2012 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004

Fig. 8. Element locations and associated current distributions for the (a) stage 1, (b) stage 3, and (c) stage 5 fudgeflake fractile arrays. The spacing d between
consecutive array elements uniformly distributed along the fudgeflake curve is assumed to be the same for each stage.

Note that the parameter represents the scale factor used to where represents the empty set. Note that if then
generate the terdragon fractile arrays shown in Fig. 3. The values for the corresponding values of and . The values of
of required in (8) are found from and for – required to evaluate (9) and (10) are
listed in Table I.

C. The 6-Terdragon Fractile Array

(14) Fig. 4 shows the first stage in the construction of a fractile
array that is based on six copies of the stage 1 terdragon array,
WERNER et al.: FRACTILE ARRAYS: A NEW CLASS OF TILED ARRAYS WITH FRACTAL BOUNDARIES 2013

Fig. 9. Fudgeflake fractile array aperture divided into three self-similar

subarray apertures. Fig. 11. Plot of the normalized stage 6 terdragon fractile array factor versus '
for  = 90 and d = .

Fig. 10. Plot of the normalized stage 6 terdragon fractile array factor versus  Fig. 12. Plot of the normalized array factor versus  with ' = 90 for a
for ' = 90 . The dashed curve represents the case where d = =2 and the 2
uniformly excited 18 18 periodic square array. The dashed curve represents
solid curve represents the case where d = . the case where d = =2 and the solid curve represents the case where
d = .
shown in Fig. 3, arranged in the plane around the point at
the origin. Therefore, we introduce the terminology 6-terdragon where the matrices and are defined in (2) and (6),
array to denote a fractile array generated from the curve shown respectively.
in Fig. 4. The first three stages (i.e., , and )
in the construction of a 6-terdragon fractile array are shown in D. The Fudgeflake Fractile Array
Fig. 5. Also indicated in Fig. 5 are the locations of the elements
In this section, another type of fractile, known as the fudge-
and their corresponding values of current amplitude excitation.
The minimum spacing between array elements is held fixed at a flake, is investigated for its potential utility in the design of
value of for each stage of growth. Fig. 6 shows the geom- broadband low-sidelobe antenna arrays. The first three stages in
etry for a stage 4 and a stage 6 6-terdragon fractile array. This the construction of a fudgeflake fractile are illustrated in Fig. 7
figure also clearly illustrates how these arrays can be considered [14]. The initiator appears as the dashed curve (i.e., the triangle)
as being composed of six associated terdragon subarrays tiled in Fig. 7(a) superimposed on the stage 1 generator. This gener-
together around a common central point. The array factor for a ator is shown again in Fig. 7(b) as the dashed curve superim-
stage 6-terdragon fractile array may be expressed in terms of posed on the stage 2 fudgeflake, while Fig. 7(c) shows the stage
the product of matrices which are premultiplied by a 3 fudgeflake with the associated generator from stage 2 super-
vector and postmultiplied by a vector such that imposed. The geometry and current distributions for a stage 1,
stage 3, and stage 5 fudgeflake fractile array located in the
(15)
plane are depicted in Fig. 8. Finally, an example is presented in
(16) Fig. 9 that illustrates how a fudgeflake fractile array can be di-
(17) vided into three self-similar subarray apertures.
2014 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004

TABLE II
MAXIMUM DIRECTIVITY FOR SEVERAL DIFFERENT TERDRAGON FRACTILE ARRAYS

TABLE III
COMPARISON OF MAXIMUM DIRECTIVITY FOR A STAGE 6 TERDRAGON FRACTILE ARRAY WITH 308 ELEMENTS AND AN 18 2 18 SQUARE ARRAY OF
COMPARABLE SIZE WITH 324 ELEMENTS

The array factor for a stage fudgeflake fractile array may III. RESULTS
be expressed as Fig. 10 contains a plot of the normalized array factor (in deci-
bels) versus with for the stage 6 terdragon fractile
(18) array shown in Fig. 3(c). The dashed curve represents the ra-
diation pattern slice for a terdragon fractile array with element
spacings of while the solid curve represents the
where the matrices and have been defined in (2) and (6), corresponding radiation pattern slice for the same array with
respectively, and . Fig. 11 shows a plot of the normalized array factor
for the case where , and .
(19) This plot demonstrates that there are no grating lobes present
anywhere in the azimuthal plane of the terdragon fractile array,
(20) even with elements spaced one-wavelength apart. For compar-
ison purposes, we consider a uniformly excited periodic 18 18
square array of comparable size to the stage 6 terdragon fractile
Finally, we point out that the self-similar and associated itera- array, which contains a total of 308 elements. Plots of the nor-
tive properties of fractile arrays could be exploited to develop malized array factor for the 18 18 periodic square array are
fast algorithms for calculating their driving point impedances. shown in Fig. 12 for element spacings of
This could be accomplished by following a similar procedure to (dashed curve) and (solid curve). A grating lobe
that introduced in [5] and [16] for the more conventional Cantor is clearly visible for the case in which the elements are periodi-
linear and Sierpinski carpet planar fractal arrays. cally spaced one wavelength apart.
WERNER et al.: FRACTILE ARRAYS: A NEW CLASS OF TILED ARRAYS WITH FRACTAL BOUNDARIES
Fig. 13. Plots of the normalized array factor versus  for ' = 0 with
mainbeam steered to  = 45 and ' = 0 . The solid curve represents the
radiation pattern of a stage 6 terdragon fractile array with d = =2 and the
dashed curve represents the radiation pattern of a uniformly excited 18 182
square array with d = d = =2. Note that terdragon arrays are examples
of almost uniformly excited arrays.
Fig. 14. Plot of the normalized stage 4 6-terdragon fractile array factor versus
 for ' = 90 . The dashed curve represents the case where d = =2 and
the solid curve represents the case where d = .
The array factor of any stage planar fractile array with
elements may be expressed in the general form:
(21)
where and represent the excitation current amplitude and
phase of the th element respectively, is the horizontal posi-
tion vector for the th element with magnitude and angle ,
and is the unit vector in the direction of the far-field observa-
tion point. Therefore, an expression for the maximum directivity
of a broadside stage planar fractile array of isotropic sources
2015
Fig. 15. Plot of the normalized stage 5 fudgeflake fractile array factor versus
 for ' = 90 . The dashed curve represents the case where d = =2 and
the solid curve represents the case where d = .
may be readily obtained by setting in (21) and substi-
tuting the result into
(22)
This leads to the following expression for the maximum direc-
tivity given by [10]:
(23)
Table II lists the values of maximum directivity, calcu-
lated using (23), for several terdragon fractile arrays with
different minimum element spacings and stages of growth
. Table III provides a comparison between the maximum
directivity of a stage 6 terdragon fractile array and that of a con-
ventional uniformly excited 18 18 planar square array. These
directivity comparisons are made for three different values
of array element spacings (i.e., ,
and ). In the first case, where the element spacing
is assumed to be , we find that the maximum
directivity of the stage 6 terdragon array and the 18 18 square
array are comparable. This is also found to be the case when
the element spacing is increased to (see Table III).
However, in the third case where the element spacing is in-
creased to , we see that the maximum directivity for
the stage 6 terdragon fractile array is about 9 dB higher than its
conventional 18 18 square array counterpart. This is because
the maximum directivity for the stage 6 terdragon fractile array
increases from 25.6 to 29.8 dB when the element spacing is
changed from a half-wavelength to one-wavelength, respec-
tively, while on the other hand, the maximum directivity for the
18 18 square array drops from 26.9 dB down to 20.9 dB. The
drop in value of maximum directivity for the 18 18 square
2016 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
TABLE IV
MAXIMUM DIRECTIVITY FOR SEVERAL DIFFERENT 6-TERDRAGON FRACTILE ARRAYS
array may be attributed to the appearance of grating lobes in
the radiation pattern.
Next, we consider the case where the mainbeam of the ter-
dragon fractile array is steered in the direction corresponding to
and . In order to accomplish this, the element
phases for the terdragon fractile array are chosen according to
(24)
Fig. 13 shows normalized array factor plots with the mainbeam
steered to and , where the solid curve re-
sults from a stage 6 terdragon fractile array and the dashed curve
results from a conventional uniformly excited 18 18 square
array. The minimum spacing between elements for both arrays
is assumed to be a half-wavelength. This comparison demon-
strates that the terdragon fractile array is superior to the 18 18
square array in terms of its overall sidelobe characteristics.
At this point the radiation characteristics of the 6-terdragon
fractile array illustrated in Fig. 6(a) will be investigated. A plot
of the normalizad array factor as a function of for the stage 4
6-terdragon fractile array is shown in Fig. 14 for . The
dashed curve represents the case where , whereas
the solid curve represents the case where . Again,
we see from Fig. 14 that there are no grating lobes present for
this array when the minimum spacing between elements is as
much as one-wavelength. The values of maximum directivity
for several 6-terdragon fractile arrays with different minimum
element spacings and stages of growth are listed in Table IV.
Table V provides a comparison between the maximum direc-
tivity of a stage 4 6-terdragon fractile array and a uniformly ex-
cited 15 15 planar square array for three different values of
element spacings.
Finally, the last example to be considered will be the stage
5 fudgeflake fractile array illustrated in Fig. 8(c). A plot of
the normalized array factor for this array is shown in Fig. 15,
where the dashed curve and solid curve represent the cases
where and , respectively. Table VI
lists the values of maximum directivity for several fudgeflake
fractile arrays with different minimum element spacings and
stages of growth , while Table VII provides a comparison
between the maximum directivity of a stage 5 fudgeflake
fractile array and a uniformly excited 18 18 planar square
array for element spacings of , and . Therefore,
this example provides yet another illustration of the unique
feature characteristic of fractile arrays; namely, the fact that
they possess very low sidelobes and no grating lobes will
appear in the radiation patterns when the minimum spacing is
changed from a half-wavelength to at least a full-wavelength.
It is also interesting to note that terdragon, 6-terdragon, and
fudgeflake fractile arrays are all deterministic examples of
almost uniformly excited arrays [17].
IV. CONCLUSION
A new class of antenna arrays, which we call fractile arrays,
has been introduced in this paper. These fractile arrays are
characterized by having a fractal boundary contour that tiles
the plane without gaps or overlaps. The unique geometrical
properties of fractiles have been exploited in order to develop
a deterministic design methodology for modular broadband
low-sidelobe arrays. The radiation properties of several different
WERNER et al.: FRACTILE ARRAYS: A NEW CLASS OF TILED ARRAYS WITH FRACTAL BOUNDARIES 2017

TABLE V
COMPARISON OF MAXIMUM DIRECTIVITY FOR A STAGE 4 6-TERDRAGON FRACTILE ARRAY WITH 211 ELEMENTS AND A 15 2 15 SQUARE ARRAY OF
COMPARABLE SIZE WITH 225 ELEMENTS

TABLE VI
MAXIMUM DIRECTIVITY FOR SEVERAL DIFFERENT FUDGEFLAKE FRACTILE ARRAYS

TABLE VII
COMPARISON OF MAXIMUM DIRECTIVITY FOR A STAGE 5 FUDGEFLAKE FRACTILE ARRAY WITH 292 ELEMENTS AND AN 18 2 18 SQUARE ARRAY
WITH 324 ELEMENTS

fractile arrays have been investigated including Peano–Gosper, REFERENCES

terdragon, 6-terdragon, and fudgeflake arrays. Efficient iterative
procedures for calculating the radiation patterns of these fractile
arrays to arbitrary stage of growth have also been developed
in this paper.
[1] J. L. Vehl, E. Lutton, and C. Tricot, Eds., Fractals in Engineering. New
York: Springer-Verlag, 1997.
[2] D. H. Werner, R. L. Haupt, and P. L. Werner, “Fractal antenna engi-
neering: The theory and design of fractal antenna arrays,” IEEE An-
tennas Propagat. Mag., vol. 41, no. 5, pp. 37–59, Oct. 1999.
2018 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
[3] D. H. Werner and R. Mittra, Eds., Frontiers in Electromagnetics. Pis-
cataway, NJ: IEEE Press, 2000.
[4] J. P. Gianvittorio and Y. Rahmat-Samii, “Fractal antennas: A novel
antenna miniaturization technique, and applications,” IEEE Antennas
Propagat. Mag., vol. 44, pp. 20–36, Feb. 2002.
[5] D. H. Werner and S. Ganguly, “An overview of fractal antenna engi-
neering research,” IEEE Antennas Propagat. Mag., vol. 45, pp. 38–57,
Feb. 2003.
[6] Y. Kim and D. L. Jaggard, “The fractal random array,” Proc. IEEE, vol.
74, no. 9, pp. 1278–1280, 1986.
[7] C. P. Baliarda and R. Pous, “Fractal design of multiband and low side-
lobe arrays,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 44, pp. 730–739,
May 1996.
[8] D. L. Jaggard and A. D. Jaggard, “Cantor ring arrays,” Microwave and
Opt. Technol. Lett., vol. 19, pp. 121–125, 1998.
[9] D. H. Werner, K. C. Anushko, and P. L. Werner, “The generation of sum
and difference patterns using fractal subarrays,” Microwave and Opt.
Technol. Lett., vol. 22, no. 1, pp. 54–57, July 1999.
[10] D. H. Werner, W. Kuhirun, and P. L. Werner, “The Peano–Gosper fractal
array,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 51, pp. 2063–2072, Aug.
2003.
[11] , “A new class of modular broadband arrays based on gosper islands
and associated Peano–Gosper curves,” in Proc. IEEE Int. Antennas and
Propagation Symp. and URSI North American Radio Science Meeting,
vol. 4, Columbus, OH, June 22–27, 2003, pp. 250–253.
[12] , “A new design methodology for modular broadband arrays based
on fractal tilings,” in Proc. IEEE Topical Conf. Wireless Communication
Technology, Honolulu, HI, Oct. 15–17, 2003.
[13] B. B. Mandelbrot, The Fractal Geometry of Nature. New York:
Freeman, 1983.
[14] G. A. Edgar, Measure, Topology, and Fractal Geometry. New York:
Springer-Verlag, 1990.
[15] B. Grunbaum and G. C. Shephard, Tilings and Patterns. New York: W.
H. Freeman and Company, 1987.
[16] D. H. Werner, D. Baldacci, and P. L. Werner, “An efficient recursive pro-
cedure for evaluating the impedance matrix of linear and planar fractal
arrays,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 52, pp. 380–387, Feb.
2004.
[17] P. Lopez, J. A. Rodríguez, F. Ares, and E. Moreno, “Low sidelobe level
in almost uniformly excited array,” Inst. Elect. Eng. Electron. Lett., vol.
36, no. 24, pp. 1991–1993, Nov. 2000.
Douglas H. Werner (S’81–M’89–SM’94) received
the B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in electrical en-
gineering and the M.A. degree in mathematics from
The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State),
University Park, in 1983, 1985, 1989, and 1986,
respectively.
He is an Associate Professor in the Department of
Electrical Engineering, Penn State. He is a member of
the Communications and Space Sciences Lab (CSSL)
and is affiliated with the Electromagnetic Communi-
cation Research Lab. He is also a Senior Research
Associate in the Electromagnetics and Environmental Effects Department of
the Applied Research Laboratory at Penn State. He is a former Associate Editor
of Radio Science. He has published numerous technical papers and proceedings
articles and is the author of nine book chapters. He is an Editor of Frontiers
in Electromagnetics (Piscataway, NJ: IEEE Press, 2000). He also contributed
a chapter for Electromagnetic Optimization by Genetic Algorithms (New York:
Wiley Interscience, 1999). His research interests include theoretical and com-
putational electromagnetics with applications to antenna theory and design, mi-
crowaves, wireless and personal communication systems, electromagnetic wave
interactions with complex media, meta-materials, fractal and knot electrody-
namics, and genetic algorithms.
Dr. Werner is a Member of the American Geophysical Union (AGU), Inter-
national Scientific Radio Union (URSI) Commissions B and G, the Applied
Computational Electromagnetics Society (ACES), Eta Kappa Nu, Tau Beta Pi,
and Sigma Xi. He received the 1993 Applied Computational Electromagnetics
Society (ACES) Best Paper Award and a 1993 URSI Young Scientist Award.
In 1994, he received the Pennsylvania State University Applied Research Lab-
oratory Outstanding Publication Award. He received a College of Engineering
PSES Outstanding Research Award and Outstanding Teaching Award in March
2000 and March 2002, respectively. He recently received an IEEE Central Penn-
sylvania Section Millennium Medal. He has also received several Letters of
Commendation from Penn State’s Department of Electrical Engineering for
outstanding teaching and research. He is an Editor of IEEE ANTENNAS AND
PROPAGATION MAGAZINE.
Waroth Kuhirun received the B. Eng. degree from Chulalongkorn University,
Thailand, in 1994 and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from
Pennsylvania State University, University Park, in 1998 and 2003, respectively.
From 1994 to 1995, he worked at Kasetsart University, Thailand. His research
interest is in the area of fractal and fractile antenna arrays.
Dr. Kuhirun received a scholarship from the Thai Government for his M.S.
and Ph.D. studies.
Pingjuan L. Werner (SM’02) is an Associate Pro-
fessor with the Pennsylvania State University Col-
lege of Engineering. Her primary research focuses
are in the area of electromagnetics, including fractal
antenna engineering and the application of genetic al-
gorithms in electromagnetics.
Prof. Werner is a Fellow of the Leonhard Center,
College of Engineering, The Pennsylvania State Uni-
versity, and a Member of Tau Beta Pi National Egi-
neering Honor Society, Eta Kappa Nu National Elec-
trical Engineering Honor Society, Sigma Xi National
Research Honor Society. She received The Best Paper Award from the Applied
Computational Electromagnetics Society in 1993.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004 2019

A New Millimeter-Wave Printed Dipole Phased Array

Antenna Using Microstrip-Fed Coplanar Stripline
Tee Junctions
Young-Ho Suh, Member, IEEE, and Kai Chang, Fellow, IEEE

Abstract—A new millimeter-wave printed twin dipole phased

array antenna is developed at Ka band using a new microstrip-fed
CPS Tee junction, which does not require any bonding wires,
air bridges, or via holes. The phased array used a piezoelectric
transducer (PET) controlled tunable multitransmission line phase
shifter to accomplish a progressive phase shift. A progressive
phase shift of 88.8 is achieved with the 5 mm of perturber length
when the PET has full deflection. Measured return loss of the
twin dipole antenna is better than 10 dB from 29.5 to 30.35 GHz.
Measured return loss of better than 15 dB is achieved from 30 to
31.5 GHz for a 1 8 phased array. The phased array antenna has
a measured antenna gain of 14.4 dBi with 42 beam scanning and
has more than 11 dB side lobe suppression across the scan.
Index Terms—Coplanar stripline (CPS), CPS Tee junction,
coplanar transmission lines, dipole antenna, microstrip-to-CPS
transition, phase shifter, phased array antenna, piezoelectric
transducer phase shifter, twin dipole antenna.

I. INTRODUCTION
Fig. 1. CCPS structure (a) original CPS, (b) CCPS, (c) cross-sectional view at
A-A’ with fields distributions of the CCPS for different layers of metallization.

P HASED array antenna systems usually associated with

large and complex active device networks for phase
shifters, which occupies large portion of the system expenses.
Phased array used in military radar system requires low profile
for invisibility against opponents. It also needs to be light
weight especially in the applications of satellite communica-
tions. Correspondingly, the demands for low cost, low profile,
small size, light weight, and less complicated phased array
antenna systems are increasing nowadays for both commercial
and military applications.
A printed dipole antenna satisfies the benefits of low profile,
light weight, low cost and compact size, which is suitable for
building phased arrays if proper phase shifters are provided.
To construct a printed dipole array, several configurations have
been proposed. Nesic et al. [1] reported a one-dimensional
printed dipole antenna array fed by microstrip at 5.2 GHz.
Scott [2] introduced a microstrip-fed printed dipole array using
a microstrip-to-coplanar stripline (CPS) balun. In [1] and [2],
the balun designs were not easy to match the impedance
and the structures were too big and complicated to build an
Manuscript received August 1, 2002; revised June 17, 2003. This work was
supported in part by the National Science Foundation and NASA Glenn Re-
search Center.
Y.-H. Suh was with the Department of Electrical Engineering, Texas A&M
University, College Station, TX 77840 USA. He is now with Mimix Broadband
Inc., Houston, TX 77099 USA (e-mail: ysuh@mimixbroadband.com).
K. Chang is with Department of Electrical Engineering, Texas A&M Univer-
sity, College Station, TX 77840 USA (e-mail: chang@ee. tamu.edu).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2004.832510
0018-926X/04$20.00 © 2004 IEEE
array. In 1998, a wideband microstrip-fed twin dipole antenna
was introduced with double-sided structure operating at the
frequency range from 0.61 to 0.96 GHz [3]. Zhu and Wu [4]
developed a 3.5 GHz twin dipole antenna fed by a hybrid
finite ground coplanar waveguide (FGCPW)/CPS Tee junction.
An X-band monolithic integrated twin dipole antenna mixer
was reported in [5] with devices directly integrated into the
antenna, so no feeding network was necessary.
In this paper, a new planar printed dipole phased array
antenna using a tunable phase shifter controlled by PET is
presented at 30 GHz. The phased array antenna uses a new twin
dipole antenna excited by a microstrip-fed CPS Tee junction
[8]. The piezoelectric transducer (PET) controlled phase shifter
does not require any solid-state devices and their associated
driving circuits. The 1 8 twin dipole phased array antenna
has compact size, low loss, low cost, light weight and reduced
complexity as well as good beam scanning with low side lobe
levels.
The PET controlled phase shifter was adopted for the low
cost phased array antenna systems for the first time in [6] and
[7]. In this structure, a dielectric perturber controlled by PET
is used to introduce a progressive phase shift. The deflection
takes place at the PET when the proper voltages are applied.
Using this property of the PET, a dielectric perturber can have
upward and downward movement according to the applied
voltages. Consequently, if a transmission line is perturbed by
a PET actuated dielectric perturber, its propagation constant
2020
Fig. 2. Simulated performances comparison at Ka band between conventional and coupled CPS.
will be changed. This phenomenon induces a variable phase
shift along the transmission line controlled by PET. In [6] and
[7], an end-fire Vivaldi antenna was used for covering a wide
bandwidth, and a transition was required to feed antennas.
Consequently, the system was large and bulky.
The new printed twin dipole phased array using a mi-
crostrip-fed CPS combined with a PET phase shifter provides
low-cost, low-loss, low-profile, compact-size and low-com-
plexity with simple antenna feeding.
II. A MICROSTRIP-FED CPS TEE JUNCTION
The twin dipole antenna is fed by a CPS. Since conventional
planar transmission line is microstrip line, a microstrip-to-CPS
transition is needed to feed the dipole. A microstrip-fed CPS
Tee junction without using bonding wires or air bridges was in-
troduced in [8]. In [8], the operating frequency is centered near
3.5 GHz with 0.7 dB insertion loss ranged from 2 to 4.15 GHz.
The Tee junction utilized novel coupled CPS (CCPS). This
transmission line can have a physical discontinuity while fields
are continuous over the whole transmission line using CCPS.
The structure of original CPS and CCPS at 30 GHz is shown
in Fig. 1(a) and (b). For the CPS, CCPS, Tee junction and
antenna design, IE3D software [9], which uses the method of
moments, is employed for full wave electromagnetic simulation.
A 31 mil RT/Duroid 5870 substrate with a dielectric constant
of 2.33 is used for the antenna and feeding network fabrication.
The width ( ) of CPS strip is 0.65 mm and gap ( ) between
the strips is 0.5 mm, which has the characteristic impedance
of 202 . This impedance is chosen to match a dipole an-
tenna input impedance which will be shown later. As shown
in Fig. 1(b), one of the CPS strips is discontinued and is
terminated with radial stubs with a rotation angle of 30 and
a radius of 0.65 mm for coupling to the bottom layer met-
allization. The bottom layer metallization, which is coupled
from the top layer’s radial stubs, works as a CPS strip shown
in Fig. 1(c). The radial stub is used to accomplish the smooth
field transition. The wideband coupling performance of radial
stubs has been reported in the microstrip-to CPS-to-microstrip
back-to-back transition for lower frequency operation [10]. The
back-to-back transition has a measured 3 dB insertion loss over
a frequency range from 1.3 to 13.3 GHz (1:10.2) and return loss
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
is better than 10 dB. The radial stub provides virtual short to
the bottom layer metallization, which depends on the radius of
the radial stub. Hence, smaller radius of radial stub gives higher
operating frequency with minimal insertion loss and return loss
deteriorations compared to the original CPS configuration.
Performances of CCPS are simulated with IE3D and com-
pared with those of conventional CPS as shown in Fig. 2. The
simulated transmission line length is about 5 mm and the con-
ventional CPS has almost zero insertion loss with that short
length transmission line. Fig. 2 shows that the insertion loss of
CCPS is deteriorated by about 1 dB as compared with that of
conventional CPS for the frequency range from 29.2 GHz to 35
GHz and the return loss is better than 10 dB. Insertion loss de-
terioration of less than 2 dB covers the wider frequency range
from 26.4 GHz to 35 GHz. From the above results, CCPS shows
that fields are continuous all over the transmission line with the
aid of radial stub, though a discontinuity is introduced at one of
the CPS strips.
The structure of microstrip-fed CPS Tee junction at 30 GHz
is shown in Fig. 3. The Tee junction has the characteristic
impedance of 202 at each output port 1 and 2. The input
impedance to the microstrip feed at port 3 is about 101 , which
is half of 202 . Radial stubs effectively rotate the electric
fields from parallel to the normal to the substrate to have a
good coupling to the bottom metallization, which provides the
ground of microstrip line.
The Tee junction is simulated with IE3D to verify the per-
formance at 30 GHz. Simulated performance of the Tee junc-
tion is shown in Fig. 4. The simulated performance shows that
the Tee junction equally splits the power to each CPS port with
1.2 dB insertion loss at 30 GHz. Simulated 2 dB insertion loss
bandwidth of the Tee junction is from 27.2 to 34.8 GHz, and the
return loss is better than 20 dB. Because of high frequency oper-
ation bandwidth restriction of the microstrip-to-CPS transition
in [8], the Tee junction is not measured but simulation results
quite verifies its performances.
III. TWIN DIPOLE ANTENNA USING MICROSTRIP-FED CPS
TEE JUNCTION
The structure of the twin dipole antenna is illustrated in
Fig. 5. The twin dipole antenna utilizes the microstrip-fed CPS
SUH AND CHANG: A NEW MILLIMETER-WAVE PRINTED DIPOLE PHASED ARRAY ANTENNA 2021

Fig. 3. Structure of Ka-band microstrip-fed CPS Tee junction for twin dipole antenna feeding near 30 GHz.

Tee junction as discussed in Section II. The antenna is placed

in front of a reflector for uni-directional radiation. The reflector
is spaced from the antenna at the distance of 1.5 mm (60 mil),
which is about 0.15 . The length of dipole is 5.3 mm or
0.53 . The spacing between dipoles was optimized to be
0.36 because of an insertion loss increase in CCPS in the
Tee-junction with a long coupled line such as 0.5 , causing a
gain drop. Mutual coupling normally takes place when antenna
spacing is less than a half wavelength. Twin dipole antenna’s
input impedance is supposed to have some reactance due to
this coupling effect. By adjusting the reflector’s spacing, this
reactance can be minimized with a small change in input
Fig. 4. Simulated performance of the Tee junction near 30 GHz. impedance.
The input impedance of a single dipole antenna is around
202 . The strip width ( ) and gap ( ) between strips of CCPS
at the CPS Tee junction in Section II are determined to have a
CCPS characteristic impedance identical to the dipole antenna
input impedance for good impedance matching.
Measured return loss of the twin dipole antenna is better than
10 dB from 29.5 to 30.35 GHz as shown in Fig. 6. Measured
and simulated return losses have good agreements. For mea-
surements, a quarter-wavelength transformer with limited band-
width is used and causes small discrepancies between simulated
data and measurements. Radiation patterns of the antenna are
measured in an anechoic chamber. The measured radiation pat-
terns are shown in Fig. 7. and -plane radiation patterns are
quite similar to each other for the twin dipole antenna as dis-
cussed in [4]. Measured and -plane gains are about 7.6 and
7.7 dBi with the 3 dB beamwidths of 32 and 34 , respectively.
The measured cross-polarizations at broadside are about 47.7
and 42.4 dB down compared with the copolarization levels in
and -plane, respectively. Gains and 3 dB beam widths of
and -planes are quite close to each other. Some discrepancies
Fig. 5. Structure of printed twin dipole antenna using a microstrip-fed CPS of gains and 3 dB beam widths are partly due to the small mis-
Tee junction. alignments of the antenna in millimeter-wave frequencies.
2022
Fig. 6. Simulated and measured return loss of the twin dipole antenna.
Fig. 7. Measured radiation patterns of the twin dipole antenna.
IV. PHASED ARRAY ANTENNA WITH MULTITRANSMISSION
LINE PET CONTROLLED PHASE SHIFTER
For the linear phased array, an array factor is a function of the
progressive phase shift and the element spacing . The array
factor is given as
where
where is expressed as and is beam scanning angle.
is the number of elements.
The progressive phase shift causes the radiation emitted from
the array to have a constant phase front that is pointing at the
angle . This beam scanning angle ( ) is also a function of
and , given by
The array factor in (1) can also be expressed as (4) below in
an alternate, compact and closed form whose function and their
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
distributions are more recognizable [11]. It is assumed that the
reference point is the physical center of the array.
(4)
The total field of array is equal to the field of a single element
(1) positioned at the origin multiplied by an array factor, which is
expressed as
(5)
(2) From (4), the maximum value of array factor is [11]. Hence
maximum achievable gain of the array can be found from (4)
and (5), which is expressed as
(6)
In (6), the effect of mutual coupling between elements is
excluded for the simplicity. Mutual coupling normally degrades
(3) arrayed antenna gain. Equation (6) can be used for the gain
approximation of the array. To achieve more accurate calculation
including mutual coupling effects, a full-wave electromagnetic
simulation can be used for antenna array analysis.
SUH AND CHANG: A NEW MILLIMETER-WAVE PRINTED DIPOLE PHASED ARRAY ANTENNA 2023

Fig. 8. Structure of printed dipole phased array antenna controlled by PET (a) top view and (b) side view.

The structure of 1 8 printed twin dipole phased array

antenna is shown in Fig. 8. A conventional microstrip power
divider with binominal impedance transformers is used for
feeding network to cover the wide bandwidth. The bottom
metallization provides good ground plane for the microstrip.
To obtain the required phase shift, the 101 microstrip line,
which has the same input impedance as the twin dipole antenna,
is perturbed with a dielectric perturber actuated by PET. The
length of dielectric perturber varies linearly from 5 to 35 mm
on top of line 2 to line 8 in Fig. 8. The first line is not perturbed.
The PET is configured to have no deflection (no perturbation)
when a DC voltage of 0 V is applied, and full deflection (full
perturbation) when a DC voltage of 50 V is applied. A 50 mil Fig. 9. Differential phase shift for 5 mm dielectric perturber controlled by PET.
RT/duroid 6010.2 with a dielectric constant of 10.2 is used as
the dielectric perturber. With a dielectric perturber of 5 mm, Fig. 9 shows that a dif-
The amount of phase shift is linearly proportional to the ferential phase shift of 88.8 takes place with a 2 dB insertion
length of perturber [7], which is expressed as loss. Narrower microstrip line generates larger phase shift but
the insertion loss is increased. Hence, a proper microstrip line’s
(7) width should be chosen for having a good phase shift as well as
low insertion loss.
where, is the perturber length along the th trans-
Table I summarizes the design and measured parameters for
mission line. represents the differential propagation con-
the twin dipole phased array. The parameter values in Table I
stant expressed as
are useful in analytical calculations of the scanning angle ( ),
(8) maximally achievable gain, and optimum element spacing ( )
of the phased array.
where represents the propagation constant of the According to (7) and (8), the perturber’s length can be
th perturbed transmission line, which is microstrip in this case. determined for a desired phase shift. A length of 5 mm
Since the first perturbed microstrip line (i.e., the second line or dielectric perturber produces about 88.8 differential phase
line 2) has the minimum perturbed length, the following rela- shift. Accordingly, the length of each neighboring perturbed
tionship is obtained. line is increased by 5 mm. The length of perturber for the
final microstrip ( ) is about 35 mm, which gives
(9) a differential phase shift of 621.6 .
2024 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004

TABLE I
PARAMETER VALUES OF THE TWIN DIPOLE PHASED ARRAY

TABLE II
COMPARISON AMONG ANALYTICAL, SIMULATION, AND MEASURED RESULTS OF THE 1 2 8 PHASED ARRAY

Fig. 10. Measured return loss of the printed twin dipole phased array antenna.

IE3D analysis shows that a progressive phase shift of 88.8
gives around beam scanning with low side lobe levels.
An analytical scan angle can also be obtained using (3), and
maximally achievable gain of the phased array can be obtained
from (6). The maximum spacing ( ) between elements to avoid
grating lobes is expressed as
(10)
From analytical equations in (3), (6) and (10) and the parameters
in Table I, the calculated , maximally achievable gain, and
maximum spacing are calculated to be 19.47 , 16.73 dBi, and
7.5 mm, respectively. The results agree very well with IE3D
simulation as given in Table II.
Measured return loss of the 1 8 twin dipole array is
plotted in Fig. 10. The measured return loss is about 41.9 dB at
30.3 GHz for the unperturbed twin dipole phased array antenna.
With perturbation by the dielectric perturber, the return loss is
about 31.8 dB at 30.7 GHz, which shows a 0.4 GHz frequency
shift compared with the unperturbed result. For a bandwidth
from 30 to 31.5 GHz, a measured return loss is better than
15 dB.
V. PHASED ARRAY MEASUREMENTS
The phased array is measured in an anechoic chamber. As
shown in Fig. 8, the antenna is arrayed for the -plane beam
scanning. To accomplish bidirectional beam scanning, two tri-
angular perturbers are used side by side [12]. PET actuation for
the dielectric perturber is configured as 0 V for no perturbation
(no PET deflection) and 50 V for full perturbation (full PET de-
flection). The measured twin dipole phased array antenna gain
without perturbation (0 V for PET) is about 14.4 dBi with a 3 dB
beam width of 6 as shown in Fig. 11. The fully perturbed an-
tenna with a dielectric perturber controlled by PET shows about
42 ( ) beam scanning with the gain of 12.2 dBi.
Side lobe levels of the steered beam are more than 11 dB down
compared with main beam. The gains of steered beams are about
2.2 dB down due to the insertion loss incurred by dielectric per-
turbation. The beam can be dynamically steered depending on
the voltages applied to PET because the amount of phase shift
changes according to the applied voltages on PET as shown in
Fig. 9.
The comparison among analytical, simulation, and measured
results of the phased array are exhibited in Table II. Beam scan-
ning angle is following closely among analytical, IE3D simula-
SUH AND CHANG: A NEW MILLIMETER-WAVE PRINTED DIPOLE PHASED ARRAY ANTENNA
Fig. 11. Measured H-plane radiation pattern for twin dipole phased array antenna at 30 GHz. Measured beam scanning is from 020
perturbation.
tion, and measured results. Measured unperturbed gain is about
2.3 dB lower than analytical or IE3D simulated data. This is due
to the insertion loss of power divider and the mutual coupling ef-
fects among elements, which normally degrades antenna gain.
The measured gains of steered beams are about 2.2 dB down
compared to that of unperturbed beam due to the insertion loss
incurred by dielectric perturbation.
VI. CONCLUSION
A new printed twin dipole phased array antenna is developed
at 30 GHz using a multitransmission line tunable phase shifter
controlled by a PET. The new twin dipole antenna is designed
using a microstrip-fed CPS Tee junction. To construct the
Tee junction, CCPS is used to have a physical discontinuity
at CPS while fields are continuous all over the transmission
line. The Tee junction effectively splits power to each CPS
output port with low insertion loss. The PET actuated phase
shifter requires only one (one-directional beam scanning) or
two (bi-directional beam scanning) applied voltages to produce
the progressive phase shift. A PET controlled phase shifter is
tested and optimized for the proper phase shift with minimal
insertion loss. The twin dipole phased array antenna shows a
42 ( ) beam scanning with more than 11 dB
side lobe suppression across the scan. The phased array should
find many applications in wireless communications and radar
systems.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank C. Wang of Texas A&M Uni-
versity for technical assistance.
REFERENCES
[1] A. Nesic, S. Jovanovic, and V. Brankovic, “Design of printed dipoles
near the third resonance,” in Proc. IEEE Int. Antennas and Propagation
Symp. Dig., vol. 2, Atlanta, GA, 1998, pp. 928–931.
[2] M. Scott, “A printed dipole for wide-scanning array application,” in
Proc. IEEE 11th Int. Conf. Antennas and Propagation, vol. 1, 2001, pp.
37–40.
[3] G. A. Evtioushkine, J. W. Kim, and K. S. Han, “Very wideband printed
dipole antenna array,” Electron. Lett., vol. 34, no. 24, pp. 2292–2293,
Nov. 1998.
[4] L. Zhu and K. Wu, “Model-based characterization of CPS-fed printed
dipole for innovative design of uniplanar integrated antenna,” IEEE Mi-
crowave and Guided Wave Lett., vol. 9, pp. 342–344, Sept. 1999.
2025
to +22 with full
[5] K. L. Deng, C. C. Meng, S. S. Lu, H. D. Lee, and H. Wang, “A fully
monolithic twin dipole antenna mixer on a GaAs substrate,” in Proc.
Asia Pacific Microwave Conf. Dig., Sydney, NSW, Australia, 2000, pp.
54–57.
[6] T. Y. Yun and K. Chang, “A phased-array antenna using a multi-line
phase shifter controlled by a piezoelectric transducer,” in IEEE Int. Mi-
crowave Symp. Dig., vol. 2, Boston, MA, 2000, pp. 831–833.
[7] , “A low-cost 8 to 26.5 GHz phased array antenna using a piezoelec-
tric transducer controlled phase shifter,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Prop-
agat., vol. 49, pp. 1290–1298, Sept. 2001.
[8] Y. H. Suh and K. Chang, “A microsatrip fed coplanar stripline Tee junc-
tion using coupled coplanar stripline,” in Proc. IEEE Int. Microwave
Symp. Dig., vol. 2, Phoenix, AZ, 2001, pp. 611–614.
[9] IE3D, 8.1 ed., Zeland Software Inc., 2001.
[10] Y. H. Suh and K. Chang, “A wideband coplanar stripline to microstrip
transition,” IEEE Microwave and Wireless Components Lett., vol. 11,
pp. 28–29, Jan. 2001.
[11] C. A. Balanis, Antenna Theory Analysis and Design, 2nd ed. New
York: Wiley.
[12] T. Y. Yun, C. Wang, P. Zepeda, C. T. Rodenbeck, M. R. Coutant, M. Y.
Li, and K. Chang, “A 10- to 21-GHz, low-cost, multifrequency, and full-
duplex phased-array antenna system,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat.,
vol. 50, pp. 641–650, May 2002.
Young-Ho Suh (S’01–M’02) received the B.S degree
in electrical and control engineering from Hong-Ik
University, Seoul, Korea, in 1992, and the M.S and
Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from Texas
A&M University, College Station, TX, in 1998, and
2002, respectively.
From 1992 to 1996, he worked for LG-Honeywell
Co. Ltd., Seoul, Korea, as a Research Engineer.
From 1996 to 1998, he worked on developing robust
wireless communication systems for GSM receiver
under multipath fading channel for his M.S degree.
From 1998 to 2002, he was a Research Assistant in the Electromagnetics and
Microwave Laboratory, Department of Electrical Engineering, Texas A&M
University, College Station, TX, where he was involved in rectenna design
for wireless power transmissions, phased array antennas, and coplanar trans-
mission line circuit components development. In May 2002, he joined Mimix
Broadband Inc., Houston, TX, as a Senior Microwave Design Engineer, where
he is working on state-of-the-art microwave/millimeter-wave active circuit
designs including low noise/power amplifiers, receivers, transmitters, and trans-
ceiver modules for LMDS, point-to-point, point-to-multipoint radio systems
in Ka band using GaAs MMICs. His research area includes state-of-the-art
millimeter-wave transceiver modules, transitions between dissimilar transmis-
sion lines, uniplanar transmission line analysis and components development,
microwave power transmission, antennas for wireless communications, and
phased array antennas.
2026 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004

Kai Chang (S’75–M’76–SM’85–F’91) received the

B.S.E.E. degree from the National Taiwan Univer-
sity, Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C., the M.S. degree from the
State University of New York at Stony Brook, and the
Ph.D. degree from the University of Michigan, Ann
Arbor, in 1970, 1972, and 1976, respectively.
From 1972 to 1976, he worked for the Microwave
Solid-State Circuits Group, Cooley Electronics
Laboratory, University of Michigan, as a Research
Assistant. From 1976 to 1978, he was employed
by Shared Applications, Inc., Ann Arbor, where he
worked in computer simulation of microwave circuits and microwave tubes.
From 1978 to 1981, he worked for the Electron Dynamics Division, Hughes
Aircraft Company, Torrance, CA, where he was involved in the research
and development of millimeter-wave solid-state devices and circuits, power
combiners, oscillators and transmitters. From 1981 to 1985, he worked for
the TRW Electronics and Defense, Redondo Beach, CA, as a Section Head,
developing state-of-the-art millimeter-wave integrated circuits and subsystems
including mixers, VCOs, transmitters, amplifiers, modulators, upconverters,
switches, multipliers, receivers, and transceivers. He joined the Electrical
Engineering Department of Texas A&M University in August 1985 as an
Associate Professor and was promoted to a Professor in 1988. In January 1990,
he was appointed E-Systems Endowed Professor of Electrical Engineering.
He authored and coauthored several books “Microwave Solid-State Circuits
and Applications” (New York: Wiley, 1994), “Microwave Ring Circuits and
Antennas” (New York: Wiley, 1996), “Integrated Active Antennas and Spatial
Power Combining” (New York: Wiley, 1996), and “RF and Microwave Wireless
Systems” (New York: Wiley, 2000). He served as the editor of the four-volume
“Handbook of Microwave and Optical Components” (New York: Wiley, 1989
and 1990). He is the Editor of the Microwave and Optical Technology Letters
and the Wiley Book Series in Microwave and Optical Engineering. He has
published over 350 technical papers and several book chapters in the areas of
microwave and millimeter-wave devices, circuits, and antennas. His current
interests are in microwave and millimeter-wave devices and circuits, microwave
integrated circuits, integrated antennas, wideband and active antennas, phased
arrays, microwave power transmission, and microwave optical interactions.
Dr. Chang received the Special Achievement Award from TRW in 1984, the
Halliburton Professor Award in 1988, the Distinguished Teaching Award in
1989, the Distinguished Research Award in 1992, and the TEES Fellow Award
in 1996 from the Texas A&M University.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004 2027

Physical Limitations of Antennas in a Lossy Medium

Anders Karlsson

Abstract—The dissipated power and the directivity of antennas
in a homogeneous, lossy medium are systematically analyzed in this
paper. The antennas are ideal and located inside a lossless sphere.
In the lossy space outside the sphere, the electromagnetic fields are
expanded in a complete set of vector wave functions. The radia-
tion efficiency, the directivity, and the power gain are defined for
antennas in a lossy medium, and the optimal values of these quan-
tities are derived. Simple relations between the maximal number of
ports, or channels, an antenna can use and the optimal directivity
and gain of the antenna are presented.
Index Terms—Antenna theory, lossy systems.
and the power gain of antennas are defined and studied for the
simplified geometry where the antenna is enclosed in a loss-
less sphere. The optimal values of these three quantities are the
main results in this paper. The optimal value of the directivity is
shown to be related to the maximum number of ports, or chan-
nels, of the antenna, a result that holds also in a lossless medium.
It is emphasized that in a lossy medium the magnetic dipole is
the most radiation efficient antenna, a well known and impor-
tant result, cf. [11].

II. PRELIMINARIES
I. INTRODUCTION
The antennas are confined in a spherical, lossless region,

I N some applications there is a need for wireless communica-

tion with devices in lossy materials. A conductive medium
is a low-pass filter for the electromagnetic waves, and one is
denoted
ohmic losses in
. They are idealized in the sense that there are no
. The volume is denoted
an infinite, homogeneous, conducting medium with a complex
and is

then often forced to use low frequencies, or equivalently, long permittivity

wavelengths. If the space for the antenna is limited it results in
an antenna that is small compared to the wavelength. The draw- (2.1)
back is that small antennas in lossy materials consume much
power, due to the ohmic losses in the near-zone of the antenna. where the time-dependence is assumed. The corresponding
Hence, the design of the antenna and the choice of frequency wave number is denoted and is given by
are delicate problems, where two power loss mechanisms with
counteracting frequency dependences are involved. This power (2.2)
problem is addressed in this paper.
Antennas in lossy materials are found in various areas. In geo- The permeability is assumed to be real. The wave
physical applications underground antennas are used, e.g., in impedance in reads
bore holes. In marine technology antennas are used for commu-
nication with underwater objects. In medical applications there (2.3)
is an increased usage of wireless communication with implants.
Implants, e.g., pacemakers, have limited power supply and it is
important to use power efficient antennas. III. GENERAL ANTENNAS IN CONDUCTING MEDIA
Some of the results in this paper are based on the results
obtained by Chu [4] and Harrington [8], who investigated In the exterior region the electric field is expanded in
physical limitations for antennas in free space. Chu derived spherical vector waves , also referred to as partial
the optimal value of the directivity and the optimal value of the waves. These waves satisfy Maxwell’s equations and are com-
ratio between the directivity and the -value of omni-directional plete on a spherical surface. The details of the spherical vector
antennas and Harrington derived the corresponding results for waves are given in Appendix A. The expansion reads
general antennas. There are a number of other articles that
address the optimization of the -value of an antenna, cf. [5], (3.1)
[7], and [12].
For a lossy material it is the dissipated power, rather than the
-value, that is the most important quantity in the design of an The corresponding magnetic field is given by the induction law
antenna. In this paper, the radiation efficiency, the directivity,

Manuscript received May 9, 2003; revised August 6, 2003. This work was
supported by the Competence Center for Circuit Design at Lund University.
The author is with the Department of Electroscience, Lund Institute of Tech-
nology, S-221 00 Lund, Sweden (e-mail: anders.karlsson@es.lth.se). (3.2)
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2004.832335

0018-926X/04$20.00 © 2004 IEEE

2028 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004

where . Here, is the index for the two C. The Power Flow
different wave types (TE and TM), for waves that are The complex power radiated from an antenna is given
even with respect to the azimuthal angle and for the by
waves that are odd with respect to is the index
for the polar direction, and is the index for the
(3.3)
azimuthal angle. For only the partial waves with
are nonzero, cf., (A.2). The expansion in (3.1) covers all possible
types of time harmonic sources inside . where is the surface is the radial unit vector,
and is the complex conjugate of the magnetic field. The
complex power is decomposed as
A. Classification

Antennas that radiate partial waves with are referred (3.4)

to as magnetic antennas, since the reactive part of their radiated
complex power is positive, i.e., inductive. Antennas radiating The active part of the power is the power dissipated in the
partial waves with are referred to as electric antennas, region , whereas and are the time averages of the
since they are capacitive when they are small compared to the stored magnetic and electric energies in the exterior region.
wavelength. The impedance and admittance of the antenna are related
The expansion coefficients in the expansion (3.1) can to the complex power by the power relation
theoretically be altered independently of each other. Hence,
each partial wave corresponds to an independent port of the an- (3.5)
tenna. The maximum number of ports, or channels, an antenna
can use is then equal to the maximum number of partial waves where and are the complex current and voltage that feeds
the antenna can radiate. the antenna, respectively. The star denotes complex conjugate.
The following classification of antennas is used in this paper: For a nonideal antenna the powers inside should be added
Partial wave antenna—antenna that radiates only one to the left-hand side of (3.5).
partial wave . The antenna has one port. The complex power radiated from a combined antenna of
Magnetic multipole antenna of order An antenna that order follows from (A.4) and (A.5), and from (3.1)–(3.3)
radiates partial waves with and index . The max-
imum number of ports is .
Electric multipole antenna of order An antenna that ra-
diates partial waves with and index . The maximum
number of ports is .
Magnetic antenna of order An antenna that radiates
partial waves with and with . The
maximum number of ports is . (3.6)
Electric antenna of order An antenna that radiates
partial waves with and with . The The complex powers of the other types of antennas in Sec-
maximum number of ports is . tion III-A are special cases of (3.6). The normalized complex
Combined antenna of order An antenna that radi- power, , of multipole antennas of order depends
ates partial waves with and . The only on the indices and . If the transmitted complex power
maximum number of ports is . of such an antenna is denoted and the corresponding
impedance is denoted then
B. Rotation of an Antenna

If an antenna is rotated, the new set of radiated partial waves (3.7)

is determined by the rotational matrix for the vector waves, cf.
[3]. That matrix is diagonal in the index and in the index , but
not in the other two indices and . Thus, a magnetic multipole
antenna of index is still a magnetic multipole antenna of index where is the wave impedance.
, after it is rotated. This type of invariance under rotation is
true for all types of antennas in Section III-A, except for the D. Asymptotic Values of and
partial wave antenna. The invariance is utilized in Section IV to When the asymptotic behavior of the Hankel func-
determine the optimal values of the directivity and power gain. tions, (A.6), implies that the asymptotic values of the radiated
A partial wave antenna that radiates the partial wave , is complex power, cf., (3.6) and of the impedance, cf., (3.5), are
under a rotation transformed to an antenna that radiates several
partial waves , where can be both , , and can
(3.8)
take the values .
KARLSSON: PHYSICAL LIMITATIONS OF ANTENNAS IN A LOSSY MEDIUM 2029

As the limiting values of the Hankel functions yield

(3.9)

The asymptotic values in (3.8) and (3.9) are valid for all of the
antennas in Section III-A. The values are illustrated in Fig. 1.
In the rest of the pape,r only active power will be considered
and for this reason the term power is understood to mean active
power.

E. Far-Field and Directivity

The far-field amplitude is defined as

The far-field amplitude of a combined antenna of order
given by the asymptotic values of the spherical Hankel func-
tions, cf., (A.6)
(3.10)
Fig. 1. Argument of the impedance, arg(Z ) of magnetic multipole antennas
of order l = 1 (lower dashed line), 2 (middle dashed), and 3 (upper dashed)
is and for the electric multipole antennas of order l = 1 (upper solid line), 2
(middle solid), and 3 (lower solid). The frequency is 400 MHz, " = 50, and
 = 1 S/m, corresponding to an argument of the wave impedance arg( ) =
!
0:37 rad. The asymptotic values in (3.8) and (3.9) are reached when a
1
0 and
, respectively.

much of the power fed to the antenna is radiated in the far-zone.

(3.11) In the far-zone

The far-field amplitude of the antenna corresponding to (3.1) is

thus completely defined by the coefficients .
The directivity is defined in the same way as for a lossless (3.13)
medium, cf., [10]. The directivity of the combined antenna is
obtained from the far-field amplitude of the antenna and from for a combined antenna of order , as seen from (3.6) and
the orthogonality of the vector spherical harmonics, cf., (3.12), (A.6). The radiated powers of the other types of antennas are
as shown in (A.4), at the bottom of the page, where special cases of this expression. In order to have a definition
, and where max is with respect to and . of radiation efficiency that is independent of the radius , the
Hence, also the directivity is completely defined by the expan- following dimensionless quantity is used
sion coefficients. The far-field amplitudes and the directivities
of the other antennas in Section III-A follow from (3.11) and (3.14)
(3.12).
where
F. Radiation Efficiency and Power Gain
For antennas in a lossless space the radiation efficiency, , (3.15)
is defined as the ratio of the power radiated from the antenna to
the power put into the antenna. This definition is not applicable
here since the antenna is ideal and hence, the efficiency would The radiated power at a distance from an antenna is expressed
be one. A possible alternative definition for an ideal antenna in in terms of the radiation efficiency and the input power, , as
a lossy material is the quotient , where is the . The notation is in accordance
power radiated from the antenna and is the power radiated with most antenna literature. It should not be confused with the
through a spherical surface of radius . That ratio indicates how notation for the wave impedance.

(3.12)
2030 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004

The asymptotic value of for large radii is

(3.16)

which is in agreement with the graph of the efficiency in Fig. 2.

The radiation efficiencies of multipole antennas of order are
denoted and according to (3.6), (3.14), and (3.15) they
read as in (3.17), shown at the bottom of the page.
The product of the directivity and the radiation efficiency,
, is proportional to the quotient of the maximum power
flow density in the far-zone and the input power to the antenna.
It is referred to as the power gain of the antenna and the
notation

(3.18)

is adopted. This definition is in concordance with the power
gain of antennas in lossless media, also referred to as the
maximum value of the gain, cf. [2]. The notations and
are below used for the power gains of magnetic and electric
antennas, respectively.
Fig. 2. Radiation efficiency,  , of six different multipole antennas. The
dashed curves are for the magnetic antennas and the solid curves are for electric
antennas. The curves are for l = 1 (upper), l = 2 (middle), and l = 3 (lower).
These curves emphasize that the magnetic dipole is the most radiation efficient
antenna. When a = 5 mm the magnetic dipole is approximately 10 dB more
efficient than the electric dipole. The frequency is 400 MHz, " = 50, and
 = 1 S/m.

In Appendix B it is shown that the optimal directivity of an

IV. OPTIMIZATION
Optimization of an antenna is in this context to find the
amplitudes of the radiated partial waves such that a
specified quantity is optimized. The techniques used by Chu
and Harrington, cf. [4] and [8] can be used to derive the optimal
(i.e., maximal) values of the directivity and of the power gain,
, of general spherical antennas in a lossy medium. Harrington
showed that the optimal value of the directivity for a com-
bined antenna of order in vacuum is , i.e., half of
the number of ports for the antenna. That proof holds also for
conductive media. For convenience a derivation of the optimal
directivity, analogous to the one given by Harrington, is given
in Appendix B. The other derivations are left to the reader.
Optimization of the radiation efficiency is to minimize the
power fed to an antenna for a given power flow in the far-zone,
regardless of the directivity. Optimization of the directivity is
to maximize the power flow density in one direction in the
far-zone, for a given total power flow in the far-zone, regardless
of the power fed to the antenna. Optimization of the power gain
is to maximize the power flow density in one direction in the
far-zone, for a given power fed to the antenna.
For a lossy material it can be shown from (3.17) that the op-
timal value of the radiation efficiency, , for any antenna is
the one obtained for a magnetic dipole. This is seen in Fig. 2.
electric or magnetic antenna of order is
The corresponding value for a combined antenna of order
is .
For magnetic and electric multipole antennas of order the
corresponding results for the directivities and , respec-
tively, are
(4.1)
The relation
(4.2)
is a result of the fact that sets of partial waves of different index
are independent of each other. It is notable that the optimal value
of the directivity of an electric or a magnetic multipole antenna
of order one, i.e., a dipole antenna, is 1.5. This value is the same
as the directivity of each partial wave antenna of order one. For
higher order antennas the directivity of a partial wave antenna
of order is always smaller than the maximum directivity of the
multipole antenna of order .

(3.17)
KARLSSON: PHYSICAL LIMITATIONS OF ANTENNAS IN A LOSSY MEDIUM
The optimal directivity of a general antenna that consists of
a combination of independent partial wave antennas, where
the maximum order of any of the antennas is , has a lower
and upper bound
Equality is only achieved for a combined antenna of order .
Notice also that two times the optimal value of the directivity is
an upper bound for the number of independent ports an antenna
can have.
Next the optimal power gain is presented. Using the
same method as in Appendix B the optimal values of for a
magnetic antenna and an electric antenna of order can be
derived
(4.3)
where and are given by (3.17) and (4.1), and
is the optimal power gain of a multipole antenna of order . The
optimal value of the power gain of a combined antenna of order
equals the sum of the optimal gains of the electric and the
magnetic antenna of order , i.e.
(4.4)
According to (3.16), the asymptotic values as are
(4.5)
V. NUMERICAL EXAMPLES
From the formulas in this paper it is straightforward to
write short programs that illustrate the difference between the
antennas in Section III-A. The three graphs given here are for
antennas at 400 MHz, located in a material that is similar to
muscles in a body. The conceivable application is implanted
devices with wireless communication, even though the infinite
lossy region is somewhat unrealistic. The conductivity
is S/m and the relative permittivity is . In
Fig. 1 the phase of the impedance of six different multipole
antennas is plotted as a function of the radius . The argument
of the wave impedance of the material in is 0.37 radians.
It is seen that the asymptotic values in (3.8) and (3.9) are
approached for large and small values of , respectively. In
Fig. 2 the radiation efficiency is given as a function
of for the same six multipole antennas. The figure clearly
shows that for a small radius the magnetic dipole is the
most efficient antenna. For a radius mm it is more
than 20 dB more efficient than the electric dipole, and 30 dB
better than the magnetic quadrupole . In Fig. 3, the
power gain is plotted for electric and magnetic antennas
with , and . One always obtains a larger gain
2031
Fig. 3. Power gain G of three magnetic and three electric antennas. The
dashed curves are for the magnetic antennas and the solid curves for the electric
antennas. The curves are for l = 1 (lower), l = 2 (middle), and l =
3 (upper). The frequency is 400 MHz, " = 50, and  = 1 S/m.
by adding higher order multipoles, but for small antennas the
improvement compared to the dipole antennas is negligible.
Graphs like that in Fig. 3 indicate what order, , one should
use for an electric or magnetic antenna. In that way they also
indicate the number of useful ports of the antenna.
VI. CONCLUSION
The main results in the paper are the optimal values of the ra-
diation efficiency, the directivity, and the power gain of antennas
confined in a lossless sphere. Only ideal antennas are treated in
this paper. Real antennas have ohmic losses in the wires that re-
duce the radiation efficiency as well as the power gain. However,
that power problem is associated with the actual antenna design
and is out of the scope of this paper. A comprehensive study of
the design of antennas in lossy materials is found in [9].
The purpose with the optimal values of the radiation effi-
ciency, the directivity, and the power gain is to give the an-
tenna designer relative measures and theoretical limitations of
the properties of antennas. Optimization of the radiation effi-
ciency of an antenna is to minimize the dissipated power for
a given power flow in the far-zone. The most radiation efficient
antenna is the magnetic dipole. The radius of the sphere should
be as large as possible.
Optimization of the directivity of an antenna is to maximize
the power flow density in one direction in the far-zone for a
given total power flow in the far-zone. For an electric antenna
or magnetic antenna of order the optimal directivity is
and the amplitudes of the radiated partial
waves are given by (B.5). The maximum number of ports the an-
tenna can use is twice the optimal directivity. The optimal value
of the directivity is independent of frequency and of the material
in . In theory one can achieve any directivity, even for small
antennas, by a suitable choice of . However, for a small an-
tenna the dissipated losses increase very rapidly with and
it costs a lot of power to obtain high directivity.
2032 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004

Optimization of the power gain of an antenna is to maximize APPENDIX B

the power flow density in one direction for a given input power OPTIMAL DIRECTIVITY
to the antenna. For an electric antenna or magnetic antenna of The optimization problems of finding the maximum value the
order the optimal power gain is given by (4.3). The power directivity, is a multivariable optimization problem. First as-
gain increases with increasing . A graph like that in Fig. 3 sume the following function of variables
indicates the most suitable value of .

APPENDIX A (B.1)
VECTOR WAVES
The definition of spherical vector waves can be found in dif- where are given real numbers and are given positive real
ferent textbooks, e.g., [6] and [8]. In this paper they are defined numbers. This function has a maximum when all of its first order
using vector spherical harmonics, cf. [1] derivatives with respect to are zero. That leads
to the following relations for the variables

(B.2)

The corresponding maximum value of is

(A.1)
(B.3)
The following definition of the spherical harmonics is used:
Now consider electric antennas and magnetic antennas of order
and let and denote the corresponding directivities.
Without loss of generality the maximum power flow density is
assumed to be in some direction given by the spherical angles
(A.2)
and , and in that direction the polarization of the corre-
where and take the values sponding wave is assumed to be parallel to some unit vector .
The optimal value of the directivity is independent of the angles
and , and of the vector , due to the invariance under ro-
(A.3) tation described in Section III-B. If , then
and are identified as the real quantities
In the current application the index will never take the value
0, since there are no monopole antennas. The vector spherical
harmonics constitute an orthogonal set of vector function on the (B.4)
unit sphere
According to (B.2), the optimal directivity is obtained when
(A.4)
(B.5)
where the integration is over the unit sphere and where
The optimal value of the directivity is given by (B.3)
. The outgoing divergence-free spherical vector
waves are defined by (A.5), show at the bottom of the page,
where is the spherical Hankel function of (B.6)
the second kind. The asymptotic behavior in the far-zone and
the limiting values in the near-zone of the spherical Hankel
Next, is expressed in terms of and as
functions are
. Since is independent of one may integrate
(B.6) in from 0 to . The result is

(B.7)
(A.6)

(A.5)
KARLSSON: PHYSICAL LIMITATIONS OF ANTENNAS IN A LOSSY MEDIUM
where . Furthermore, is also independent of
and , and the relation above can be integrated over the unit
sphere. The orthonormality of the vector spherical harmonics,
(A.4), results in
(B.8)
This is in accordance with the result in [8].
Notice that that (B.5) and (B.6) can be generalized. Assume
a general antenna consisting of independent partial wave
antennas that are to be fed so that the directivity function
, cf. [10], is optimized in a prescribed direction and
with a prescribed polarization of the radiated wave. Then a
slight modification of (B.5) and (B.6) gives the amplitudes of
the antennas and the value of the optimal directivity function.
It also follows that the mean value of the optimal directivity
function, with respect to and , is . Hence, the optimal
value of the directivity is always greater than or equal to . Anders Karlsson was born in 1955, Gothenburg,
REFERENCES
[1] G. Arfken, Mathematical Methods for Physicists, 3rd ed. Orlando, FL:
Academic Press, 1985.
[2] C. A. Balanis, Antenna Theory, 2nd ed. New York: Wiley, 1997.
[3] A. Boström, G. Kristensson, and S. Ström, “Transformation properties
of plane, spherical and cylindrical scalar and vector wave functions,”
in Field Representations and Introduction to Scattering, V. V. Varadan,
A. Lakhtakia, and V. K. Varadan, Eds, Amsterdam: Elsevier Science
Publishers, 1991, ch. 4, pp. 165–210.
2033
[4] L. J. Chu, “Physical limitations of omni-directional antennas,” Appl.
Phys., vol. 19, pp. 1163–1175, 1948.
[5] R. E. Collin, “Minimum Q of small antennas,” J. Elect. Waves Applicat.,
vol. 12, pp. 1369–1393, 1998.
[6] J. E. Hansen, Ed., Spherical Near-Field Antenna Measurements. ser.
Number 26 in IEE electromagnetic waves series, Stevenage, U.K.: Pere-
grinus, 1988, ISBN: 0-86 341-110-X.
[7] R. C. Hansen, “Fundamental limitations in antennas,” Proc. IEEE, vol.
69, no. 2, pp. 170–182, 1981.
[8] R. F. Harrington, Time Harmonic Electromagnetic Fields. New York:
McGraw-Hill, 1961.
[9] R. W. P. King and G. S. Smith, Antennas in Matter, Cambridge, London,
U.K.: MIT Press, 1981.
[10] J. D. Kraus, Antennas, 2nd ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1988.
[11] H. A. Wheeler, “Fundamental limitations of a small vlf antenna for sub-
marines,” IRE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 6, pp. 123–125, 1958.
[12] , “Small antennas,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 23, no.
4, pp. 462–469, 1975.
Sweden. He received the M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees
from Chalmers University of Technology, Gothen-
burg, Sweden, in 1979 and 1984, respectively.
Since 2000, he has been a Professor at the De-
partment of Electroscience, Lund University, Lund,
Sweden. His research acivities comprehend scat-
tering and propagation of waves, inverse problems,
and time-domain methods. Currently, he is involved
in projects concerning propagation of light in blood,
wireless communication with implants, and design
of passive components on silicon.
2034 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
Minimum Norm Mutual Coupling Compensation
With Applications in Direction of
Arrival Estimation
C. K. Edwin Lau, Raviraj S. Adve, Senior Member, IEEE, and Tapan K. Sarkar, Fellow, IEEE
Abstract—This paper introduces a new mutual coupling com-
pensation method based on the minimum norm solution to an un-
derdetermined system of equations. The crucial advantage over
previous techniques is that the formulation is valid independent
of the type of antenna element and provides good results in situa-
tions where signal strengths vary considerably. In using the matrix
pencil algorithm to estimate the directions of arrival, the examples
show that the proposed method results in significantly lower bias
than the traditional open circuit method. The analysis of mutual
coupling is also applied in the context of a Code Division Multiple
Access communication system.
Index Terms—Code division multiaccess, direction of arrival es-
timation, matrix pencil, MUSIC, mutual coupling compensation.
I. INTRODUCTION
D IRECTION of arrival (DOA) estimation is an important
feature of smart antenna arrays. It could serve as a fun-
damental building block for applications such as space divi-
sion multiple access (SDMA) and Enhanced 911 (E911), the
proposed wireless emergency service [1]. Several algorithms
have been proposed for DOA estimation, including the popular
MUSIC-type techniques, ESPRIT [1] and matrix pencil (MP)
[2]–[4]. These signal processing algorithms have been shown
to provide accurate estimates, even in moderate signal to noise
(SNR) conditions.
The problem is that these signal processing algorithms gen-
erally ignore the electromagnetic behavior of the receiving an-
tenna. The receiver is assumed to be an ideal, equispaced, linear
array of isotropic point sensors. In this case, the array sam-
ples, but does not reradiate the incident signals. Each signal
can be associated with a linear phase front, the slope of which
is directly related to the DOA. Most signal processing tech-
niques rely heavily on this assumption. In practice, this ideal
situation cannot be met. The elements of the array must be of
some nonzero size. The elements sample and reradiate the inci-
dent fields, causing mutual coupling. Mutual coupling distorts
the linear phase front of the incoming signal, significantly de-
grading performance [5]–[7]. Only in the case of a single in-
coming signal is the phase front somewhat retained. However,
Manuscript received July 23, 2002; revised September 7, 2003. This research
was supported by a grant from the Nortel Institute for Telecommunications, Uni-
versity of Toronto.
C. K. E. Lau and R. S. Adve are with the University of Toronto, Toronto, ON
M5S 3G4, Canada (e-mail: rsadve@comm.utoronto.ca).
T. K. Sarkar is with Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY 13244 USA.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2004.832511
0018-926X/04$20.00 © 2004 IEEE
for arrays with strong mutual coupling, the phase front is sig-
nificantly corrupted and the DOA estimate is inaccurate. Any
practical implementation of DOA estimation therefore requires
compensation for mutual coupling.
Research into compensating for the mutual coupling has been
based mainly on the idea of using open circuit voltages, first
proposed by Gupta and Ksienski [5]. The authors argue that due
to the lack of a terminal current, the open circuit voltages are free
of mutual coupling. However, as shown in [7], this only reduces
the effects of mutual coupling. The technique presented there is
more effective in suppressing mutual coupling effects [7], [8].
A big drawback with the approaches of [5] and [7], is that
they are valid for only linear dipoles. The work of [5] is
valid only for a linear array of half wavelength dipoles spaced
apart by half a wavelength. The work of [7] is restricted to
linear arrays of linear dipoles, though of arbitrary length and
spacing. In this paper we introduce the use of a minimum norm
technique, based on the technique in [7], for general arrays with
arbitrary elements. As an aside we also extend the open circuit
technique of [5] to arbitrary arrays. The method of moments
(MoM) is used to accurately model the interactions between
antenna elements. In the minimum norm approach, the MoM
admittance matrix is used to estimate the incident fields, with
minimum energy, that would generate the received voltages.
Unlike in [9], this technique does not require the solution to
the entire MoM problem. The compensation matrix depends
only on the MoM admittance matrix and can be calculated
a priori to reduce computation load.
In this paper, we use the MP [2] and the popular MUSIC [1],
[10] DOA estimation algorithms to compare various compensa-
tion methods. Section II presents the model for mutual coupling
using antenna analysis based on the MoM. This eventually leads
to the formulation of minimum norm mutual coupling compen-
sation method. Section III presents examples illustrating the per-
formance of the open circuit and the minimum norm methods
in case of a equispaced, linear array of dipoles. Section IV ends
with some conclusions and a summary of the contributions pre-
sented here.
II. MUTUAL COUPLING AND COMPENSATION
Most DOA estimation algorithms including MP and MUSIC
assume an ideal, linear array of isotropic sensors. Unfortunately,
such an ideal sensor is clearly not realizable. A practical antenna
array comprises elements of some physical size. Such elements
LAU et al.: MINIMUM NORM MUTUAL COUPLING COMPENSATION WITH APPLICATIONS 2035

sample and reradiate incident fields that interact with other ele-
ments, i.e., the elements are mutually coupled. Mutual coupling
severely degrades the accuracy of the DOA estimator [6]. Any
implementation of DOA estimation must account for the mutual
coupling between elements.
In a practical antenna array, the received signals are the volt-
ages measured across the load at the port of each element. To
deal with mutual coupling, researchers originally proposed pro-
cessing these measured voltages to obtain the open circuit volt-
ages, the voltages if all the ports were open circuited [5], [6]. Fig. 1. Linear array of wire dipoles terminated in loads Z .
Open circuiting the ports reduces the currents on the elements,
consequently the reradiated fields and therefore the mutual cou-
entry corresponds to the port. This th entry is the load
pling. However, as shown in [7], this methodology is valid only
impedance of the corresponding element. The matrix is
when all signals have similar strengths. In [7], we use a MoM
the MoM impedance matrix. Assuming a single basis function
analysis to compensate for mutual coupling. That technique is
corresponds to the current at a port of the array, from (4), the
very effective, but is valid only for a linear array of parallel
measured voltages, affected by mutual coupling are given by
dipoles.
We present here a technique that is theoretically valid for all
kinds of arrays. Based on a minimum norm solution to an un- (7)
determined system of MoM equations, the technique makes no
assumptions regarding the type of antenna, or the spacing be- The matrix is the submatrix of corre-
tween elements. However, for simplicity, this methodology is sponding to the ports. , a compressed version of , is
presented here for a linear array of dipoles. We begin with a the diagonal matrix of port impedances. is a
brief review of the analysis technique, as the MoM analysis for matrix of dimensionless entries. Note that the entries of
dipole arrays is well known [7], [11]. The review included here are directly related to the incident fields and are free of mutual
sets the stage for the minimum norm solution. coupling.
In this paper, this general formulation is applied to a linear
A. System Model array of dipoles. It must be emphasized that this choice is not
fundamental to the theoretical development here and is made
We begin with the general formulation of the MoM based only for purposes of illustration. Consider a wire dipole antenna
on subdomain basis functions for a receiving antenna array of array of -directed elements as shown in Fig. 1. Each element
-elements. The central assumption is that only a single basis has a centrally located port terminated in impedance . To an-
function contributes to the current at the port of each element in alyze this array we use sinusoidal basis functions. Each element
the array. The incident electric field is related to the currents on is divided into segments of equal length. To satisfy the
the antenna through a linear operator [12] requirement that only a single basis function corresponds to the
current on the array is chosen to be odd. Based on a Galerkin
(1)
formulation, the weighting and testing functions are the same.
The entries for the MoM voltage and impedance matrices are
The current is approximated by a set of subdomain basis func-
available in [7], [11].
tions, , with basis functions per element, i.e.

B. Open Circuit Voltages

(2)
The principal idea of [5] is to use the open circuit voltages
instead of the measured voltages for further signal processing.
where is the th current coefficient. Using a set of testing However, the theory is valid only for half wavelength dipoles
functions, , and a convenient definition of inner product, (1) with half wavelength spacing. In the more general case, one can
can be reduced to a matrix equation use the MoM analysis in conjunction with the Thevenin and
Norton equivalent circuits to obtain the open circuit voltages.
(3) Define the MoM admittance matrix to be the inverse of
(4) the impedance matrix . Note that this is not the same ma-
trix, , in (4). Also define a new matrix whose
where the th element of and the th element of entries are those rows and columns of the MoM admittance ma-
the matrix are trix that correspond to ports, i.e.

(5) (8)
(6)
(9)
The matrix is the matrix with zero en-
tries other than the diagonal entries, where the th (10)
2036 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004

Fig. 2. Example 3.1. MP, using uncompensated voltages. Fig. 3. Example 3.1. MP, using open circuit voltages.

The open circuit voltages are then related to the short circuit
currents as

(11)

and the measured voltages to the short circuit currents as

(12)

Eliminating the short circuit currents from (11) and (12) yields
the open circuit voltages

(13)

In the following sections the open circuit voltages we refer to

are obtained from the measured voltages using (13).

C. Minimum Norm Compensation Formulation
As shown in [7], using the open circuit voltages only some-
what reduces the effects of mutual coupling. In [7], we recon-
struct a part of the MoM voltage vector under the assumption of
a linear dipole array. The motivation comes from the fact that,
from (5), the MoM voltages are directly related to the incident
fields and so are free of mutual coupling.
In the general case, from (7), the equation relating the mea-
sured and MoM voltages is underdetermined and the
cannot be reconstructed exactly. However, one can find the min-
imum norm solution to this equation. This solution provides
the vector with the minimum two-norm (minimum energy) that
would result in the received voltages. The resulting vector is an
estimate of the MoM voltage vector. Using (7), the minimum
norm solution to the MoM voltage vector is
(14)
where is the conjugate transpose (Hermitian) of matrix .
Entries in corresponding to the ports may be used for
further signal processing.
Fig. 4. Example 3.1. MP, using minimum norm compensation.
Physically, the compensation procedure may be interpreted
as finding the signal with minimum energy that results in the
measured voltages. Since the MoM analysis and so the matrix
may be obtained a priori, the computation load to use (14)
is no greater than finding the open circuit voltages or using the
technique of [7]. In the following section, we compare the per-
formance of the two compensation methods in various settings.
III. NUMERICAL EXAMPLES
In this section, we present numerical examples to illustrate the
workings of the two compensation techniques, the open circuit
and minimum norm methods. The application here is DOA es-
timation. The first two examples deal with the DOA estimation
of multiple signals and demonstrates the impact of mutual cou-
pling and compares the two compensation techniques. The third
example deals with the impact of mutual coupling on code di-
vision multiple access (CDMA) communications in particular,
and the effectiveness of mutual coupling compensation in this
LAU et al.: MINIMUM NORM MUTUAL COUPLING COMPENSATION WITH APPLICATIONS 2037

TABLE I
COMPARING OPEN CIRCUIT AND MINIMUM NORM TECHNIQUES. EQUAL SIGNAL STRENGTHS

case. Due to mutual coupling, the signal level at each element

may be different. The SNR is defined here as the average SNR
at all ports of the array, i.e., in adding white, complex Gaussian
noise at each element, the power level is chosen to set an av-
erage SNR. In all examples using MP, the pencil parameter is
set to .

A. Three Signals of Equal Strength

This example uses a seven element array with interelement
spacing of . The MoM analysis uses 7 unknowns per ele-
ment, i.e., a total of 49 unknowns are used. The array receives
three signals from 40 , 90 and 140 . Each signal has a SNR of
1 dB. The MP algorithm uses only a single snapshot. The plots
shown here use the results of 1000 independent trials.
Fig. 2 shows a histogram of the results of using MP without
any compensation for mutual coupling. 38 times, the estima-
tion procedure fails completely by resulting in imaginary an-
gles. This happens because MP estimates the complex phase Fig. 5. Example 3.1. Phase front of three incoming signals.
before estimating the direction . In 38 instances,
the argument to the function becomes greater than 1.
As is clearly seen in the figure, the DOA estimation is very poor
with very large errors.
Figs. 3 and 4 plots the performance after compensation for
mutual coupling. Fig. 3 plots the use of open circuit voltages
while Fig. 4 plots the results of using the minimum norm tech-
nique. In both figures, the hugely improved performance over
the uncompensated case is very clear. Neither technique results
in any imaginary angles. Note that because of the accurate per-
formance, we can estimate a standard deviation, which for all
cases is approximately 3.5 .
As Table I shows, the crucial difference between the two
compensation techniques is in the bias. The bias resulting
from using the minimum norm compensation approach is
significantly smaller than using the open circuit voltages. This
is because using the open circuit voltages only implies the lack
of a terminal current. Physically, there is still a nonzero current
on the dipole arms. These currents reradiate, resulting in some
Fig. 6. Example 3.2. MP, using uncompensated voltages.
residual mutual coupling.
Fig. 5 explains the improved performance of the minimum
norm technique over the open circuit approach. The figure using the open circuit voltages. This explains, from the phase
plots of the phase front of the three incoming signals in the point of view, why the two compensation methods work and
various scenarios of this example. It plots the phase at each why the proposed approach is better than the traditional open
element in the ideal case, in the case of no mutual coupling circuit approach.
compensation, using the open circuit approach and using the
minimum norm solution. Without compensation, the phase B. Three Signals of Unequal Strength
information is significantly corrupted, explaining the erroneous In this example we use the same array as in the first example
results. Both compensation techniques correct this somewhat. with the the signal bearings at 40 , 70 , and 140 , with SNR’s of
However, clearly the minimum norm solution is better than 7, 15, and 5 dB respectively. We use 10 000 independent trials.
2038 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
Fig. 7. Example 3.2. MP, using open circuit voltages.
Fig. 8. Example 3.2. MP, using minimum norm compensation.
Fig. 6 shows a histogram of MP estimate without any mutual
coupling compensation. 2269 estimates result in imaginary an-
gles. Clearly the remaining estimates are not of any practical
use.
Figs. 7 and 8 are results of using MP compensated with the
open circuit and minimum norm approaches respectively. Both
compensation methods improve the estimation dramatically. All
the imaginary angles are recovered. Similar to the previous ex-
ample, the open circuit method exhibits a larger bias than the
minimum norm approach. The bias is even stronger in this ex-
ample than the last one as the signal at 70 is relatively strong
and closer to the 40 signal.
Fig. 9 shows the pseudo-spectrum generated by MUSIC
without compensation, using the open circuit voltages and with
minimum norm compensation. In all cases, 15 time samples
are used to estimate the covariance matrix. As can be seen,
with either compensation technique, the resolution improves
and the bias is reduced. Again, the bias in the estimation is
less with minimum norm method than that with open circuit
method. This is in agreement with the examples presented
Fig. 9. Example 3.2. MUSIC.
Fig. 10. Example 3.2. MUSIC. The middle signal is at 60 .
for the MP algorithm. If the signal at 70 is moved to 60 ,
as shown in Fig. 10, the results are even more dramatic. If no
compensation is used, the signals at 40 and 60 merge. But
after the compensation, the two spikes are recovered. Again,
using the open circuit voltages results in a greater bias than the
minimum norm method.
Figs. 11 and 12 show the results if the strength of the signal at
70 is increased to 25 dB. The results are shown in . We can see
from the figures that the bias in not significant when using the
minimum norm method in Fig. 12. When using the open circuit
method, the bias in the weaker signals is 2 and 3.7 . Table II
summarizes our statistical findings of this example.
C. Mutual Coupling Compensation in CDMA Communications
One motivation for this research is position location in
wireless communication systems. Here we focus on a CDMA
system. In applying the MP technique to a practical array in a
CDMA based communication setting, a curious fact emerges.
LAU et al.: MINIMUM NORM MUTUAL COUPLING COMPENSATION WITH APPLICATIONS 2039

Fig. 11. Example 3.2. MP, using open circuit voltages. Signal at 70 is 25 dB. Fig. 12. Example 3.2. MP, using minimum norm compensation. Signal at 70
is 25 dB.

The CDMA processing gain provides some resistance to mu-

tual coupling. This is because, after the matched filter, there
is effectively only one signal plus relatively weak residual
interference. With only one signal impinging on the array, the
linear phase front is not fatally corrupted and it is possible
to estimate the DOA. This is true particularly of arrays with
moderate mutual coupling.
To illustrate this effect, we use the same example as in Sec-
tion III-A. However, each signal is spread with a spreading gain
of 128. We use four signal samples per chip. For a fair compar-
ison, the power of each signal is reduced by the spreading gain.
Using the filter matched to the first signal, two of three signals
are suppressed. Note that in using MP to estimate the DOA of
this signal after the matched filter, we set the number of signals
to one, i.e., . This also eliminates a drawback associated
with MP, the restriction on the number of signals that can be
estimated simultaneously [13]. MP is applied without compen-
sating for mutual coupling. Fig. 13. Example 3.3. CDMA/MP, using uncompensated voltages.
Fig. 13 plots the histogram of the resulting estimates. In
comparison to Fig. 2 the accuracy is dramatically improved. create the mutually coupled measured signals. The overhead as-
No estimate results in imaginary angles. In fact, the accuracy sociated with the compensation procedure is limited to a matrix
is comparable to using the open circuit voltages as in Fig. 3. multiplication.
It must be emphasized that this resistance to mutual coupling In testing the proposed approach, the technique proves to be
is only an approximation. Depending on the accuracy required, more accurate than the classical open circuit approach. The min-
compensation for mutual coupling can still play an important imum norm technique reduces the bias in the estimates because
role. Fig. 14 plots the results of using the minimum norm ap- the phase response is reconstructed more accurately than when
proach. The performance is improved with significantly reduced using open circuit voltages.
bias. In applying DOA estimation specifically to CDMA com-
munications a curious fact emerges. If DOA estimation is
applied after the matched filter, the CDMA spreading gain re-
IV. CONCLUSION sults in the desired signal plus residual interference. The phase
front of a single signal is not significantly corrupted and so
Practical implementations of DOA estimation must deal with the resulting DOA estimation, without compensation is fairly
the problem of mutual coupling between antenna elements. The accurate. However, one cannot conclude that mutual coupling
work of [7] introduced the concept of reconstructing a part of compensation is not required. Applying compensation further
the MoM voltage vector. We extend this concept here and de- improves performance. Since the additional cost is restricted to
velop a very effective technique based on the minimum norm a matrix multiplication, the resulting performance gains would
solution to an underdetermined system of equations. The ap- probably outweigh the cost of implementing mutual coupling
proach is to find the signals, with minimum energy, that would compensation.
2040 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
TABLE II
COMPARING OPEN CIRCUIT AND MINIMUM NORM TECHNIQUES. UNEQUAL SIGNAL STRENGTHS.
Fig. 14. Example 3.3. CDMA/MP, using minimum norm compensation.
In summary, we have presented a practical and accurate min-
imum norm mutual coupling compensation method. The new
approach proves to more accurate than the traditional open cir-
cuit approach. This method can theoretically also be applied to
arrays of arbitrary elements.
REFERENCES
[1] J. C. Liberti Jr and T. S. Rappaport, Smart Antennas for Wireless Com-
munications: IS-95 and Third Generation CDMA Applications. Engle-
wood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 99.
[2] Y. Hua and T. K. Sarkar, “Matrix pencil method for estimation param-
eters of exponentially damped/undamped sinusoids in noise,” IEEE
Trans. Acoust. Speech and Signal Processing, vol. 38, pp. 814–24, May
1990.
[3] J. E. F. del Rio and T. K. Sarkar, “Comparison between the matrix pencil
method and the Fourier transform for high-resolution spectral estima-
tion,” Digital Signal Processing: A Review Journal, vol. 6, pp. 108–125,
1996.
[4] R. S. Adve, O. M. Pereira-Filho, T. K. Sarkar, and S. M. Rao, “Extrapo-
lation of time domain responses from three dimensional objects utilizing
the matrix pencil technique,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 45,
pp. 147–156, Jan. 1997.
[5] I. J. Gupta and A. A. Ksienski, “Effect of mutual coupling on the per-
formance of adaptive array,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 31,
pp. 785–91, Sept. 1983.
[6] C.-C. Yeh, M.-L. Leou, and D. R. Ucci, “Bearing estimations with mu-
tual coupling present,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 37, pp.
1332–5, Oct. 1989.
[7] R. S. Adve and T. K. Sarkar, “Compensation for the effects of mu-
tual coupling on direct data domain algorithms,” IEEE Trans. Antennas
Propagat., vol. 48, pp. 86–94, Jan. 2000.
[8] M. Ali and P. Wahid, “Analysis of mutual coupling effect in adaptive
array antennas,” in Proc. IEEE Antennas and Propagation Soc. Int.
Symp., June 2002.
[9] K. M. Pasala and E. M. Friel, “Mutual coupling effects and their reduc-
tion in wideband direction of arrival estimation,” IEEE Trans. Aerospace
and Electron. Syst., vol. 30, pp. 1116–1122, Apr. 1994.
[10] R. O. Schmidt, “Multiple emitter location and signal parameter estima-
tion,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 34, pp. 276–290, Mar. 1986.
[11] B. J. Strait, T. K. Sarkar, and D. C. Kuo, “Special programs for
analysis of radiation by wire antennas,” Syracuse Univ., Tech. Rep.
AFCRL-TR-73-0399, 1973.
[12] R. F. Harrington, Field Computation by Moment Methods. Melbourne,
FL: Kreiger, 1982.
[13] C. K. E. Lau, R. S. Adve, and T. K. Sarkar, “Combined CDMA and
matrix pencil direction of arrival estimation,” in Proc. IEEE Vehicular
Technology Conf., 2002, pp. 496–499.
Edwin C. K. Lau received the B.A.Sc. and M.A.Sc.
degrees, both in electrical engineering, from the Uni-
versity of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada, in 2000 and
2003, respectively.
He is one of the participants of the Communica-
tions and Information Technology Ontario (CITO)
Research Partnerships Program. His area of research
includes retrodirective antennas, microwave circuit
and antenna design, and direction of arrival estima-
tion algorithm.
Raviraj S. Adve (S’88–M’97–SM’03) received the
B.Tech. from the Indian Institute of Technology,
Bombay, in 1990 and the Ph.D. degree from Syracuse
University, Syracuse, NY, in 1996, all in electrical
engineering. His dissertation, on the impact of
mutual coupling on the performance of adaptive
antenna arrays, received the Syracuse University
“Outstanding Dissertation Award” in 1997.
From 1997 to August 2000, he was a Senior
Research Engineer with Research Associates for De-
fense Conversion (RADC) Inc., Marcy, NY, working
on contract with the Air Force Research Laboratory, Sensors Directorate,
Signal Processing Branch, Rome, NY. He is currently an Assistant Professor
in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of
Toronto. He has also been a consultant to Stiefvater Consultants. His research
interests are in practical adaptive signal processing algorithms for wireless
communication and airborne radar systems.
LAU et al.: MINIMUM NORM MUTUAL COUPLING COMPENSATION WITH APPLICATIONS 2041

Tapan K. Sarkar (S’69–M’76–SM’81–F’92) re-

ceived the B.Tech. degree from the Indian Institute
of Technology, Kharagpur, in 1969, the M.Sc.E.
degree from the University of New Brunswick,
Fredericton, NB, Canada, in 1971, and the M.S. and
Ph.D. degrees from Syracuse University, Syracuse,
NY, in 1975.
From 1975 to 1976, he was with the TACO Divi-
sion, General Instruments Corporation. He was with
the Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY,
from 1976 to 1985. He was a Research Fellow at the
Gordon McKay Laboratory, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, from 1977
to 1978. He is now a Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer
Engineering, Syracuse University. He has authored or coauthored more than
210 journal articles and numerous conference papers and has written 28 chap-
ters in books and ten books, including his most recent, Iterative and Self Adap-
tive Finite-Elements in Electromagnetic Modeling (Boston, MA: Artech House,
1998). His current research interests deal with numerical solutions of operator
equations arising in electromagnetics and signal processing with application to
system design.
Dr. Sarkar is a Registered Professional Engineer in the State of New York. He
is a member of Sigma Xi and the International Union of Radio Science Com-
missions A and B. He received one of the ”best solution” awards in May 1977
at the Rome Air Development Center (RADC) Spectral Estimation Workshop.
He received the Best Paper Award of the IEEE Transactions on Electromag-
netic Compatibility in 1979 and in the 1997 National Radar Conference. He
received the College of Engineering Research Award in 1996 and the Chan-
cellor’s Citation for Excellence in Research in 1998 at Syracuse University. He
received the title Docteur Honoris Causa from Universite Blaise Pascal, Cler-
mont Ferrand, France in 1998 and the medal of the city of Clermont Ferrand,
France, in 2000. He was an Associate Editor for feature articles of the IEEE An-
tennas and Propagation Society Newsletter, and he was the Technical Program
Chairman for the 1988 IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society International
Symposium and URSI Radio Science Meeting. He is on the editorial board of
Journal of Electromagnetic Waves and Applications and Microwave and Optical
Technology Letters. He has been appointed a U.S. Research Council Represen-
tative to many URSI General Assemblies. He was the Chairman of the Inter-
commission Working Group of International URSI on Time Domain Metrology
from 1990 to 1996.
2042 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
A Phase-Space Beam Summation Formulation for
Ultrawide-Band Radiation
Amir Shlivinski, Member, IEEE, Ehud Heyman, Fellow, IEEE, Amir Boag, Senior Member, IEEE, and
Christine Letrou, Member, IEEE
Abstract—A new discrete phase space Gaussian beam (GB)
summation representation for ultrawide-band (UWB) radiation
from an aperture source distribution is presented. The formula-
tion is based on the theory of the windowed Fourier transform
(WFT) frames, wherein we introduce a novel relation between the
frequency and the frame overcompleteness. With this procedure,
the discrete lattice of beams that are emitted by the aperture
satisfies the main requirement of being frequency independent,
so that only a single set of beams needs to be traced through the
medium for all the frequencies in the band. It is also shown that
a properly tuned class of iso-diffracting (ID) Gaussian-windows
provides the “snuggest” frame representation for all frequen-
cies, thus generating stable and localized expansion coefficients.
Furthermore, due to the ID property, the resulting GBs prop-
agators are fully described by frequency independent matrices
whose calculation in the ambient environment need to be done
only once for all frequencies. Consequently, the theory may also
be expressed directly in the time-domain as will be presented
elsewhere. The localization implied by the new formulation is
demonstrated numerically for an UWB focused aperture. It is
shown that the algorithm extracts the local radiation properties
of the aperture source and enhances only those beams that con-
form with these properties, i.e., those residing near the phase
space Lagrange manifold. Further localization is due to the fact
the algorithm accounts only for beams that pass within a few
beamwidths vicinity of the observation point. It is thus shown
that the total number of beams is much smaller than the Landau
Pollak bound on the aperture’s degrees of freedom.
Index Terms—Beam summation representations, frame theory,
Gaussian beams (GBs), phase space, ultrawide-band (UWB), win-
dowed Fourier transform (WFT).
NOMENCLATURE
GB Gaussian beam.
ID isodiffracting.
UWB ultrawide-band.
WFT windowed Fourier transform.
Manuscript received November 21, 2001; revised June 12, 2003. The work of
E. Heyman was supported in part by the Israel Science Foundation under Grant
216/02 and in part by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) under
Grant F49620-01-C-0018. The work of A. Boag was supported in part by the
Israel Science Foundation under Grant 577/00.
A. Shlivinski was with the School of Electrical Engineering, Tel Aviv Uni-
versity, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel. He is now with the Department of Electrical
Engineering, University of Kassel, 34109 Kassel, Germany.
E. Heyman and A. Boag are with the School of Electrical Engineering Tel
Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel.
C. Letrou is with GET/INT, CNRS SAMOVAR, UMR 5157, France.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2004.832513
0018-926X/04$20.00 © 2004 IEEE
I. INTRODUCTION
B EAM based phase-space formulations are an important
tool in the wave theory since they provide a systematic
framework for ray-based construction of spectrally uniform
local solutions in complex configurations [1]–[3]. In these for-
mulations, the field is expanded into a phase-space spectrum of
beams that emanate at a given set of points and directions in the
source domain, and thereafter are tracked locally in the medium
(cf. Fig. 1). The advantages of the beam formulations over the
more traditional representations are: 1) unlike the plane waves,
the beam propagators can be tracked locally in inhomogeneous
media or through interactions with interfaces, and unlike rays,
they are insensitive to the geometrical optics (GOs) transition
zones; 2) the formulations are a priori localized in the vicinity
of the phase-space skeleton of GOs (the so-called Lagrange
manifold; see Section IV-C) since only those beam propagators
that pass near the observation point actually contribute there.
Thus, beam representations combine the algorithmical ease of
GOs with the uniform features of spectral representations, and
therefore have been used recently in various applications [4].
An important property of these formulations is that the spec-
trum of beam propagators is overcomplete and thus may be a
priori discretized as, for example, in the Gabor series repre-
sentation. This attractive feature has led to the utilization of
Gabor-based beam algorithms in various applications involving
radiation, scattering and inverse scattering in complex environ-
ments [1], [5]–[12].
The Gabor representation is critically complete, i.e., the
phase-space grid is constrained by the Gabor condition
, where and are the step sizes of the spatial and
spectral discretization [see (9)]. Consequently, it suffers from
two inherent difficulties:
a) Nonlocality and instability of the expansion coefficients:
The “analysis function” (the dual or biorthogonal func-
tion), which is used to calculate the expansion coeffi-
cients tends to be highly nonlocal and irregular, and in
certain cases it is even not integrable (see Fig. 3(f)
and [13]–[17]), hence, the Gabor coefficients represent a
nonlocal and unstable sampling of the field [1], [3].
b) Frequency-dependent beam lattice: The beam lattice
obtained in the Gabor representation changes with fre-
quency [18], hence a different set of beams needs to be
tracked for each frequency (as opposed to the situation in
Fig. 1). This difficulty stems from the Gabor condition
on the phase space grid: choosing to be constant for all
frequencies (i.e., constant beam initiation points) results
in frequency dependent beam directions, and vice versa
[see discussion accompanying (20), (21)].
SHLIVINSKI et al.: PHASE-SPACE BEAM SUMMATION FORMULATION FOR ULTRAWIDE-BAND RADIATION
Fig. 1. Discrete phase space beam summation representation for wideband
radiation from an extended aperture source.
Difficulty (b) makes the conventional Gabor-based beam formu-
lation inapplicable for UWB applications. Difficulty (a) makes
it inconvenient even for monochromatic fields.
For monochromatic applications, difficulty (a) has been cir-
cumvented recently by using a frame-based beam summation
representation [19], [20]. The overcomplete nature of this rep-
resentation smoothes out and localizes the dual function, ending
up with stable and local coefficients at the expense of having to
calculate more coefficients and trace more beam propagators.
This poses a tradeoff in the choice of the oversampling ratio
versus the stability and localization of the representation. A rea-
sonable solution has been found at an oversampling of order 4/3
or larger for one dimensional (1-D) apertures.
In this paper, we introduce a novel scheme wherein the
frame formulation accommodates the difficulty under (b) for
UWB fields [21], [22]. The scheme is based on the fact that the
overcomplete frame removes the Gabor constraint and hence
by a proper scaling of the overcompletness with the frequency
(see Section III-A) one may construct a frequency independent
beam lattice, so that the same set of beams is used for the
entire relevant frequency spectrum as schematized in Fig. 1. In
Section IV, it is shown further that the iso-diffracting Gaussian
beams (ID-GBs) provide the “snuggest” frame basis for all
frequencies (thus providing local and stable coefficients). These
windows, which in fact have been introduced in a different
context [23]–[26], also simplify the beam calculations since,
the resulting ID-GB propagators are fully described by fre-
quency independent matrices whose calculation in the ambient
environment need to be done only once for all frequencies.
Consequently, these beams can be transformed in closed form
into the time domain, where they describe the so-called ID
pulsed beams [23]–[28]. Based on this property, we have also
introduced in [29] a new discrete phase space beam summation
representation for short-pulse fields directly in the time domain
(full papers will be published elsewhere).
The paper is organized as follows: Section II reviews the
relevant elements of frame theory, starting with general frames
(Section II-A) and then concentrating on the windowed Fourier
2043
Fig. 2. Coverage of an overcomplete phase space grid with  = 0:5 using the
Gaussian window (14) with  = 0:5 ; 1; and 2 (dotted, solid, and dash-dotted
lines, respectively). Heavy dots: Grid points.
transform (WFT) frames that form the basis of the beam sum-
mation representation (Sections II-B and II-C). Using analysis
and numerical examples, we identify the relevant frame pa-
rameters for a snug and stable representation. The UWB beam
summation representation is presented in Section III, starting
with the formulation of the frequency independent beam lattice
(Section III-A) followed by the parameterization of the ID-GB
windows for an UWB snuggest representation and a thorough
analysis of the algorithm (Section IV). The localization and
frequency independence issues implied by the new formula-
tion are demonstrated numerically in Section V for an UWB
focused aperture. It is shown that the algorithm extracts the
local radiation properties of the aperture source and enhances
only those beams that conform with these properties, i.e., those
residing near the phase space Lagrange manifold. The pre-
sentation concludes in Section VI with an extensive summary
of the algorithm, the various considerations in choosing the
expansion parameters.
II. ELEMENTS OF FRAME FORMULATIONS
This section presents a brief review of the relevant theory of
frames, starting in Section II-A with general frames and then
proceeding in Section II-B with a detailed analysis of the WFT
frames that form the basis of our beam summation representa-
tion. Extensive treatments of frame theory can be found in [16],
[17], yet the results are presented here with a new slant that is
more relevant to our UWB wave analysis.
A. Frames, Dual Frames and Frame Representation of Signals
The theory of frames has been introduced originally in [30],
but it has gained renewed interest recently since it provides a
framework for an advanced phase-space signal processing [16],
[17].
Definition [17, Sec. 3.2]: A family of functions , ,
in a Hilbert space is called a frame if there exist “frame
bounds” such that for all
(1)
In the context of this paper, we shall be interested in the function
space with the inner product for
, where the asterisk denotes complex conjugate. For the
2044 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004

Fig. 3. Exact and approximate dual functions '(x) and ' (x) (solid and dotted lines) corresponding to the Gaussian window (14) for 6 different values of  .
6 =2 are depicted as two vertical lines.
In all cases, the phase space grid has been chosen to match to the window according to (16), and the unit cell boundaries at x

2-D aperture distributions considered later on in this paper, the The frame representation requires a choice of an appropriate
frame will be obtained by a Cartesian multiplication of the 1-D frame for a given application, and a calculation of its
frames in each of the Cartesian coordinates. dual via (3). The computations involve the inversion of
Generally, the set is overcomplete, thus, it is not orthog- , which can be performed via several methods, e.g., an iter-
onal and not even a basis. It does not have to be normalized and ative Neumann series procedure [17, Sec. 3.2] or a projection
the bounds and may depend on the relative magnitude of of on a finite Hilbert space (e.g., a set of sufficiently dense
the elements in . sampling points) discussed in the Appendix . The frame calcu-
The frame operator is defined as lations to be presented below have been performed via the latter
approach, yet, we shall briefly comment on the former since it
(2) explains some properties of frames, which will be used in our
UWB beam representation of Sections III and IV.
Clearly is self adjoint. Rephrasing (1) in operator conventions, Recasting as where and
yields the bounds on , is a constant, leads to a Neumann series expansion of
[17, Sec. 3.2], where is the identity operator. Since
has a lower bound , it has an inverse. Applying to (5)
, yields the set

(3) This series converges if . Since from (1)

, it follows that the series in (5) con-
which is also a frame with bounds , and frame operator verges if [31]. The optimal value that mini-
[17, Proposition 3.2.3]. is termed the dual frame and mizes is readily found to be
is the dual frame operator.
A frame representation for is given by [17, eq. 3.2.8]
(6)
(4)
The series converges fast if the ratio tends to 1 so that
with a dual expression using . It should be noted that tends to 0. Such frame is called snug, whereas if
the frame representation (4) is not unique, i.e., there are other the frame is tight [17]. For a snug frame, one may use the
sets of coefficients that can be used in (4) instead of term in (5), i.e.
and still express , yet the latter minimizes the norm of the
coefficient series [17, Proposition 3.2.4]. (7)
SHLIVINSKI et al.: PHASE-SPACE BEAM SUMMATION FORMULATION FOR ULTRAWIDE-BAND RADIATION 2045

In general however, and are not known analytically, hence
the calculation of for each frequency may be time con-
suming. In our UWB formulation, we shall therefore choose a
parameter range where one can use an analytic approximation
for and [see (11)]. This not only simplifies the frequency
domain calculations but also leads to closed form expressions
in the time domain theory [29].
B. WFT Frames
In two types of frames are mostly used: the wavelet
frames and the WFT frames (also termed Weyl-Heisenberg
frames or Gabor frames). In this paper, we utilize the latter.
Choosing a proper window function , the ele-
ments of the frame and of its dual are given by [16], [17]
(8a)
(8b)
where we use conveniently the vector index
The parameters define the spatial and spectral displace-
ment units, i.e, is centered at the lattice point in
the phase-space. For the set to constitute a frame,
it is necessary that the unit-cell area be smaller than , i.e.
(9)
The parameter describes the overcompleteness or the redun-
dancy of the frame ( is the oversampling factor). The frame
is overcomplete for and it is critically complete in the
Gabor limit , where it becomes a basis. A necessary con-
dition on [17, Proposition 3.4.1] basically states that the phase
space should be covered without “holes”, i.e., and all its
translations should provide a full coverage of the real axis with
no gaps, with a similar condition on its Fourier transform .
The dual window needs to be calculated for a given
and a phase space lattice . One numerical approach is
outlined in the Appendix . An exact reference solution can also be
computed via the Zak transform for rational oversampling [33].
Though not used in computations below, the Neumann series
approach (5)–(7) is helpful here since it explains properties that
will be employed in constructing the UWB beam representation
of Sections III and IV. In general, finding of (6) involves
elaborate calculations for the frame bounds and (see
Appendix). For WFT frames, we may use the bounds [17,
eq.. 3.4.2]
, (11) is known analytically and does not require numerical
calculations; this becomes essential when the frame expansion
is used for UWB fields where needs to be calculated for
each frequency in the band. Equation (11) also yields simple an-
alytic expressions when the formulation is transformed to obtain
a beam representation in the time domain [29].
The properties of the frame and of its dual depend on two
main parameters: the “overcompleteness” parameter of (9)
and the “matching” parameter that describes how well the spa-
tial and spectral distributions of fit into the phase space lattice.
It is defined as
(12)
where and
are the spatial and spectral widths
of . When , the spatial and spectral window coverage
of the unit cell are balanced, but if or ,
. the window is spatially narrow or wide, respectively (i.e.,
spectrally wide or narrow), with respect to the unit cell (see
Fig. 2). As we shall show in Figs. 3 and 5, for a given , the
snuggest frame and, thus, the most localized dual function
are obtained when .
Finally, in view of (4), the WFT frame representation for
is given by
(13a)
(13b)
From (13b), are samples of the WFT of with respect to
the “analysis function” at the phase space points ,
while (13a) synthesizes in terms of all the phase space trans-
lations of the “synthesis function” .
In general, it is desired that and its dual be localized
both spatially and spectrally, so that (13a) expresses in term
of localized phase space constituents with local and stable
coefficients . Balian-Low theorem [17, Theorem 4.1.1] and
[32] implies in this case is required to be strictly less than 1.
C. Special Case: Gaussian Windows
We consider the Gaussian window

(14)
(10)
which is normalized to . Noting that the spatial and
to find an approximation to (6): spectral widths are and , respec-
, so that the term in the Neumann series tively, the matching parameter (12) is found to be
(5) for becomes (cf. (7))
(15)
(11)
where the second expression follows via (9). The cell dimen-
is not only the limit of for , but it also approxi- sions that “match” this window are obtained by setting ,
mates over a wide range of provided that the window is giving
matched to the lattice over that range as discussed in (12). We
prefer (11) with over the “optimal” value in (7) since unlike (16)
2046 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004

k 0
Fig. 4. Relative error ' ' kk k
= ' between the exact ' and its Fig. 5. Exact dual function ' corresponding to the Gaussian window (14) for
approximation ' of (11), as a function of  .  = 0:5 with three values of :  = 0:5 ; 1; and 2 (dotted, solid and dash-dotted
lines, respectively).

The dual function corresponding to (14) is depicted in Fig. 3

for a wide range of the overcompleteness parameter . For each
, the cell dimensions have been chosen via (16) to “match” the
window, and the resulting cell’s boundaries at are shown
as vertical lines. The exact functions , calculated by the method
in the Appendix , are shown by the full lines, while the dotted
lines are the approximate functions of (11), which basically
replicate up to a proportionality constant. One observes that
in the range , provides a good approximation of ,
while for , becomes increasingly less localized and
in the limit it tends to the Gabor biorthogonal function
[1], [13], [14], which is seen to be nonlocal and irregular. The
quality of the approximation is further examined in Fig. 4 which
depicts the relative error as a function of .
The role of the matching parameter in (12) is explored in Fig. 6. Frame-bound ratio B=A as a function of , calculated numerically
(via the method in the Appendix ) for the Gaussian window (14) with  =
Fig. 5, which depicts the numerically calculated for 0:5 (dash-dotted line) and  = 0:75 (solid line). For each  , B=A is minimal
and for three values of : , 1, and 2 (i.e., have (snuggest frame) at  = 1.
been chosen such that is spatially narrow, matched, and wide
with respect to the lattice, respectively; cf. Fig. 2). As expected,
We use the caret to denote frequency domain field constituents
the smoothest and most localized is obtained for . This
with a suppressed time-dependence ; time-domain con-
observation is further supported by Fig. 6, which shows that for
stituents which will be considered in subsequent publications
a given the frame is snuggest with minimal [see (6)]
have no caret.
when .
The method is presented here in a general format, while ex-
plicit expressions for the ID Gaussian window functions, which
III. WIDEBAND BEAM SUMMATION FORMULATION provide an UWB snug frame representation will be given in
The WFT frame discussed above is used now to construct the Section IV.
UWB discrete beam summation representation. Such represen-
tation should satisfy the following requirements: (a) It should A. Frequency Independent Phase-Space Beam Lattice
utilize a frequency independent beam lattice so that the beam We start by defining the plane wave spectrum of the initial
axes do not have to be retraced for each frequency. (b) The distribution, denoted by a tilde
window function should properly scale with the frequency to
provide the snuggest frame for the entire frequency band. (c)
The resulting GB propagators should be trackable in the am- (17)
bient environment.
The method is presented in the context of radiation into the where is the wave number and is the wave speed.
uniform half space due to a given UWB scalar field The frequency normalized spectral wavenumber
distribution in the plane, with frequency band is used instead of the conventional spectral wavenumber
. The coordinate conventions in the 3-D space since is a pure geometrical constituent that
are with denoting the coordinates trans- defines the spectral propagation direction in a frequency inde-
verse to , and the radiated field is denoted as (Fig. 1). pendent sense.
SHLIVINSKI et al.: PHASE-SPACE BEAM SUMMATION FORMULATION FOR ULTRAWIDE-BAND RADIATION 2047

We therefore define the spatial-spectral phase space as Assuming that is localized around , the coefficients
are the local spectrum of sampled at the grid points .
(18) The radiated field for is obtained now by replacing
in (23a) by the “beam propagators” , giving
The UWB phase space grid is, thus, defined in the domain by
(24)

(19)
where are the unit cell dimensions, and we use where denote the fields radiated into by the synthesis
conveniently a vector index notation windows . They may be described, for example, by the
. In general, the unit cell dimensions Kirchhoff integral
along the and axes need not be the same as long as they
satisfy the overcompleteness condition (21) in each coordinate. (25)
Here, however, we shall not utilize these options. This grid
defines the origins and directions of the beam lattice hence
it is required to have the same grid for all frequencies in the where is the free space Green’s function,
relevant band, while providing an overcomplete coverage of with .
the domain. Alternatively, can be expressed by a plane wave
To construct this grid we first choose a reference frequency representation
such that (the choice of will be discussed in
Section IV.B), and then choose to be critically complete at
(26)
, i.e., it satisfies the Gabor condition at

(20) where is the spectrum (17) of

The same grid is then used for all . The unit cell area is , with being the spectrum of the “mother” , and
given by is the spectral wavenumber in the direction.
If is wide on a wavelength scale then behave like
collimated beams whose axes emerge from the points in the
(21)
plane in the frequency independent directions
defined via . Propagating beams
Thus, scaling the overcompleteness parameter with the fre-
occur only for where is the spectral width of
quency such that yields a frequency independent
( for collimated beams). For , propagate
beam lattice for all .
tangentially along the plane and decay exponentially
with . In practice, we ignore all the evanescent beams and use
B. Wideband Beam Expansion of the Field
in (24) only the beams with , thereby expressing the
Next, for a proper window function and its dual radiated field as a discrete superposition of beams that emerge
, we introduce the WFT frames in for all from all lattice points in the aperture plane and in all real
[cf. (8a) and (8b)] lattice directions .
(22a)
IV. ID GAUSSIAN WINDOWS
(22b)
The ID Gaussian windows are the preferable basis functions
The window and its dual are obtained from a for the UWB beam synthesis, either in the frequency or time
Cartesian multiplication of the 1-D functions, i.e., domains, because they have the following properties:
. Note that in general, and do not have 1) Their width is scaled with the frequency in a specific
to be the same as long as they are valid windows in each coordi- fashion, termed “isodiffracting” [see (31)] that provides the
nate for all the relevant frequencies. Nevertheless, here assume snuggest frame for all frequencies in the relevant band [see
that . (33)].
Referring to the synthesis (13), the WFT frame representation 2) They give rise to GB propagators that can be tracked lo-
of the field in the plane for all is given by cally in the ambient environment. In view of the ID scaling,
the beam propagation through inhomogeneous nondispersive
(23a) media or through interfaces need to be calculated only at a
reference frequency, and can then extrapolated to all other
frequencies [23], [25], [26].
3) The corresponding time-domain phase-space propagators
have closed form expressions, known as the ID pulsed beams
(23b) [23], [25], [26].
2048 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004

The ID windows have the general form [25], [34] . The collimation distances are given, accordingly,
where is a frequency independent, com- by
plex symmetric matrix such that is positive definite and
is the transpose of . The positive definiteness of (30)
guarantees that has a Gaussian decay as the distance
from the origin increases. These determines the waists , the beamwidths ,
For the sake of simplicity, we consider here the special case the wavefront radii of curvature and the diffraction an-
of a real symmetric window gles in the cuts, via

(27)

where is a frequency-independent parameter whose

optimal value for the present application will be determined (31)
following (33). This parameter is the collimation (or Rayleigh)
distance of the GB that emerges from this window [see (30)],
and the term ID implies that this distance is the same for all Thus, since we are interested in collimated beams with narrow
frequencies. spectral spread that can be tracked analytically via paraxial
models, we shall choose for all in the relevant
A. The Phase-Space Propagators: ID-GBs frequency band and for the largest relevant tilt angle in the
source data (see further discussion in Section IV-B).
The phase-space propagators are calculated by sub- The expression in (29) can be extended to UWB propagation
stituting into (26). For large (collimated beams), the in inhomogeneous media or transmission through curved inter-
integral can be evaluated asymptotically as detailed in [34], faces. The result has the generic ID-GB form [23], [25], [26]
[35]. For a given , the result can be expressed in the most
physically appealing format by utilizing the beam coordinates
defined for a given phase-space point : is
a coordinate along the beam axis that emerges from in the
plane in the direction as discussed after (26).
(32)
The coordinates transverse to the beam axis
are chosen such that the projection of on the plane
coincides with the direction of , while This expression describes the beam along its (generally curved)
where the over-circle denotes unit vectors along the corre- propagation trajectory, which is the GOs ray that emerges from
sponding axes. With this choice, the linear phase implied in a direction specified by , with and being the axial
by the window function in (22a) is operative in the direc- and transversal coordinates. Here is the wavespeed along
tion but not in the direction. These coordinates are related this axis while the 2 2 complex symmetric matrices and
to the system coordinates via are found by solving a Ricatti type equation along the axis.
It can readily be shown that is positive definite for all
, hence the quadratic form in the exponent exhibits a
Gaussian decay as increases away from the beam axis, and
that [26].
It thus follows that the ID-GB is determined by the frequency
independent functions and which need to be solved
(28) once for all frequencies.

Utilizing these coordinates, we find by saddle point integration B. Choosing the Frame Parameters
of (26) that is a GB of the form The optimal value of is determined by considering the
matching parameter in (12). Using
and , where
, yields the frequency independent result
. Setting for a “balanced” window which provides
the snuggest frame (see Section II-B and Fig. 5), we obtain
(29)

This expression is an astigmatic GB with principle axes , (33)

, 2, with waist at and collimation distances
. The astigmatism is caused by the beam tilt which reduces where in the second and third expressions we utilized (20).
the effective initial beamwidth in the direction by a factor Thus, the ID Gaussian window (27) with related to and
SHLIVINSKI et al.: PHASE-SPACE BEAM SUMMATION FORMULATION FOR ULTRAWIDE-BAND RADIATION 2049

Fig. 7. Relative error of the GB approximation (29) to the exact beam Fig. 8. Ray trajectories for the focused aperture in (40). The figure also
propagators, shown as a function of the tilt angle n for several values of the shows four observation points where the field will be tested: (a) (near zone)
collimation parameter kb, at k = 0:1. Without loss of generality, the beams r = (x; z ) = (0; 50), (b) (cusp point) (0, 400), (c) (far zone) (0,600), and
are tilted only in the x direction (i.e.,  n = (sin n ; 0)). The error is (d) (shadow zone) (200 360). The phase space observation manifolds O (r )
calculated at a distance z = 400 from the source by integrating the beam corresponding to these points are depicted in Fig. 11.
profile normal to the axis along the beam coordinate x (the field structure
along x is not affected by the beam tilt; see (30).
where we also used . Choosing, for example,
via (33), provides the snuggest WFT frame for all frequencies yields hence from Fig. 4 the error in
in the band. calculating the expansion coefficients at via the approx-
This leads to the following considerations for choosing the imate of (35) is bounded by 4%, and it becomes smaller
frame parameters , and : for as gets smaller. The field reconstruction
First, is chosen to be sufficiently large so that will be error is also bounded by this level: see Figs. 10 and 12–14.
collimated even at the lowest end of the frequency spectrum to Choosing a larger improves the accuracy (e.g., yields
justify the GB solution. Recalling (31), should satisfy and a 2% error bound). Note that actually Fig. 4
depicts the error for the 1-D frames considered in Section II-C;
(34) for the 2-D frames considered here, the error is larger by a factor
of roughly 1.5.
It follows that the choice of depends on and on the source Clearly for the cases noted above, is localized (ap-
spectral (directional) spread. If the source has a wide spectral proximately a Gaussian) and the expansion coefficients are local
range that give rise to large propagation angles, it is required and stable as required.
to choose the beam collimation to be sufficiently large Finally, it is important to note though that the UWB beam
so that GB be collimated even at the largest in the source expansion is valid in the entire band even if is taken to be
spectrum. smaller, yet the approximation (35) can be used only for the
Another factor that should be considered in this context is lower frequencies where is small enough (say,
that the quality of the GB approximation (29) to the exact beam ).
propagators (given by either the Kirchhoff or the plane wave in- Once and are determined subject to these considera-
tegrals in (25)–(26) with Gaussian initial condition) deteriorates tions, the lattice is determined via (33). Note that
for large tilt angles . This is demonstrated in Fig. 7 which also is proportional to , hence in choosing one should also
shows that for a given , the quality of the GB approximation consider the desired degree of spatial localization which sets
improves by increasing the collimation . Thus, it is also re- a limit on .
quired to choose to be sufficiently large so that from Fig. 7
the GB approximation of the propagators at the largest is ac- C. Phase-Space Localization
curate to a desired level.
An important feature of the phase-space representation is the
Next, we set where is a constant to a priori localization of and around well defined regions in
be chosen, as a tradeoff between the desired accuracy and the the domain. We assume that the initial distribution is given
numerical efficacy, see the discussion in Section V. From (21), by
, so that should be as small as possible
to minimize the oversampling. For analytic simplicity, on the (36)
other hand, should be sufficiently large making small
enough for all so that the dual ID window can where the “amplitude” and “phase” functions and are
be approximated by the 2-D extension of (11) slowly varying functions of on a wavelength scale. The local
direction of radiation at a given and is given by
(35)
(37)
2050 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004

^ at k = 0:25 and 0.5, shown in the m ; n plane for m ; n = (0; 0). The expansion parameter b has been taken as: (a,b) b = jRj=2 =
Fig. 9. Coefficients a
x; ) are determined by b via (33). The gray scale is in decibels.
200, (c,d) b = jRj = 400, and (e,f) b = 2jRj = 800. The corresponding grids (

In the continuous phase space of (18), this relation defines the points near the discrete Lagrange manifold [1], [3], [25],
so called Lagrange submanifold (the phase-space skeleton [34], [36]
of GOs).
As mentioned after (23b), the coefficients are samples (38)
of the local spectrum of with respect to the window at
the phase space grid points . If in (23b) is wide on the The number of nonnegligible elements near depends on the
wavelength scale, then it senses the local radiation properties of width of . This limits the number of beams that are excited by
. Consequently the coefficients are nonnegligible only for the aperture.
SHLIVINSKI et al.: PHASE-SPACE BEAM SUMMATION FORMULATION FOR ULTRAWIDE-BAND RADIATION 2051


Fig. 10. Real part of the reconstructed field in the aperture, shown only for x 0 (for x < 0, the field is symmetrical). (a) k = 0:4 and (b) k = 0:5. Full lines:
the exact field. Dashed and dotted lines: the reconstructed field using the exact and the approximated dual function (the analysis window) '
^ , respectively. The
dashed lines are almost indistinguishable from the full lines).

The effective range of summation in (24) is constrained fur-

ther since only those beams that pass near actually contribute
to the field. For a given in a homogeneous region, these beams
correspond to in the vicinity of the discrete observation
manifold [1], [25], [34]

(39)

which simply relates the initiation points and directions

of these beams. The width of the contributing zone near
depends on the spatial width of at the observation point. As
will be demonstrated in Section V.C, it is sufficient to account
only for those beams that pass within the three beam-widths
vicinity of .
The simultaneous constraints above implement the a priori Fig. 11. Observation manifolds O corresponding to some typical observation
localization. points. They are plotted on the phase space map of the coefficients a
^ for the
case b = 400 and k = 0:5 in Fig. 9(d). The indexes (a,b,c,d) correspond to the
observation points in Fig. 8.
V. NUMERICAL EXAMPLES
As an example, we consider the radiation from an UWB fo-
which leads to . It was chosen in order to explore
cusing aperture distribution
the error in calculating the expansion coefficients using
(40) the approximate of (35) instead of the exact . With this
choice, using the approximate yields noticeable error in the
and zero otherwise, with frequency band and field for (where ) while being sufficiently
. The parameter is the radius of curvature of the accurate for , whereas using the exact (which is
wavefront in the aperture and it is taken here to be , calculated numerically for each ) yields accurate results ev-
so that the field focuses to a cusp at (see Fig. 8). The erywhere (see numerical experiments in Figs. 10 and 12–14).
width of the aperture is . Such apertures are usually We used three choices of the window parameter
characterized by the Fresnel number [39], [40] and . For , the beam propagators start
to diverge around , before the focal zone, while for
(41) they are still collimated there. Note that in all cases the
beams are collimated and satisfy [see discussion
where is the Fresnel length, while the -number after (35)]. For each , the cell dimensions are calculated
defines the spectral width. Thus, the given distribution is via (33).
characterized by large Fresnel numbers ranging from 16 at The expansion coefficients have been calculated using
to 32 at . (23b) and the results are shown in Fig. 9 for the three values
of and for two frequencies. The coefficients are shown in the
A. Wideband Phase Space Coefficients plane for a slice of the phase space where
We choose the reference frequency to be , i.e., . . In all the figures, the dominant coefficients are concen-
This value is smaller than recommended after (35), trated near the Lagrange manifold of (38), which yields, for
2052 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004

Fig. 12. Radiated field at three frequencies k = 0.25, 0.4, and 0.5, shown in the z = 200 plane for x  0 (the field for x < 0 is symmetrical). The algorithm
utilizes threshold level " = 0.03 and summation over all beams passing within a three beamwidths vicinity of the observation point. Dashed and dotted lines: The
^ , respectively. Solid line: Exact reference solution.
field synthesized by using the exact and the approximated dual function (the analysis window) '

Fig. 13. As in Fig. 12, but for z = 360.

the distribution in (40), . In the discrete phase space, One may readily verify that the dominant coefficients in (44) are
this condition becomes using (33) indeed aligned along the discretized Lagrange manifold of (42).

(42)
B. Reconstruction of the Aperture Field
Note that this condition is frequency independent, but the width
of the strip of coefficients and their magnitudes depend on the The quality of the representation is explored first by consid-
frequency. Also note the difference in the unit cell dimensions ering the field reconstruction in the aperture. We apply thresh-
for the different values of . olding to the set , i.e., we consider only the significant coef-
One also observes large contributions along the phase space ficients that satisfy where is a small error
lines corresponding to the diffraction at the end parameter, thus reducing the number of elements in the summa-
point of the aperture. They were termed diffraction manifolds tion. Specifically we use , i.e., we neglect the terms in
[1], [25], [36]. Fig. 9 below .
The phase space characteristics can be explored analytically We compare reconstruction using the exact coefficients
by evaluating the coefficients approximately, using (dashed lines), and using the approximate ones that are obtained
from (35). Substituting into (23b) yields the following integral by processing the data with the approximate of (35) [dotted
for the coefficients lines]. In the former case, the error is mainly due to the thresh-
olding at a level [for the reconstructed field is
almost indistinguishable from the exact field (solid line)]. In the
latter, there is a noticeable error for , which is due to the
(43) error in (35) for , whereas for where ,
the reconstruction error is smaller than 6% as predicted in Fig. 4
For grid points that are far away from the aperture boundaries,
and the discussion after (35). One also observes a weak Gibbs
the end points effect in the integral can be neglected leading to
effects at the aperture truncation points . We there-
the closed form result for :
fore consider here only and 0.5 since the quality of the
approximate reconstruction is excellent for .
In view of these results it is recommended to use or
even in order to obtain accurate results while using the
(44) approximate dual function of (35).
SHLIVINSKI et al.: PHASE-SPACE BEAM SUMMATION FORMULATION FOR ULTRAWIDE-BAND RADIATION
Fig. 14. As Fig. 12, but for z = 600.
C. Radiated Field
The radiated field has been calculated via the beam summa-
tion formula (24) using the ID-GB propagators of (29), and
the results are shown in Figs. 12–14. In view of our UWB phase
space construction, the beam trajectories and the beam param-
eters are frequency independent. The summation includes only
the propagating beams with [see discussion after (26)].
As noted in Section V-B, the number of beams excited is reduces
by applying thresholding to at an error level (i.e.,
).
Furthermore, only those beams that pass “near” a given
observation point are summed in (24): As follows from the
numerical results below, it is sufficient to include only those
passing within the three beam-widths vicinity of , where
the beamwidth is given in (31). Viewed from a phase-space
perspective, the beams that pass near are defined by the
observation manifold of (39), which is illustrated in
Fig. 11 for the four observation points (a)–(d) that are indicated in
Fig. 8, and the algorithm selects the beams that are located within
a three beam-widths vicinity of . Dominant contributions
at a given are therefore obtained only from those phase-space
points in the vicinity of the intersection of of with the
Lagrange and diffraction manifolds of the beam amplitudes
(shown by the gray scale in Fig. 11).
Considering as an example the near zone point (a), the beam
contributions obtained from the intersection of in Fig. 11
with the Lagrange manifold describe the GOs field near the aper-
ture center, while those obtained from the intersection with the
diffraction manifolds describe edge diffraction contributions at
. At the focal point (b), on the other hand, in Fig. 11 is
essentially parallel to the Lagrange manifold and the field is de-
scribed by significant beam contributions from the entire aper-
ture. Finally, at point (d) in the shadow zone, the beams along the
corresponding in Fig. 11 are weakly excited hence there
are no sgnificant GOs contributions but there are contributions
from the intersection of with the diffraction manifolds. The
total numbers of beams used in the formulation are summarized
in Table I. For further discussion, see Section V-D.
Figs. 12–14 depict cross sectional cuts of the UWB field cal-
culated at several distances in the near, intermediate and far
zones, and at three different frequencies and
. The dashed and dotted lines compare, respectively,
the fields calculated by using the exact and the approximated
2053
TABLE I
NUMBER OF BEAMS USED IN OUR ALGORITHM. 2ND COLUMN: NUMBER OF
EXCITED BEAMS AFTER THRESHOLDING AT LEVEL " = 0:03. 3RD-6TH
COLUMNS: NUMBER OF BEAMS USED TO SYNTHESIZE THE FIELD AT THE
OBSERVATION POINTS (A)–(D) IN FIG. 8
of (35), respectively. As in Fig. 10, the former provides ac-
curate beam amplitudes and excellent agreement with the exact
solution (full lines) for the entire frequency band: the minor no-
ticeable discrepancies are due to the thresholding of at a level
of , and are essentially eliminated by using .
Using the approximate leads to accurate results for
but a noticeable error for . Note that the beam formula-
tion provides a good representation for the field near the shadow
boundary of edge diffraction (see Fig. 12 around ), for
the field in the focal zone in Fig. 13, and for the transition to the
far zone in Fig. 14.
D. The Phase Space Degrees of Freedom
The manifestation of localization in discrete phase-space
representations like the discrete Fourier transform or the beam
summation, can be quantified in view of the Landau-Pollak
(LP) bound that specifies the number of discrete degrees of
freedom required for a given field to be approximated to a
prescribed accuracy [3]. This issue is explored here in the
context of our UWB beam summation representation. Clearly,
the oversampling increases the number of terms, but on the
other hand, the snug localization extracts the local features of
the field and renders the phase space coefficients highly local-
ized near the Lagrange manifold. Consequently the number of
degrees of freedom may be significantly reduced relative to the
LP bound. Further savings are achieved for UWB fields since
the beams need to be traced only once at a reference frequency.
We start with the LP dimension that
defines the degrees of freedom in a discrete representation of
a 2-D (aperture) domain, with and being the spatial and
spectral cross sections of the field distribution, respectively [3].
Setting yields
(45)
2054 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004

This expression describes a complete phase space coverage and those in the second column of Table I for the beams that are actu-
it is obtained, for example, by assigning visible spectrum ally excited by the aperture at the same threshold level. The dif-
points to each of the spatial points in the aperture where ference is essentially due to the edge diffraction beams that are
. included in the calculations of Table I but not in (48). Recalling
A smaller number is obtained if one includes only the GOs the discussion before (47), it is expected that for larger apertures
radiation from the aperture and excludes edge diffraction. Re- the relative difference between the estimate for in (48)
ferring to the aperture source distribution in (40) we use and the results of Table I will diminish.
and obtain

(46) VI. SUMMARY AND CONCLUDING REMARKS

A novel discrete phase space beam summation representation
where is the Fresnel number of (41). for UWB radiation from extended source distributions was in-
In the beam summation formulation, the actual number of troduced. The representation is based on a WFT frame analysis
elements is further reduced since it is sensitive to the local of the aperture source distribution. The formulation comprises
structure of the phase space. We consider only the nonnegligible the following key features:
coefficients that satisfy where is a small 1) It utilizes a frequency independent beam lattice (unlike
error parameter. Referring to Fig. 9, the number of phase the conventional Gabor scheme), emerging from a discrete
space coefficients is then a sum of elements set of points and orientations in the aperture. This important
along the discrete Lagrange (or GOs) manifold of (38) and feature is achieved by introducing relation (21) between the
elements near the diffraction manifold. The latter will overcompleteness and the frequency.
be neglected in the estimates in view of the bound 2) The ID-GB are shown to provide snuggest frames for
, which applies asymptotically for large apertures ( all frequencies, provided that the beam parameter and the
is proportional to the linear dimension while is phase-space grid are related via (33).
proportional to the area). From (44), the relevant coefficients
3) The ID-GB propagators are also fully described by fre-
near are enclosed within a 4-D tube
quency independent parameters [see (28) and (32)]. Con-
sequently, the calculation of the ID-GB propagation in the
(47) ambient environment need to be done only once for all
frequencies.
4) The expansion coefficients are samples of the WFT of
For a given , (47) represents the interior of a circle the source distribution with respect to the dual (or “analysis”)
of radius in the window. An important parameter is the reference frequency
plane, which is centered at on . The which is larger than , the highest frequency in the source
number of points in that circle is equal to its area spectrum. If is chosen to be sufficiently large (
. Hence accounting for all the with ), the overcompleteness is greater than
points in the aperture yields an estimate on for all and the dual window can be approximated
(48) by the ID-GB window as in (35). This greatly simplifies the
calculations since the dual function does not have to be calcu-
with , where the second expression lated numerically for each frequency in the band (the numer-
follows from (33). It follows that the minimal number of ele- ical procedure for calculating the dual function numerically
ments is obtained with . is described in the Appendix). Furthermore, in this case the
Comparing (48) with (46) one obtains the asymptotic relation dual function can be transformed in closed form to the time
, i.e., the phase space beam representa- domain, thus providing a starting point for the new time do-
tion consists, asymptotically, of a smaller number of elements. main theory that has been briefly reported in [37], [38].
This property follows from the fact that the beam formulation 5) Following item 4, the overcompleteness poses a tradeoff
extracts the local radiation property of the source and thus in- between analytical simplicity and numerical efficacy. Refer-
cludes only the elements along the Lagrange manifold, whereas ring to [19], [20] is sufficient for expansion coef-
LP is a global bound ( bounds the spectral cross section of the ficient localization. If, like in our case, an approximate dual
entire aperture field). function is desired, we have found that is preferable
One should also note the term appearing in (48) which since in this case the error due to the approximate dual func-
represents the frame oversampling. tion is bounded by 6% at , and it is lower for
Finally, the number of elements needed to describe the field where (Fig. 4 and numerical examples in Sec-
at a given may be further reduced if out of all the phase space tion V). Choosing reduces the error bound at to
points in (48) one keeps only those corresponding to beams that 3%. Large increases the overcompleteness and the number
pass near , as discussed in Section V-C, and summarized in of elements, but simplifies the calculations of the wideband
Table I. expansion coefficients (item 4) as well as the field calcula-
Applying (48) to the present configuration, using threshold tions (items 1 and 3). Furthermore, the snug localization of
level we obtain and for the formulation renders the phase space representation highly
and , respectively. These numbers are smaller than localized near the Lagrange manifold (the GOs skeleton),
SHLIVINSKI et al.: PHASE-SPACE BEAM SUMMATION FORMULATION FOR ULTRAWIDE-BAND RADIATION
hence, depending on the source properties, the number of el-
ements in the expansion can be significantly reduced relative
to the LP bound (see Section V-D).
In view of the frequency independence of the various charac-
teristics above, the formulation can be transformed in closed
form into the time domain, where the propagators are the ID
pulsed-beams and the expansion amplitudes are found via a new
discrete local slant-stack (or Radon) transform. Initial results of
these new formulations have been reported in [29], [37], [38],
but full details will be published separately.
Referring to item 1, we note that the oversampling increases
at lower frequencies so that the numerical efficiency there de-
creases (see item 5). Thus, although the bandwidth of the for-
mulation above can be arbitrarily large, we have introduced in
[37], [38] a modified formulation for excitations with bandwidth
larger than one octave, . For these cases, we
divide the excitation band into a hierarchy of one-octave sub-
bands, and apply the UWB formulation above in each band
while choosing the parameters in each band such that the spatial
and spectral discretizations are obtained by a multilevel binary
decimation of those at the highest band. The result is a self-con-
sistent representation wherein the beam sets at the lower bands
are decimated subsets of those at the highest band, so that only
the set of beam-propagators at the highest frequency band needs
to be traced, while for the lower bands one may use properly
decimated subsets. The resulting multiband algorithms in the
UWB frequency domain and in the time domain have been re-
ported in [37], [38], but full papers are in preparation.
We are also engaged in extending the expansion algorithm
to circular cylinders, mainly in connection with applications to
indoor propagation. This subject will be reported elsewhere.
APPENDIX
DUAL FRAME CALCULATION VIA AN EXPANSION IN A FINITE
HILBERT SPACE
We present the numerical algorithm used for calculating the
dual window of the WFT frames shown in Figs. 3 and 5 and
of the frame bounds in Fig. 6. Two other approaches, namely
the Neumann series and the Zak transform, have been discussed
after (8b).
The dual window is defined in (8b) by , which
in view of (2) yields explicitly with
. To calculate , we expand it as , 1981.
where , is a valid expansion set in a finite
Hilbert space that covers the support of (i.e., can
be a basis, a set of sampling delta functions, or a frame set), and
are unknown coefficients. We therefore obtain
(49)
Recalling that for , this equation is satisfied
if
(50)
where , is a column vector and
is a column vector of nulls except for the term corresponding
to that equals 1. has columns but an infinite
2055
number of rows, however, it may be truncated since from [41]
we have for . This property holds for any
frame, yet it may readily be verified for the present WFT frame
by recalling the essentially finite support of . Since is
a frame set, (50) is overdetermined and its solution may be ob-
tained by the singular value decomposition (SVD) [42], yielding
, being the pseudo inverse obtained after trun-
cating the low singular values (see [43]).
A convenient choice for the expansion set is the Galerkin set
in which case is Hermitian. In
this case, the largest and smallest singular values of are the
upper and lower frame bounds and , respectively [41].
REFERENCES
[1] B. Z. Steinberg, E. Heyman, and L. B. Felsen, “Phase space beam sum-
mation for time-harmonic radiation from large apertures,” J. Opt. Soc.
Amer. A, Opt. Image Sci., vol. 8, pp. 41–59, 1991.
[2] , “Phase space beam summation for time dependent radiation from
large apertures: Continuous parameterization,” J. Opt. Soc. Amer. A, Opt.
Image Sci., vol. 8, pp. 943–958, 1991.
[3] J. M. Arnold, “Phase-space localization and discrete representations of
wave fields,” J. Opt. Soc. Amer. A, Opt. Image Sci., vol. 12, pp. 111–123,
1995.
[4] V. Červený, “Gaussian beam synthetic seismograms,” J. Geophys., vol.
58, pp. 44–72, 1985.
[5] M. J. Bastiaans, “The expansion of an optical signal into a discrete set
of Gaussian beams,” Optik, vol. 57, pp. 95–102, 1980.
[6] P. D. Einziger, S. Raz, and M. Shapira, “Gabor representation and aper-
ture theory,” J. Opt. Soc. Amer. A, Opt. Image Sci., vol. 3, pp. 508–522,
1986.
[7] J. J. Maciel and L. B. Felsen, “Gaussian beam analysis of propagation
from an extended plane aperture distribution through dielectric layers:
I-Plane layer,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 38, pp. 1607–1617,
1990.
[8] , “Gaussian beam analysis of propagation from an extended plane
aperture distribution through dielectric layers: II-Circular cylindrical
layer,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 38, pp. 1618–1624, 1990.
[9] R. J. Burkholder and P. H. Pathak, “Analysis of EM penetration into and
scattering by electrically large open waveguide cavities using Gaussian
beam shooting,” Proc. IEEE, vol. 79, pp. 1401–1412, 1991.
[10] H. T. Chou, P. H. Pathak, and R. J. Burkholder, “Novel Gaussian beam
method for the rapid analysis of large reflector antennas,” IEEE Trans.
Antennas Propagat., vol. 49, pp. 880–893, 2001.
[11] B. Rao and L. Carin, “Hybrid (parabolic equation) (Gaussian beam) al-
gorithm for wave propagation through large inhomogeneous regions,”
IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 46, pp. 700–709, 1998.
[12] , “Beam-tracing-based inverse scattering for general aperture an-
tennas,” J. Opt. Soc. Amer. A, Opt. Image Sci., vol. 16, pp. 2219–2231,
1999.
[13] M. J. Bastiaans, “Gabor’s expansion of a signal into Gaussian elemntary
signals,” Proc. IEEE, vol. 68, pp. 538–539, 1980.
[14] , “Signal descriptions by means of a local frequency spectrum,”
Proc. SPIE, Transformation Opt. Signal Processing, vol. 373, pp. 49–62,
[15] A. J. E. M. Janssen, “Bargmann transform, Zak transform and coherent
states,” J. Math. Phys., vol. 23, no. 5, pp. 720–731, 1982.
[16] I. Daubechies, “The wavelet transform, time-frequency localization and
signal analysis,” IEEE Trans. Inform. Theory, vol. 36, pp. 961–1005,
1990.
[17] , Ten Lectures on Wavelets. Philadelphia, PA: SIAM Publ., 1992,
CBMS-NSF Series in Applied Mathematics.
[18] B. Z. Steinberg and E. Heyman, “Phase space beam summation for time
dependent radiation from large apertures: Discretized parametrization,”
J. Opt. Soc. Amer. A, Opt. Image Sci., vol. 8, pp. 959–966, June 1991.
[19] D. Lugara and C. Letrou, “Alternative to Gabor’s representation of plane
aperture radiation,” Electron. Lett., vol. 34, pp. 2286–2287, 1998.
[20] , “Printed antennas analysis by a Gabor frame-based method of mo-
ments,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 50, pp. 1588–1597, 2002.
[21] A. Shlivinski, E. Heyman, A. Boag, D. Lugara, and C. Letrou, “Gabor-
frame phase space beam summation formulation for wideband radiation
from extended apertures,” in Proc. URSI Trianum Int. Symp. Electro-
magnetic Theory, Victoria, Canada, May 2001, pp. 56–58.
[22] D. Lugara, C. Letrou, A. Shlivinski, E. Heyman, and A. Boag, “The
frame based Gaussian beam summation method: Theory and applica-
tion,” Radio Sci., vol. 38, no. 2, pp. VIC27/1–15, 2003.
2056 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
[23] E. Heyman, “Pulsed beam propagation in an inhomogeneous medium,”
IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 42, pp. 311–319, 1994.
[24] E. Heyman and T. Melamed, “Certain consideration in aperture syn-
thesis for ultra-wideband/short-pulsed fields,” IEEE Trans. Antennas
Propagat., vol. 42, pp. 518–525, 1994.
[25] E. Heyman and L. B. Felsen, “Gaussian beam and pulsed beam dy-
namics: Complex source and spectrum formulations within and beyond
paraxial asymptotics,” J. Opt. Soc. Amer. A, Opt. Image Sci., vol. 18, pp.
1588–1611, 2001.
[26] E. Heyman, “Pulsed beam solutions for propagation and scattering prob-
lems,” in Scattering: Scattering and Inverse Scattering in Pure and Ap-
plied Science, R. Pike and P. Sabatier, Eds. New York: Academic,
2002, vol. 1, ch. 1.5.4, pp. 295–315.
[27] S. Feng and H. G. Winful, “Spatiotemporal transformations of isod-
iffracting ultrashort pulses by nondispersive quadratic phase media,” J.
Opt. Soc. Amer. A, Opt. Image Sci., vol. 16, pp. 2500–2509, 1999.
[28] M. A. Porras, “Nonsinusoidal few-cycle pulsed light beams in free
space,” J. Opt. Soc. Amer. A, Opt. Image Sci., vol. 16, pp. 1468–1474,
1999.
[29] A. Shlivinski, E. Heyman, A. Boag, A. Fluerasu, and C. Letrou, “A
discretized-phase-space pulsed beam representation for time dependent
radiation,” in Proc. URSI Trianum Int. Symp. Electromagnetic Theory,
Victoria, Canada, May 2001, pp. 71–73.
[30] R. J. Duffin and A. J. Schaeffer, “A class of nonharmonic Fourier series,”
Trans. AMS, vol. 72, pp. 341–366, 1952.
[31] K. Gröchenig, “Acceleration of the frame algorithm,” IEEE Trans.
Signal Processing, vol. 41, pp. 3331–3340, 1993.
[32] Gabor Analysis and Algorithms: Theory and Applications, H. G. Fe-
ichtinger and T. Strohmer, Eds., Birkhäuser, Boston, MA, 1998.
[33] M. J. Bastiaans, “Gabor’s signal expansion and the Zak transform
for continuous-time and discrete-time signals: critical sampling and
rational oversampling,” Eindhoven Univ. Technol., Faculty Elect. Eng.,
Eindhoven, Netherlands, EUT Report 95-E-295, ISBN 90-6144-295-8,
1995.
[34] E. Heyman and T. Melamed, “Space-time representation of ultra-wide-
band signals,” in Advances in Imaging and Electron Physics, P. W.
Hawkes, Ed. New York: Academic, 1998, vol. 103, pp. 1–66.
[35] T. Melamed, “Phase space beam summation: A local spectrum analysis
of time dependent radiation,” J. Electromagn. Waves Appl., vol. 11, pp.
739–773, 1997.
[36] J. M. Arnold, “Rays, beams and diffraction in a discrete phase space:
Wilson bases,” Optics Express, vol. 10, no. 16, pp. 716–722, Aug. 2002.
[37] A. Shlivinski, E. Heyman, A. Boag, and C. Letrou, “Frame-based beam-
summation algorithms for ultra wideband radiation from extended aper-
tures. Part I: Formulations in the multi-frequency domain,” and “Part
II: Time domain formulation,” in Ultra-Wideband, Short-Pulse Electro-
magnetics, E. Mokole, K. Gerlach, and M. Kragalott, Eds. New York:
Plenum Press, 2003, vol. 6, pp. 101–122.
[38] , “A frame based phase-space beam and pulsed beam summation
formulations for ultra wideband/short pulse radiation,” in Proc. XXVII
General Assembly Int. Union of Radio Science (URSI), Maastricht, The
Netherland, August 2002, manuscript #699, pp. 1–4.
[39] A. E. Siegman, Lasers. Mill Valley, CA: Univ. Sci. Books, 1986.
[40] J. J. Stamness, Waves in Focal Regions: IOP Publishing, 1986.
[41] A. Teolis and J. J. Benedeto, “Local frames and noise reduction,” Signal
Processing, vol. 45, pp. 369–387, 1995.
[42] G. H. Golub and C. V. Loan, Matrix Computations, 2nd ed. Baltimore,
MD: The Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1989.
[43] T. Strohmer, “Approxiamtion of dual Gabor frames, window decay, and
wireless communications,” App. Comp. Harmonic Anal., vol. 11, pp.
243–262, 2001.
Amir Shlivinski (S’98–M’04) was born in Tel-Aviv,
Israel, in February 1969. He received the B.Sc. (cum
laude), M.Sc. (summa cum laude), and Ph.D. (with
distinction) degrees in electrical engineering, all from
Tel-Aviv University, Israel, in 1991, 1997, and 2003,
respectively.
From 1991 to 1999, he worked as a research and
development Electromagnetic Engineer, and between
1999 and 2003, he was a full-time Ph.D. student and a
Teaching Assistant at Tel-Aviv University. Currently,
he is a Postdoctorate Fellow at the Department of
Electrical Engineering, University of Kassel, Kassel, Germany. His main fields
of interest are electromagnetics, wave theory and antenna theory, with emphasis
on analytic methods and time-domain phenomena.
Ehud Heyman (S’80–M’82–SM’88–F’01) was
born in Tel Aviv, Israel, in 1952. He received the
B.Sc. degree in electrical engineering from Tel Aviv
University, Israel (summa cum laude) as Valedicto-
rian, the M.Sc. degree in electrical engineering (with
distinction) from The Technion—Israel Institute of
Technology, Haifa, and the Ph.D. degree in electro-
physics from the Polytechnic Institute of New York
(now Polytechnic University), Brooklyn, in 1977,
1979, and 1982, respectively.
In 1983, he joined the Department of Physical
Electronics of the Faculty of Engineering, Tel Aviv University where he is
now a Professor of electromagnetic theory and Heads the School of Electrical
Engineering. From 1991 to 1992, he was on sabbatical at Northeastern Uni-
versity, Boston, MA, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge,
and the A. J. Devaney Association, Boston. He spent several summers as a
Visiting Professor at various universities. He has published over 80 articles and
has been an Invited Speaker at many international conferences. His research
interests involve analytic methods in wave theory, including high-frequency and
time-domain techniques for propagation and scattering, short-pulse antennas
and pulsed beams, inverse scattering and target identification, imaging and
synthetic aperture radar propagation in random medium.
Prof. Heyman is a Member of Sigma Xi and the Chairman of the Israeli Na-
tional Committee for Radio Sciences (URSI). He is an Associate Editor of the
IEEE Press Series on Electromagnetic Waves and was an Associate Editor of
the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION. While at the Poly-
technic Institute he was a Research Fellow and later a Postdoctoral Fellow, as
well as a Rothschild, a Fullbright, and a Hebrew Technical Institute Fellow.
Amir Boag (S’89–M’91–SM’96) received the B.Sc.
degree in electrical engineering and the B.A. degree
in physics (both summa cum laude) in 1983, the
M.Sc. degree in electrical engineering in 1985, and
the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering in 1991
from The Technion—Israel Institute of Technology,
Haifa.
From 1991 to 1992, he was on the Faculty of the
Department of Electrical Engineering, The Tech-
nion—Israel Institute of Technology. From 1992
to 1994, he was a Visiting Assistant Professor with
the Electromagnetic Communication Laboratory,
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign. In 1994, he joined Israel Aircraft Industries as a Research
Engineer where he became a Manager of the Electromagnetics Department in
1997. Since 1999, he has been with the Department of Physical Electronics, the
School of Electrical Engineering, Tel Aviv University, Israel. He has published
more than 40 journal articles and presented more than 70 conference papers on
electromagnetics and acoustics. His research interests are in electromagnetic
theory, wave scattering, and design of antennas and optical devices.
Christine Letrou (M’96) received the Diplôme
d’Ingénieur of Institut National des Télécommu-
nications (INT), Evry, France, in 1982 and the
Docteur-Ingénieur and Ph.D. degrees from Uni-
versité Paris XI, Orsay, France, in 1985 and 1988,
respectively.
Since then, she has been an Assistant Professor
at INT in charge of microwaves, electromagnetics
and antennas, teaching, and research activities. Cur-
rently, she is also a Member of the CNRS Laboratory
SAMOVAR (UMR 5157), Paris, France. Her main
research interests are in phase-space methods development, antennas and
quasioptical devices and systems design, and propagation modeling for high
bit rate communication systems.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004 2057

Theoretical Considerations in the Optimization of

Surface Waves on a Planar Structure
Samir F. Mahmoud, Senior Member, IEEE, Yahia M. M. Antar, Fellow, IEEE, Hany F. Hammad, and
Al P. Freundorfer, Senior Member, IEEE

Abstract—The problem of optimum excitation of surface waves

on a grounded dielectric slab by means of slots in the ground plane
is considered. By adopting a two-dimensional (2-D) model, anal-
ysis lead to closed forms for the power launched as surface waves
and power leaked as radiation. Input admittance of a single slot
source and mutual admittance between two slots are derived and
utilized to design a three element Yagi array of slots to achieve a
prescribed ratio of forward to backward surface wave power. As a
development of the 2-D model, we allow finite extent of slot exci- (a)
tation by assuming a Gaussian E-field distribution across the slot.
The effect of the Gaussian width on the excited surface wave power
is studied. The analysis is relevant to the study of surface waves
on printed circuits. Specifically, it applies to the implementation of
power combiners based on quasioptical slab beam that have been
recently introduced in the literature for use in the millimeter wave
band.
Index Terms—Millimeter wave power combiners, planar struc-
tures, quasioptical power combiners, surface waves.

I. INTRODUCTION
E XCITATION of surface waves on planar integrated mi-
crowave circuits is often considered as an adversary effect
causing power loss and undesired coupling. However there
exist situations when the main objective is to efficiently excite
a surface wave with least possible leakage, or radiated power.
One recent example of these situations is the implementation
of quasioptical slab beam power combiners in the millimeter
band, in which surface waves are the means of power transport
[1]–[4]. These combiners depend on the efficient excitation
of the dominant surface wave mode inside a dielectric slab.
Recent investigations by the authors [3], [4] have suggested
the use of coplanar waveguide (CPW) driven slots as the most
suitable surface wave launchers for monolithic fabrication in
the millimeter regime. In this paper an attempt is made to
establish the theoretical foundation for operation of the slab
beam power combiner. Accordingly we seek to maximize the
surface wave excited by a slot dipole on the ground plane of
a grounded dielectric slab. Starting with a two-dimensional
(2-D) model of the grounded slab and the slot, a rigorous
theory is presented in Section II that leads to closed forms
for the excited surface wave and leakage powers. The input
Manuscript received January 5, 2003; revised July 9, 2003.
S. F. Mahmoud is with the Electrical Engineering Department, Kuwait Uni-
versity, Kuwait (e-mail: samir@eng.kuniv.edu.kw).
Y. M. M. Antar is with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engi-
neering, Royal Military College of Canada, Station Forces Kingston, ON K7K
7B4, Canada (e-mail: antar-y@rmc.ca).
H. F. Hammad and A. P. Freundorfer are with the Electrical and Computer
Engineering Department, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON K7L 3N6, Canada.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2004.832498
0018-926X/04$20.00 © 2004 IEEE
(b)
Fig. 1(a). 2-D model of a grounded dielectric slab of relative permittivity "
with a slot source in the ground plane. (b). Grounded dielectric slab fed by a
Yagi array of three slots. The middle slot of width “s” is the driven one and the
other two are director and reflector slots having widths s and s , respectively.
The spacing between the driven slot and the director/reflector slots are “c ”=c ,
respectively.
admittance of a single slot and mutual admittance between
two slots are derived in Section III. Numerical examples are
given in Section IV including design examples of Yagi slot
arrays that achieve high surface wave front to back ratio. In
Section V, we alleviate the assumption of uniformly excited
slot by allowing a Gaussian distribution of the E-field inside
the slot. This breaks the two dimensionality of the problem,
but still allows the derivation of closed forms for the surface
wave and radiated powers. Comparison is made between the
present theory and experimental implementations as given by
the authors in earlier work [4].
II. THEORY OF GROUNDED SLAB EXCITATION BY A SLOT
SOURCE (2-D MODEL)
We start by considering a 2-D model of the problem where
a grounded dielectric slab of uniform thickness is assumed
to extend infinitely parallel to the - plane. A -directed slot
of width “ ” (along ) in the ground plane is used to excite
the slab as shown in Fig. 1(a). The slot itself is excited by
a uniform -oriented electric field and therefore, acts as
an infinite magnetic line source of magnetic current given by
(volts). To limit the problem to the 2-D
model, we assume that the slot is infinite in the direction and
2058 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004

is uniformly excited. In Section V, we consider a finite slot
excitation. The excited fields can be expressed by a discrete set
of (say ) surface wave modes traveling along as well as a
continuous spectrum over the transverse wavenumber (along )
that account for radiated fields. This is known as the transverse
spectral representation for the fields [5]–[8]. This representation
is adopted here since it facilitates the determination of the
modal amplitudes as will be seen. Since the slot acts as a
-oriented uniform magnetic line source, fields are obviously of
TM type with magnetic field and electric field components
and . Assuming a time harmonic excitation of the form
, and that the source lies in planes, general
expressions for the total fields in the directions are
across leading to the modal equation for a surface wave
and determines for a pseudomode as
(5)
Obviously, the range of the spectrum represents
fields with active radiation power while the range
corresponds to the evanescent part of the field. While a pseudo-
mode does not satisfy the radiation condition on its own, the sum
of pseudomodes making up the radiated and evanescent fields
does satisfy the radiation condition, as it should [6]. The modal
electric field vector is .
Orthogonality relationships can be established among the sur-
face wave modes and pseudomodes and can be expressed by [8]

(1)

(6)

where the unless whence it is equal to unity,

(2) while is the usual Dirac Delta function. In addition there is
orthogonality between a surface wave mode and a pseudomode.
The surface wave factor is easily obtained as
where the superscript and signs apply for and
, respectively, and , and, are surface wave mode
(7)
and pseudomode amplitudes. The integration is taken over the
transverse wavenumber . Here , are the
magnetic -field component and the vector electric field of the where the modal fields have been normalized such that
th surface wave mode; namely for the surface wave mode .
The second integration in (6) is a bit more difficult to evaluate.
Following [8], it is useful to change that integration to a contour
integral as follows:
(3)

and .
Here, , ,
the attenuation rate of the th mode in air, and
(8)
is the free space wavenumber.
On the other hand, , are the fields of a pseu-
Evaluating the right-hand side (RHS) and using the identity
domode [6]–[8] with a transverse real wavenumber . A pseu-
, we get
domode is the result of an incident plane wave on the slab and
in (6) as
a reflected one; namely

(9)
(4)
It is worth noting that, in the absence of any loss in the struc-
where: , and . Ob- ture, is real and stands for the surface wave power flowing
viously, (3) and (4) ensure the continuity of the -magnetic field along . Meanwhile is real and represents spectral power
across the interface . The associated electric field is ob- density over the range , while in the range ,
tainable from (3) and (4) through Maxwell’s equations. The is pure imaginary and so is , which then represents re-
continuity of requires that be continuous active power density.
MAHMOUD et al.: THEORETICAL CONSIDERATIONS IN THE OPTIMIZATION OF SURFACE WAVES 2059

Now consider a -directed infinite slot of infinitesimally accounting for the finite width of the slot and the variation of
narrow width ; Fig. 1, over which a uniform exists. over the slot. Therefore
This acts as a magnetic line source of magnetic current
. The fields generated by this source
take the general form in (1) and (2) and the coefficients and
are to be determined from the electric field discontinuity
and the magnetic field continuity across the source; namely (15)
where which is real over the range of
integration. Performing the integrals over and , and substi-
(10) tuting for from (9), we arrive at

Inserting and from (1) and (2) and using the orthogonality
relations in (6), we get the modal amplitudes as

(16)
Note, that the square bracketed term accounts for the finite width
(11) of the slot. As tends to , this term behaves as , rendering
the whole integrand to behave as , which ensures a conver-
Now, we are able to obtain both the guided surface wave power gent integral.
(in both ) and radiation power in simple summation and in- The results obtained so far also allow us to determine the
tegral form, respectively. Namely mutual admittance between two parallel slots of given
widths and given spacing “ .” For “ ” sufficiently larger than
slot widths, the mutual admittance is given by
(12)

and
(17)
(13)

where is the magnetic field at slot 2 due to a voltage

where and are given by (7) and (9), respectively. applied to slot 1. Note that in the range
It is constructive at this point to compare between the , and in the range .
transverse wavenumber spectral representation with the more
conventional longitudinal wavenumber spectral representation. IV. NUMERICAL RESULTS
The latter has been used for several decades by Wait [9], Fuller
and Wait [10] and many others, and recently pursued by Bhat- The percentage power launched in surface waves relative to
tacharyya [11]. While the transverse spectral representation the total power delivered by the source is computed from (12)
explicitly displays the surface wave and the radiation spectra and (13) versus normalized frequency for different values of the
separately, the longitudinal spectral representation does not. relative permittivity . The frequency is limited to allow for
However, the latter representation can be converted to the the propagation of only a single surface wave mode. Defining
former by changing the path of integration on the real axis of a normalized frequency as , a single mode
the longitudinal wavenumber (say ) to the complex plane operation occurs when . Results in Fig. 2 show a mono-
where the poles contribution gives the surface wave modes and tonic increase of the percentage surface wave power with up
the branch cut gives the radiation part [9]–[11]. to about where there is a broad maximum whose value
increases with the substrate . For example a peak value of 88%
is attained for , and 68% for .
III. SLOT ADMITTANCE
The slot conductance and susceptance per one free
The slot admittance (Siemens per unit length along ) is given space wavelength along are plotted versus in Figs. 3 and
by 4. The conductance displays a peak around and the
peak value depends on the substrate relative dielectric constant,
(14) while has a maximum slope near the peak of . While the
slot conductance is independent of the slot width for a narrow
enough slot, the slot susceptance changes considerably with the
where is given by (1). It turns out that the slot con- slot width as seen in Fig. 4. The break up of the slot in surface
ductance is given, as expected, by the sum of surface wave wave and radiation components; and , are plotted in
and radiation powers divided by . As for the slot susceptance Fig. 5 for two values of . The surface wave conductance at-
, per unit length, care should be taken in evaluating (14) by tains its maximum around . For , both and
2060 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004

normalized frequency F
p 0
Fig. 2. Percentage surface wave power excited by a slot source versus
 k d " 1. The relative permitivity " is a
Fig. 3. Slot conductance in milli-mho per a free space wavelength versus
normalized frequency F . The relative permitivity " is a varying parameter.
varying parameter.

are reduced, but is reduced at a slightly higher rate.

This explains the shift of the maximum percentage surface wave
power to higher values of than 1.6 (see Fig. 2). These obser-
vations agree with experimental work conducted by the authors
in [4].

A. Design of a Yagi Slot Array

Having obtained the self and mutual admittance of slots, one
can design an array of such slots to achieve maximum front
( ) to backward ( direction) ratio of excited surface wave.
A three-element Yagi slot array is shown in Fig. 1(b). It is com-
posed of one fed slot, of width “ ” and parasitic director and
reflector slots of widths and . The separation between the
fed slot and each of the director and reflector slots is denoted by
and , respectively. The results of two design examples are
Fig. 4. Slot conductance and susceptance versus F for " = 9:8. The slot
shown in Fig. 6 where the relative forward and backward surface susceptance varies with the relative slot width parameter s=d.
wave powers are plotted against frequency. Each array is numer-
ically optimized with respect to the slot widths and the spacing
between the elements for a maximum front to back ratio of sur-
face wave power at the center frequency. As seen in Fig. 6, It is
possible to achieve a front to back ratio better than 20 dB over a
bandwidth of 2.7% (Design 1) or 4.4% (Design 2) around the
normalized frequency .
The theoretical results displayed in Fig. 6 can be compared
to simulated and measured data reported by the authors in [4,
Fig. 12], where a three element Yagi array launcher is imple-
mented on a Duroid substrate with 2.54 mm thick-
ness. The resulting at a frequency of 11.8 GHz.
A comparison between the present theory, represented by de-
sign 1 and 2 of Fig. 6 and the simulated results in [4] is given in
Table I in terms of the bandwidth of the 20 dB and 15 dB front to
back ratio. Although the theory is based on a 2-D model, there
is a good agreement with the simulated results in [4].
Fig. 5. Surface wave and radiation conductance of a slot versus F . " takes
the values 3 and 9.8.
V. FIELDS OF A FINITE LENGTH SLOT
So far we have carried out a 2-D analysis. Now we wish to on the ground surface is considered to have a Gaussian
consider a more realistic situation where the slot source, which form; i.e.
is equivalent to a magnetic line source, is effectively of finite
length along . We shall continue to assume that the slab is
(18)
having infinite width in the direction. The magnetic current
MAHMOUD et al.: THEORETICAL CONSIDERATIONS IN THE OPTIMIZATION OF SURFACE WAVES 2061

The other field components; , , , and are derived

from (20) through well-known relations [8]. The normalizing
factors and are still defined as in (6), but now they
are functions of . After some manipulations, we get

(22)

where and are those given by (7) and (9). The

amplitudes of the surface wave modes and pseudomodes are
obtained by using (18) and (19), and applying the boundary
conditions (10)
Fig. 6. Forward and backward surface wave power versus frequency f =f for
two designs. The center frequency corresponds to F = 1:9 and " = 9:8.
With reference to Fig. 1(b), the parameters of the two designs are: Design 1:
s = 0:1d, s = 0:1d, and s = 0:15d, and c = 2:066d, and c = 0:817d. (23)
Design 2: s = 0:1d, s = 0:125d, and s = 0:2d, and c = 2:066d and
c = 0:817d.
and
TABLE I
FBR BANDWIDTH OF THREE ELEMENT YAGI; COMPARISON BETWEEN
THEORY AND SIMULATION (24)

Combining these equations with (20) and (21), we obtain a

closed form expression for . Next considering the TE waves,
similar expressions for the TE part of the spectrum can be
which is a source of effectively a finite length. The fields gener- derived, with replacing . Namely [(23), (24)] apply to
ated by this source are no longer independent of . Working in TE modes after multiplying the RHS by . We are
the spectral domain we use the Fourier transform to get now in a position to obtain the fields and powers launched as
surface waves. Assuming the propagation of a single TM mode,
we can derive the component of inside the dielectric
(19)
layer as

The fields generated by this source vary along as

instead of being independent of as before. The surface wave
modes and pseudomodes are now a mixture of both TM and
TE to parts. As it is well known the TE surface wave exists
only when . Considering first the TM to fields all
components can be derived from only. Similar to the mode (25)
expansion in (1) we can write as
A similar expression exists for the TE field component with
an extra term inside the integral term. This manifests the
fact that this component vanishes when .
Expression (25) can be evaluated for and to get [12]
(20)

whose -inverse Fourier transform is

(26)
(21)
where is the Gaussian beam width at a distance
from the slot, and . A similar expression is
In (20), and are the -component obtained for the TE field component that has an extra mul-
of the electric field of the th surface wave mode and a tiplying . It is seen that the Gaussian beamwidth
pseudomode with transverse wavenumber . The longi- increases linearly with and the field magnitude decays with
tudinal wavenumbers are: and as as expected for the diffraction of a Gaussian beam
. [12].
2062 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004

Now turning attention to the surface wave power, we can

write

(27)

where should now be taken as the sum of of the TM

and TE field. Note however that the TE mode does not exist
when .
Substituting from (25) in (27), we get after some manipula-
tions

(28)
Fig. 7.Surface wave conductance versus F for a Gaussian excited slot with
k w = =2 and  . Two values of " ; 3.0 and 9.8, are considered.
where

It is instructive to note that in the limit , tends

to one and tends to zero. In this case, (28) reduces to (12)
which applies to an infinite uniformly excited slot. Thus, the
terms and account for the Gaussian distribution of the
source. This suggests that we define a Gaussian SW efficiency
equal to . Namely
Fig. 8. Gaussian efficiency versus F for different slot Gaussian width k w=
=2 and  and " = 9:8 and 3.0.

VI. CONCLUSION
(29)
Rigorous analysis of surface wave excitation and radiation
We can define an effective length of the Gaussian source as the
from a grounded dielectric slab driven by a slot source has been
length of a uniformly excited slot that would produce the same
presented. The analysis is relevant to the design of quasioptical
TM surface wave power as the Gaussian excited slot. Denoting
slab beam power combiners that use surface waves to transport
that length by , we have from (28)
power on a dielectric slab. Adopting a 2-D model of the slab and
the slot, closed form expressions for the surface wave and radia-
(30) tion powers have been derived. In addition, slot self-admittance
and mutual admittance of two parallel slots have been derived.
A plot of the surface wave conductance versus This facilitates the design of Yagi slot arrays aiming at achieving
normalized frequency is shown for different and different maximum front to back ratio of excited surface waves.
normalized Gaussian width in Fig. 7. Here is the ef- Numerical results show that ratio better than 20 dB can
fective wavenumber on the dielectric slab and is taken equal to be achieved over a bandwidth of 4%. The analytical results are
. It is worth noting here that the TE mode contri- supported by previously published simulation and experimental
bution to the power is zero for . For the example given work by the authors [4]. In order to improve the 2-D model, the
in Fig. 7, the contribution of the TE mode is less than 5% up to case of a Gaussian -excited slot is treated. Analysis shows that
for and less than 8.5% for . As the surface wave power decays linearly with distance traveled
it is the case with uniform excitation (Fig. 5), the surface wave along the slab for much greater than the Gaussian beamwidth.
conductance peaks around . It increases with except An effective length of the Gaussian slot is derived. Although the
for low values of . The Gaussian efficiency parameter defined present theory has been applied to a single homogeneous dielec-
in [(29), (30)] is plotted in Fig. 8. It is seen that , which is tric slab, extension to an inhomogeneous slab, or a multiplayer
also equal to , increases with up to a satura- slab, is straightforward. Such extension should lead to the study
tion level. The variation with depends on the value of as of the interplay between surface wave and radiated powers on
seen in the figure. printed circuits. This study is underway.
MAHMOUD et al.: THEORETICAL CONSIDERATIONS IN THE OPTIMIZATION OF SURFACE WAVES
REFERENCES
[1] J. Harvey, E. R. Brown, D. B. Rutledge, and R. A. York, “Spatial power
combining for high-power transmitters,” IEEE Microwave Mag., pp.
48–59, Dec. 2000.
[2] A. R. Perkons, Y. Qian, and T. Itoh, “TM surface wave power combining
by planar active-lens amplifier,” IEEE Trans. Microwave Theory Tech.,
vol. 46, pp. 775–783, June 1998.
[3] H. F. Hammad, A. P. Freundorfer, and Y. M. M. Antar, “CPW slot an-
tenna for TM slab mode excitation,” presented at the Proc. IEEE Antenna
and Propagation and URSI Int. Symp., Boston, MA, July 2000.
[4] H. F. Hammad, Y. M. M. Antar, A. P. Freundorfer, and S. F. Mahmoud,
“Uni-planar CPW-fed slot launchers for efficient TM0 surface wave ex-
citation ,” IEEE Trans. Microwave Theory Tech, vol. 51, pp. 1234–1240,
Apr. 2003.
[5] E. Bahar, “Scattering of VLF radio waves in curved earth-ionosphere
waveguide,” Radio Sci., vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 145–154, 1968.
[6] V. V. Shevchenco, Continuous Transitions in Open Waveguides: The
Golem Press, 1971, ch. 1, sec. 1–7.
[7] S. F. Mahmoud and J. C. Beal, “Scattering of surface waves at a dielectric
discontinuity on a planar waveguide,” IEEE Trans. Microwave Theory
Tech., vol. MTT-23, pp. 193–198, 1975.
[8] S. F. Mahmoud, “Electromagnetic waveguides; theory and applications,”
in IEE Electromagnetic Waves Series 32. Stevenage, U.K.: Peregrinus,
1991, sec. 4.3.
[9] J. R. Wait, Electromagnetic Waves in Stratified Media. New York:
Pergamon, 1970, ch. 6, pp. 33–35.
[10] J. A. Fuller and J. R. Wait, “A pulsed dipole in the earth,” J. Appl. Phys.,
vol. 10, pp. 238–270, 1976.
[11] A. K. Bhattacharyya, “Characteristics of space and surface waves in a
multilayered structure,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 38, pp.
1231–1238, Aug. 1990.
[12] L. C. Shen and J. A. Kong, Applied Electromagnetism, 2nd ed. Boston,
MA: PWS-Kent, 1987, sec. 8.3.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
S. F. Mahmoud acknowledges the support of Kuwait Uni-
versity for providing him with Sabbatical leave to perform this
research.
Samir F. Mahmoud (S’69–M’73–SM’83) graduated
from the Electronic Engineering Department, Cairo
University, Cairo, Egypt, in 1964 and received the
M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees from the Electrical Engi-
neering Department, Queen’s University, Kingston,
ON, Canada, in 1970 and 1973, respectively.
During academic year 1973 to 1974, he was a
Visiting Research Fellow at the Cooperative Institute
for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES),
Boulder, CO, doing research on communication in
tunnels. He spent two sabbatical years, 1980 to 1982,
between Queen Mary College, London and the British Aerospace, Stevenage,
U.K., where he was involved in design of antennas for satellite communication.
Currently he is a Full Professor at the Electrical Engineering Department,
Kuwait University. Recently, he has visited several places including Interuni-
versity Micro-Electronics Centre (IMEC), Leuven, Belgium, and spent a
sabbatical leave at Queen’s University and the Royal Military College of
Canada, Kingston, ON Canada, from 2001 to 2002. His research activities have
been in the areas of antennas, geophysics, tunnel communication, e.m wave
interaction with composite materials and microwave integrated circuits.
Dr. Mahmoud is a Fellow of the Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE),
London, U.K. He was a recipient of the Best IEEE/ Microwave Theory Tech-
nology Paper for 2003.
2063
Yahia M. M. Antar (S’73–M’76–SM’85–F’00) was
born on November 18, 1946, in Meit Temmama,
Egypt. He received the B.Sc. (Hons.) degree in 1966
from Alexandria University, Egypt, and the M.Sc.
and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Manitoba,
Winnipeg, Canada, in 1971 and 1975, respectively,
all in electrical engineering.
In 1966, he joined the Faculty of Engineering
at Alexandria University,where he was involved in
teaching and research. At the University of Manitoba
he held a University Fellowship, an NRC Postgrad-
uate and Postdoctoral Fellowships. From 1976 to 1977, he was with the Faculty
of Engineering, University of Regina. In June 1977, he was awarded a Visiting
Fellowship from the Government of Canada to work at the Communications
Research Centre, Department of Communications, Shirley’s Bay, Ottawa,
where he was involved in research and development of satellite technology with
the Space Electronics group. In May 1979, he joined the Division of Electrical
Engineering, National Research Council of Canada, Ottawa, where he worked
on polarization radar applications in remote sensing of precipitation, radio wave
propagation, electromagnetic scattering and radar cross section investigations.
In November 1987, he joined the staff of the Department of Electrical and
Computer Engineering, Royal Military College of Canada, Kingston, ON,
Canada, where he is now a Professor of electrical and computer engineering.
He is presently the Chairman of the Canadian National Commission (CNC),
International Scientific Radio Union (URSI), holds adjunct appointment at the
University of Manitoba, and has a cross appointment at Queen’s University
in Kingston. He has authored or coauthored over 100 journal papers on these
topics, and supervised or cosupervised over 45 Ph.D. and M.Sc. theses at the
Royal Military College and Queen’s University, of which three have received
the Governor General Gold Medal. His current research interests include
polarization studies, integrated antennas, microwave, and millimeter wave
circuits.
Dr. Antar is a Fellow of the Engineering Institute of Canada (FEIC). He
received the 2003 RMC Excellence in Research Prize. In May 2002, he be-
came the holder of a Canada Research Chair (CRC) in Electromagnetic Engi-
neering. He is an Associate Editor of the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS
AND PROPAGATION and Associate Editor (Features) of the IEEE ANTENNAS AND
PROPAGATION MAGAZINE.
Hany F. Hammad received the B.Sc. degree with
honors from Ain Shames University, Cairo, Egypt, in
1994 and the M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees from Queen’s
University, Kingston, ON, Canada, in 1997 and 2002,
respectively. His Ph.D. thesis was ranked as the “Out-
standing Thesis of Engineering and Applied Science
Division” at Queen’s University.
His research areas of interests are the analysis and
design of antennas and microwave integrated circuits.
Al P. Freundorfer (M’90) received the B.A.Sc.,
M.A.Sc., and Ph.D. degrees from the University
of Toronto, ON, Canada, in 1981, 1983, and 1989,
respectively.
In 1990, he joined the Department of Electrical
Engineering, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON,
Canada. Since then he has done work in nonlinear
optics of organic crystals, coherent optical network
analysis as well as microwave integrated circuits.
Currently he is focusing his attention on monolithic
microwave circuits used in lightwave systems with
bit rates in excess of 20 Gb/s and on monolithic millimeter wave integrated
circuits used in wireless communications.
2064 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
Generalized System Function Analysis of Exterior and
Interior Resonances of Antenna and
Scattering Problems
Long Li and Chang-Hong Liang, Senior Member, IEEE
Abstract—The generalized system function ( ), directly as-
sociated with radiated and scattered fields, is presented to effec-
tively analyze the exterior and interior resonances of antenna and
scattering systems in this paper. ( ) is constructed by using the
model-based parameter estimation technique combined with the
complex frequency theory. The behaviors of the exterior and inte-
rior resonances can be distinguished by analyzing the character-
istics of pole-zero of ( ) in a finite operational frequency band.
The intensity of the exterior resonance can be effectively estimated
in terms of values and residues at the complex resonant frequen-
cies. The truly scattered fields from a closed conducting region can
be obtained by eliminating the poles corresponding to the interior
resonances from ( ). Some examples of the practical antenna
arrays and scattering systems are given to illustrate the applica-
tion and validity of the proposed approach in this paper.
Index Terms—Generalized system function, exterior and
interior resonances, complex resonant frequency, factor,
model-based parameter estimation (MBPE).
I. INTRODUCTION
W ITH the increasingly complicated electromagnetic envi-
ronment, the interaction and mutual coupling between
antennas and scatterers become more and more severe that
sometimes give rise to the strong electromagnetic oscillation
phenomena. Therefore, the study of resonance behaviors in the
electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) has been an interesting
and challenging problem for years [1]–[6]. The -field integral
equation (EFIE) and the -field integral equation (MFIE)
have been used extensively to analyze antennas radiation and
scattering from perfectly conducting bodies. It is well known
that bodies with closed conducting regions can support inte-
rior resonance at certain discrete frequencies where both the
-field and -field integral equations fail to calculate the
scattered (external) field [7]. Theoretically, the undeterminable
component of the surface current associated with the cavity
mode does not radiate. However, due to truncation error and
numerical error effects, at these frequencies the cavity mode
is both very weakly excited and radiated very weakly, so the
matrix problem was found to have a different structure from
that of the functional equation problem [8]. Some techniques
Manuscript received July 11, 2003; revised October 25, 2003. This work was
supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Contract
69931030.
The authors are with the School of Electronic Engineering, Xidian Uni-
versity, Xi’an 710071, Shaanxi, China; (e-mail: Lilong@mail.xidian.edu.cn;
Chhliang@xidian.edu.cn).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2004.832319
0018-926X/04$20.00 © 2004 IEEE
have been proposed for dealing with these numerical problems
[8]–[12]. Most of these methods generate a system of equations
that has a unique solution for the current and external fields at
all frequencies.
The complex resonant frequency presented in circuit
theory [13], [14] is firstly introduced to antenna and scat-
tering systems in this paper, which relates the real resonant
frequency with radiated or scattered losses. The generalized
system function, , directly associated with radiated and
scattered fields, is presented to effectively analyze the exterior
and interior resonances of the antenna and scattering problems
in this paper, which is constructed by using model-based pa-
rameter estimation (MBPE) technique. The MBPE [15]–[19]
is a form of “smart” curve fitting, with broad applications to
a fast analysis of radiation patterns or RCS of antennas or
scatterers in a widely operating bandwidth. By analyzing the
characteristics of poles and zeros of, we can determine the
exterior and interior resonant frequencies of antenna and scat-
tering systems efficiently. The complex frequency method for
calculating antenna or scattering external is also presented
in this paper. Furthermore, The exterior resonance strength can
be effectively estimated by the values of and residues at the
complex resonant frequencies. The truly scattered fields from
a closed conducting region can be got by eliminating the poles
corresponding to the interior resonances from the generalized
system function. Some examples and discussion, parallel
dipoles antenna, two conducting objects scattering system and
an infinitely long elliptical cylinder scattering problem are
given in this paper.
II. COMPLEX RESONANT FREQUENCY
For an arbitrary lossy resonant system, the complex resonant
frequency [13], [14] can be introduced and written as
(1)
where is a real resonant frequency of the system, re-
pressents the losses of the resonant system. In general sense,
the electric field can be written as
(2)
With the presence of the losses, the energy stored in the resonant
system will decay at a rate proportional to the average energy
presented at any time, so that
(3)
LI AND LIANG: GENERALIZED SYSTEM FUNCTION ANALYSIS OF EXTERIOR AND INTERIOR RESONANCES
where is the average energy present at . But the rate of
decrease of must equal the power loss, so that
(4)
In addition, an important parameter specifying selectivity, and
performance in general, of a resonant system is the quality
factor, . A general definition of applicable to all resonant
system is
(5)
Substituting (5) into (4), we can easily get
(6)
Therefore, the general expression of is
(7)
It can be seen that the introduction of unifies the resonant
frequency and of a resonant system, and each complex
resonant frequency corresponds to one resonant mode. It is
well known that antenna or scattering system is essentially
equivalent to a lossy network. Assume the system media are
lossless, the loss represents the radiated or scattered power
from the antennas or scattering bodies. The average stored energy
denotes the sum of stored electric field and magnetic field
energies around the antennas or scatterers, which is independent
of the radiated energies from the antennas or scatterers [20].
Therefore, the complex resonant frequency is applicable to
not only the resonant cavity in the closed system, but also the
antenna and scattering resonant problems in the open system. If
the system media are lossless, the complex resonant frequency
corresponding to a nonradiated mode (cavity mode) will
reduce to the real resonant frequency . , input impedance
III. GENERALIZED SYSTEM FUNCTION CONSTRUCTED
BY MBPE
The MBPE is a smart curve fitting technique [15]–[19], which
has been widely applied to the fast analysis of radiation pat-
terns or RCS of antennas or scatterers over a wide frequency
band. MBPE makes use of low-order analytical formulas as fit-
ting models, while the unknown coefficients for the fitting model
are obtained by matching it to multipoint sampled values [18]
or fitting it to frequency derivatives of the function at one or
two frequencies [15]. In this paper, MBPE is mainly used to
construct the generalized system function associated with elec-
tromagnetic fields in the complex frequency domain. According
to the observed objects, one form of a fitting model that is com-
monly employed in MBPE is represented by Padé rational func-
tion as follows:
(8)
2065
where and represent the
coefficients of numerator and denominator polynomials, respec-
tively. Note that or can be normalized to 1 in denominator
coefficients. Thus, (8) has unknown complex
coefficients. represents the complex frequency . It is ob-
vious that MBPE utilizes the rational function approximation
and extends it into complex frequency domain, which provides
an appropriate tool for analyzing the resonance characteristics
of antenna and scattering systems from the point of view of com-
plex frequency. According to the uniform approximation theory
[21], the error of MBPE interpolation is minimum when
or , and the properties of existence and uniqueness
of rational function approximation can be demonstrated [22].
Based on the theory of signals and systems, we know a partic-
ularly important and useful class of linear time-invariant (LTI)
systems is those for which the input and output satisfy a linear
constant-coefficient differential equation of the form [23]
(9)
where and represent the input and output time func-
tions, respectively. Taking the Laplace transform of (9), we
obtain
(10)
is commonly referred to as the system function or, alterna-
tively, the transfer function. Many properties of LTI systems are
closely associated with the characteristics of the system function
in the plane. It is very interesting that (10) is consistent with (8)
formed by MBPE in mathematical representation. In physical
sense, (10) represents the system function, which is the Laplace
transform of impulse response of LTI systems. In the analysis of
antenna or scattering electromagnetic systems, the ideal source
models [24] of voltage, current, or unit plane wave are com-
monly utilized as the excitation functions, and the frequency re-
sponses of antenna properties, such as the current distribution
, radiation patterns ,
RCS, or near fields , etc., can be thought of as
the output functions. In this case, the output functions just cor-
respond to the impulse responses of the antenna or scattering
system in time domain. If we make use of MBPE technique
to approximate the output function frequency responses, (8) is
characterized by the system function. Therefore, the general-
ized system function directly associated with the radiated
or scattered fields can be constructed by MBPE technique in
a limited operational bandwidth with a model containing a fi-
nite number of suitably chosen complex poles, which describes
the intrinsic characteristics of the antenna or scattering systems.
Equation (8) can be further factored into the form (let )
(11)
2066 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004

where is scale factor and are the

complex poles and zeros of the generalized system function, re-
spectively. We know the denominator polynomial of rep-
resents the characteristic polynomial of antenna or scattering
systems. The zeros of the denominator polynomial, namely the
poles of , define the locations of the natural resonances of
antenna or scattering systems, involving the exterior and inte-
rior resonances. It is worth pointing out that only the exterior
resonance can be interpreted as intrinsic to the scatterer in prin-
ciple. According to the stability of the electromagnetic systems,
we know the true poles of the systems should reside in the left
half of the complex frequency plane. The validity of the com-
plex poles obtained by (11) will be discussed in the following
section. It is assumed that the poles are all simple. This has been
numerically substantiated. A partial fraction expansion yields Fig. 1. Two parallel dipoles system.

(12)

where represents the complex pole and is the corre-

sponding residue. Therefore, many properties of antenna and
scattering electromagnetic systems can be characterized by a
few pole locations with the corresponding residues.
When the antenna and scattering systems are regarded as the
multiport networks, assumed input ports and output ports,
the generalized system function matrix can be similarly con-
structed by MBPE based on the linear superposition principle,
which can be expressed as

.. .. .. .. ..
. . . . . Fig. 2. Frequency response of system function (far E -field) magnitude.

(13) IV. EXTERIOR AND INTERIOR RESONANT FREQUENCIES AND

Namely
(14)
where represents the generalized system function ma-
trix, and is referred to as the subsystem function. All
true poles of the generalized system function matrix define the
natural resonances of the antenna or scattering systems.
is a square matrix when , and thus the poles are the solu-
tions to the following:
(15)
where symbol indicates taking the determinant of matrix.
While combining MoM with MBPE technique deals with the
antenna or scattering problems, the generalized impedance ma-
trix can be obtained in -plane in terms of the theory of
generalized networks [24], which describes the intrinsic charac-
teristics of the system structures and is independent of the com-
plicate excitations and loads. Therefore, the complex poles of
the antenna or scattering systems are determined by
FACTOR
We know that a finite number of suitably chosen complex
poles of define the natural resonances of the antenna or
scattering electromagnetic open systems. Assume the pole
, the corresponding partial fraction of the gen-
eralized system function can be expressed as
(17)
The time response corresponding to the complex pole is
(18)
Comparing (18) with (2), we can see that the residue rep-
resents the complex magnitude of the electric field at , if
the complex frequency response of the electric field at one
point in space is chosen as the generalized system function. The
relationship of the complex pole with the complex resonant fre-
quency presented in the previous section is

(16) (19)
LI AND LIANG: GENERALIZED SYSTEM FUNCTION ANALYSIS OF EXTERIOR AND INTERIOR RESONANCES 2067

TABLE I
ZEROS, POLES, AND RESIDUES OF THE GENERALIZED SYSTEM FUNCTION

Fig. 3. Frequency response of the near E -field magnitude.

Therefore, the resonant frequency and of the electromagnetic

open system can be easily obtained

(20)

Obviously, by calculating the complex poles of the generalized

system function based on the physical models, we can di-
rectly get the resonant frequency and corresponding . It is
well-known that the quantitative analysis of electric and mag-
netic field energies stored in the near-field zone of the antennas
or scatterers is very difficult to give, and thus the calculation
of antenna or scattering external has also been an interesting
and challenging problem for years [20], [25]–[27]. In this paper,
the complex frequency method combined with the generalized
system function is used to calculate the antenna or scattering
efficiently, which has been illustrated by the later numerical
tests.
For a scattering from a closed perfect conducting region, the
total current flowing on the surface is not determined by EFIE or
MFIE and the incident external field at the interior resonant fre-
quencies. Theoretically, the undeterminable component of the
surface current that associated with the cavity mode does not
radiate. Therefore, the poles corresponding to the interior res-
onances should locate on the positive imaginary axis of the
plane in principle. However, due to truncation error and numer-
ical error effects, the cavity mode is both very weakly excited
and radiated very weakly [8]. So these poles do not strictly occur
on the imaginary axis of the plane but reside in the left half of
the plane off imaginary axis very small. To get the truly scat-
tered field, these poles corresponding to the interior resonances
must be eliminated.
Fig. 4. Comparison of the electric field magnitude distribution around dipoles
at resonance with nonresonance (a) resonance and (b) nonresonance.
By analyzing the characteristics of poles and zeros of the gen-
eralized system function and combining with adaptability
of MBPE, we can accurately predict the occurrence of resonance
phenomena and determine the exterior and interior resonant fre-
quencies of the antenna and scattering systems. The intensity of
resonance can be effectively estimated by the values of and
residues at the complex resonant frequencies. Only when both
the external resonant and the residues are larger, are the res-
onance phenomena characterized by the strong peak field in the
near region and large frequency sensitivity in the far field region
of the antennas and scattering bodies.
It should be pointed out that the complex poles referred above
must be the true and stable poles of the antenna or scattering
electromagnetic systems. A discussion on the validity of the
poles of the generalized system function constructed by MBPE
is given here. On the one hand, according to the stability of the
practical antenna and scattering systems, these complex poles
2068 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004

must locate in the left half of the plane. Therefore, the poles oc-
curred in the right half of the plane must be invalid poles of the
system. On the other hand, in MBPE, if the Padé rational func-
tions with different numerator and denominator orders
are used to construct the generalized system function, we might
get some different complex poles. One knows that the true poles
are corresponding to the complex natural exterior resonant fre-
quency of systems, which should be independent of the form of
fitting function and the orders of the rational function. Thus, the
locations of the true poles are stable or invariant. However, the Fig. 5. Two conducting bodies scattering system.
other poles besides those residing in the right half of the plane
will vary with the orders of the rational functions, which must be
invalid poles and referred to as “parasitical” poles. In addition,
as previous discussion, the poles corresponding to the interior
resonances are not strictly occur on the imaginary axis of the
plane but reside in the left half of the plane off imaginary axis
very small. The truly external scattered field can be obtained by
eliminating these poles from (12).

V. APPLICATIONS AND DISCUSSION

In the following examples, some special resonance behaviors
will be analyzed by the generalized system functions directly
associated with the radiated or scattered fields of some local re-
gions, involving far fields and near fields. The results of numer-
ical tests show that the exterior resonance phenomena are very
remarkable by virtue of the strong interaction and mutual cou-
pling between antennas or scatterers, and the interior resonance
behaviors in EFIE give rise to a false scattered field.

A. Test 1 Parallel Dipole Antennas

Consider the two parallel dipoles system shown in Fig. 1.
Dipole 1 will be excited by the ideal voltage source, and the
terminal of dipole 2 shorted. The length both of them is
m, with radius m. The distance between them
is m. The frequency response of the radiated electric
field of observation point at in the far zone
is chosen as the output function, i.e., the generalized system
function . The MBPE technique is applied to the antennas
system over a frequency range of 15–25 MHz, using the radiated
electric field data obtained from a numerically rigorous method
of moments (MoM) computer codes based on EFIE. The Padé
Fig. 6. Frequency responses of the generalized system function matrix
(scattered near field. (a) E component and (b) E component.
rational function is chosen to set the numerator order
and the denominator order .
Fig. 2 shows the frequency response of the generalized
system function constructed by MBPE, with comparisons The characteristics of zeros, poles, and corresponding
being made of the MoM result. As can be seen from Fig. 2, the residues of the generalized system function are shown in
two curves are nearly graphically indistinguishable. In this case, Table I. Note that the data in the table have been transformed
only six sampling frequencies are required for the MBPE tech- from to (MHz).
nique. The actual sampling points that were used are indicated The facts show that there are two true and stable complex
by dots on the plots contained in Fig. 2. It is interesting that poles in the antenna system within the finite operation frequency
all of the fitting frequencies are sampled before the resonant band, which are marked by asterisks in the Table I. On the
frequency, but the resonant behavior can be found efficiently basis of the complex frequency theory presented in the previous
due to the adaptability of MBPE technique. It is worth pointing section, from (20), the exterior resonant frequencies and of
out that MoM direct calculation using 102 unknowns took 28 s the two parallel dipoles system are obtained, respectively, as
to calculate the frequency response at 100 frequency values follows:
from 15 to 25 MHz. MBPE took a total of 2 s to generate the
solutions with 0.1 MHz increment, poles and zeros.
LI AND LIANG: GENERALIZED SYSTEM FUNCTION ANALYSIS OF EXTERIOR AND INTERIOR RESONANCES 2069

TABLE II
ZEROS, POLES, AND RESIDUES OF THE SUB-SYSTEM FUNCTION H (s)

TABLE III
ZEROS, POLES, AND RESIDUES OF THE SUB-SYSTEM FUNCTION H (s )

Fig. 8. Plane wave incident upon an infinite long perfect conducting elliptical
cylinder.

for finding presented in [20], [24], based on the Foster

reactance theorem

has been used to calculate the antenna of the two parallel

XZ
Fig. 7. Scattered electric field magnitude distributions in and
at resonance (18.169 MHz). (a) XZ plane and (b)YZ plane.
It can be found that the exterior resonance behavior to occur
at the frequency 19.6921 MHz with high , as shown in
Fig. 2. It is worth pointing out that the calculation of antenna
is definite and efficient by using the complex frequency
method. To demonstrate the validity of , a classical formula
dipoles system. Utilizing a first-order accurate difference ap-
proximation to the partial frequency derivative of the reactance
matrix , we obtain at the resonant frequency
19.6921 MHz, which is very closed to the result of the complex
frequency method. It can be seen that the other resonant mode,
Y Z plane
18.4607 MHz, makes a little contribution to the resonance be-
havior in this case for the low .
To further understand the behavior of the resonance, we
calculated the frequency response of the electric field magnitude
at the observation point in the vicinity of the dipole 1 indicated
by dot in Fig. 1. It can be seen that the behavior of the resonance
is also remarkably embodied by the phenomenon of strong
peak field in the near zone of the antenna system, as shown
2070 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004

TABLE IV
ZEROS, POLES, AND RESIDUES OF THE GENERALIZED SYSTEM FUNCTION (E )

in Fig. 3. The comparison of the electric field magnitude

distribution in the xz-plane in the near zone of the two parallel
dipoles system at resonance with nonresonance is given in
the Fig. 4(a) and (b), respectively. It should be noted that the
electric fields are much stronger at resonance than those at
nonresonance in the same excitation, but only accumulating
in the vicinity of the dipoles. The symmetric distribution of
the electric fields magnitude at resonance implies the balance
of the electric field energy and magnetic field energy stored
in the antenna open system physically.

B. Test 2 Two Conducting Bodies Scattering System

Consider the two perfectly conducting bodies scattering
system shown in Fig. 5, which is excited by the normalized
-polar plane wave , and the direction of prop-
agation is . The sizes of two perfect conducting bodies are
m, m, m, and
the two conducting bodies are m apart. The scattered
electric fields of the observation point, , in
the near zone of the scattering bodies are chosen as the output
functions. Because the scattered electric field in the near region
has two main components and , the generalized
system function matrix can be constructed by MBPE technique
in two directions in order to analyze the exterior resonance
characteristics of near fields. The Padé rational function is
chosen to have the same numerator order and denomi-
nator order . From Fig. 6, it can be seen that the solid line
calculated by MoM is mostly hidden by the MBPE curve.
The zeros, poles and residues of the subsystem functions of
and directions are calculated and shown in Tables II and III,
respectively.
From Tables II and III, we found that there exist two true and
stable complex poles in the scattering system, which represent
the external natural resonances and marked by asterisks respec-
tively. Based on the theory of the complex frequency, we can
easily get the exterior resonant frequencies and scattering as
follows:
According to the values and the corresponding residues, we
can estimate that the resonance phenomenon of strong peak near
field would appear at the frequency 18.169 MHz, as shown in
Fig. 6. The magnitude distributions of the scattered electric field
in and plane at resonance (18.169 MHz) are shown in
Fig. 7(a) and (b), respectively. It is interesting that the scattered
Fig. 9. Frequency response of backscattered RCS.
electric fields accumulate mainly in the region between the two
conducting bodies, being strong at both sides and weak at center,
with stand-wave-like distribution.
C. Test 3 Infinitely Long Elliptical Cylinder Scattering
Problem
Consider an infinite long perfect conducting elliptical
cylinder scattered by transverse magnetic (TM) plane wave
incident in the direction, as shown in Fig. 8. The cross section
is an ellipse with semimajor axis 1.0 meter and semiminor axis
0.25 meter. A method of moments formulation of the EFIE
is used to obtain the scattered electric field. We have utilized
pluses as expansion functions and delta functions as weighting
functions. Using 180 unknowns, we numerically found two
interior resonances to occur at 327.33 and 435.42 MHz within
the bandwidth from 200 to 500 MHz. The radar cross section
(RCS) for backscatter as a function of the frequency for the
elliptical cylinder is shown in Fig. 9. It can be seen that the
backscattered fields are uncorrected in the frequencies near the
interior resonances. The locally magnified figures show clearly
the RCS has a sharp dip at the two interior resonant frequencies.
We choose the frequency response of the backscattered elec-
tric field as the generalized system function, . The MBPE
technique is applied to the scattering problem over a frequency
range 200–500 MHz, using the backscattered electric field data
LI AND LIANG: GENERALIZED SYSTEM FUNCTION ANALYSIS OF EXTERIOR AND INTERIOR RESONANCES
Fig. 10. Comparison of the modified system function response with the results
calculated by CFIE and EFIE: (a) Full frequency band, (b) near interior resonant
frequency 1, and (c) near interior resonant frequency 2.
obtained from the MoM formulation of EFIE, which are trans-
formed into RCS and indicated by circles on the plots con-
tained in Fig. 9. The Padé rational function is chosen to have
a numerator order and a denominator order . REFERENCES
In this case, the MBPE-calculated curve is excellent agreement
with the MoM result, including those in the vicinity of the in-
terior resonances. It is worth pointing out that MoM requires a
very larger number of evaluations in order to resolve these in-
terior resonance behaviors. However, the MBPE with
2071
and fitting to the sampling values accurately models
both resonances. MoM direct solution took 4175 s to calculate
the frequency response with 0.01 MHz increment from 200 to
500 MHz. The MBPE technique took a total of 32 s to generate
the solutions, poles, and zeros. Table IV shows the zeros, poles,
and corresponding residues of the generalized system function.
By analyzing the characteristics of the poles and combining
with the complex frequency theory discussed previously, we
found two “true” complex poles occur in the left half of the
plane but off the imaginary axis very small, which just define
the interior resonant frequencies and are marked by asterisks
in the Table IV. It can be seen the residues corresponding to the
two poles are very small, which imply the scattered contribution
from the interior resonances should become especially small. As
pointed out in [8], the scattered contribution results from the nu-
merical error in EFIE. To get the truly scattered field, we modify
the generalized system function by eliminating those poles cor-
responding to the interior resonances from (12). The comparison
of the modified system function response with the results calcu-
lated by the combined field integral equation (CFIE) is shown
in Fig. 10. The two curves are nearly graphically indistinguish-
able, and the phenomena of the interior resonance are removed
successfully.
VI. CONCLUSION
This paper has presented the generalized system function
which directly associate with radiated and scattered fields
to give an efficient analysis of the exterior and interior reso-
nances of antenna and scattering problems. is constructed
by using the MBPE technique combined with the complex
frequency theory. The behaviors of the exterior and interior res-
onances can be distinguished by analyzing the characteristics
of pole-zero of in a finite operational frequency band.
The exterior complex resonant frequencies must reside in the
left half of the plane off the imaginary axis. The imaginary
part of is related to the radiated or scattering losses, i.e.,
. The intensity of the exterior resonance can be estimated
effectively in terms of values and residues at the complex
resonant frequencies. The interior resonant frequencies occur
on the positive imaginary axis of the plane theoretically, but
due to truncation error and numerical error effects, the internal
(cavity) modes are both very weakly excited and radiated
very weakly. Therefore, those poles corresponding to interior
resonances also locate in the left half of the plane but off
imaginary axis very small. It is shown that only exterior poles
can be interpreted as intrinsic to the scatterer. The truly scat-
tered fields from a closed conducting region can be obtained
simply by eliminating the poles corresponding to the interior
resonances from the generalized system function.
[1] H. C. Pocklington, “Electrical oscillations in wires,” in Proc. Cambridge
Phil. Soc., vol. 9, 1897, pp. 324–332.
[2] L. Page and N. Adams, “The electrical oscillations of a prolate spheroid,
paper I,” Phys. Rev., vol. 65, pp. 819–831, 1938.
[3] J. A. Stratton, Electromagnetic Theory. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill,
1941.
2072 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
[4] C. H. Liang and L. Li, “On the generalized resonance,” presented at the
Proc. China-Japan Symp. Microwave, China, Apr. 2002. Invited Talk,
Xi’an.
[5] J. Mouping, “Study of generalized resonance in electromagnetic scat-
tering by multiple conductors,” Ph.D. Dissertation, School of Elect.
Eng., Xidian Univ., 2000.
[6] L. Li and C. H. Liang, “Study of generalized resonance in antenna
system,” in Proc. 3rd Int. Symp. Electromagnetic Compatibility, Beijing,
China, May 2002, pp. 162–165.
[7] J. R. Mautz and R. F. Harrington, “H-field, E-field, and combined field
solutions for conducting bodies of revolution,” A.E.Ü., vol. 32, no. 4, pp.
157–164, Apr. 1978.
[8] F. X. Canning, “Singular value decomposition of integral equations of
EM and applications to the cavity resonance problem,” IEEE Trans. An-
tennas Propagat., vol. AP-37, pp. 1156–1163, Sept. 1989.
[9] R. Mittra and C. A. Klein, “Stability and convergence of moment
method solutions,” in Numerical and Asymptotic Techniques in Electro-
magnetics, R. Mittra, Ed. New York: Springer Verlag, 1975.
[10] T. K. Sarkar and S. M. Rao, “A simple technique for solving E-field
integral equations for conducting bodies at internal resonances,” IEEE
Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. AP-30, pp. 1250–1254, June 1982.
[11] J. R. Mautz and R. F. Harrington, “A combined-source solution for ra-
diation and scattering from a perfectly conducting body,” IEEE Trans.
Antennas Propagat, vol. AP-27, pp. 445–454, Apr. 1979.
[12] F. X. Canning, “Protecting EFIE-based scattering computations from
effects of interior resonances,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat, vol. 39,
pp. 1545–1552, Nov. 1991.
[13] R. E. Collin, Foundations for Microwave Engineering. New York: Mc-
Graw Hill, 1966.
[14] C. H. Liang and Y. J. Xie, “The accurate variational analysis for the
measurement of the complex dielectric constant of a sample rod inserted
in a cavity,” Microwave Opt. Technol. Lett., vol. 5, no. 5, pp. 209–211,
1992.
[15] C. J. Reddy, “Application of model based parameter estimation for RCS
frequency response calculations using method of moments,” NASA/CR-
1998-206 951, Mar. 1998.
[16] E. K. Miller and G. J. Burke, “Using model-based parameter estima-
tion to increase the physical interpretability and numerical efficiency of
computational electromagnetic,” Comput. Phys. Commun., vol. 68, pp.
43–75, 1991.
[17] C. J. Reddy, “Application of model based parameter estimation
for fast frequency response calculations of input characteristics of
cavity-backed aperture antennas using hybrid FEM/MoM technique,”
NASA/CR-1998-206 950, Mar. 1998.
[18] D. H. Werner and R. J. Allard, “The simultaneous interpolation of an-
tenna radiation patterns in both the spatial and frequency domains using
model-based parameter estimation,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat.,
vol. 48, pp. 383–392, Mar. 2000.
[19] R. J. Allard and D. H. Werner, “The model-based parameter estimation
of antenna radiation patterns using windowed interpolation and spherical
harmonics,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 51, pp. 1891–1906,
Aug. 2003.
[20] W. Geyi, P. Jarmuszewski, and Y. Qi, “The foster reactance theorem for
Q
antennas and radiation ,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 48, pp.
401–407, Mar. 2000.
[21] S. V. Polstyanko, R. Dyczij-Edlinger, and J. F. Lee, “Fast frequency
sweep technique for the efficient analysis of dielectric wave-guides,”
IEEE Trans. Microwave Theory Tech., vol. 45, pp. 1118–1126, June
1997.
[22] P. J. Davis, Interpolation and Approximation. London, U.K.: Blaisdell,
1963.
[23] A. V. Oppenheim, A. S. Willsky, and I. T. Young, Signals and Sys-
tems. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1983.
[24] R. F. Harrington, Field Computation by Moment Method. New York:
IEEE Press, 1993.
[25] R. L. Fante, “Quality factor of general ideal antennas,” IEEE Trans. An-
tennas Propagat., vol. AP-17, pp. 151–155, Feb. 1969.
[26] J. S. McLean, “A re-examination of the fundamental limits on the radia-
Q
tion of electrically small antennas,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat.,
vol. 44, pp. 672–675, May 1996.
Q
[27] R. E. Collin, “Minimum of small antennas,” J. Electromagn. Waves
Applicat., vol. 12, pp. 1369–1393, 1998.
Long Li was born in Anshun, Guizhou, China, in
January 1977. He received the B.Eng. degree in
electromagnetic field and microwave technology
from Xidian University, Xi’an, China, in 1998.
Since 1999, he has taken a combined Master-Doctor
program and is working toward the Ph.D. degree
in the National Key Laboratory of Antenna and
Microwave Technology, Xidian University.
His research interests include computational elec-
tromagnetics, slot antenna array, hybrid algorithms
and electromagnetic compatibility.
Chang-Hong Liang (M’80–SM’83) was born in
Shanghai, China, in December 1943. He gradu-
ated from Xidian University (Formerly Northwest
Telecommunications Institute), Xi’an, China, in
1965, and continued his graduate studies until 1967.
From 1980 to 1982, he worked at Syracuse Uni-
versity, New York, as a Visiting Scholar. Since 1986,
he has been a Professor and Ph.D. student advisor
in the School of Electronic Engineering, Xidian Uni-
versity, where he is also a Director of the Academic
Committee of National Key Lab of Antenna and Mi-
crowave Technology. He has published numerous papers and proceeding arti-
cles, is the author of five books. He is an Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Xidian
University. He has wide research interests, which include computational mi-
crowave and computational electromagnetics, microwave network theory, mi-
crowave measurement method and data processing, lossy variational electro-
magnetics, electromagnetic inverse scattering, electromagnetic compatibility.
Prof. Liang is a Fellow of the Chinese Institute of Electronics (CIE), and has
received the titles of “National Distinguished Contribution,” “National Excel-
lent Teacher,” etc.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
MIMO Wireless Communication Channel
Phenomenology
Daniel W. Bliss, Member, IEEE, Amanda M. Chan, and Nicholas B. Chang
Abstract—Wireless communication using multiple-input mul-
tiple-output (MIMO) systems enables increased spectral efficiency
and link reliability for a given total transmit power. Increased
capacity is achieved by introducing additional spatial channels
which are exploited using space-time coding. The spatial diversity
improves the link reliability by reducing the adverse effects of
link fading and shadowing. The choice of coding and the resulting
performance improvement are dependent upon the channel
phenomenology. In this paper, experimental channel-probing
estimates are reported for outdoor environments near the per-
sonal communication services frequency allocation (1790 MHz).
A simple channel parameterization is introduced. Channel dis-
tance metrics are introduced. Because the bandwidth of the
channel-probing signal (1.3 MHz) is sufficient to resolve some
delays in outdoor environments, frequency-selective fading is also
investigated. Channel complexity and channel stationarity are in-
vestigated. Complexity is associated with channel-matrix singular
value distributions. Stationarity is associated with the stability of
channel singular value and singular vector structure over time.
Index Terms—Channel coding, information theory, multipath
channels, multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems.
I. INTRODUCTION
M ULTIPLE-INPUT multiple-output (MIMO) systems are
a natural extension of developments in antenna array
communication. While the advantages of multiple receive an-
tennas, such as gain and spatial diversity, have been known and
exploited for some time [1]–[3], the use of transmit diversity
has been investigated more recently [4], [5]. Finally, the advan-
tages of MIMO communication, exploiting the physical channel
between many transmit and receive antennas, are currently re-
ceiving significant attention [6]–[8]. Because MIMO commu-
nication capacity is dependent upon channel phenomenology,
studying and parameterizing this phenomenology is of signifi-
cant interest [9]–[19].
This paper makes a number of contributions to this area
of study. First, while most experimental results have focused
on indoor phenomenology, the phenomenology investigated
here focuses on outdoor environments. Second, results for
both stationary and vehicle-mounted moving transmitters are
Manuscript received March 19, 2003; revised September 27, 2003. This work
was supported by the U.S. Air Force under Air Force Contract F19628-00-C-
0002.
D. W. Bliss and A. M. Chan are with Advanced Sensor Techniques
Group, MIT Lincoln Laboratory, Lexington, MA 02420-9185 USA (e-mail:
bliss@ll.mit.edu, achan@ll.mit.edu.
N. Chang is with the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer
Science, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2122 USA (e-mail:
changn@eecs.umich.edu).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2004.832363
0018-926X/04$20.00 © 2004 IEEE
2073
reported. Third, experimental phenomenological results are re-
ported for both 4 4 and relatively large 8 8 MIMO systems,
including channel stationarity, both in time and frequency.
Fourth, two metrics of channel variation are introduced. One
metric provides a measure of capacity loss assuming that
receiver beamformers are constructed using incorrect channel
estimates, which is useful to determine performance losses
due to channel nonstationarity (either in time or frequency).
The other metric is sensitive to the shape of the channel eigen-
value distribution, which is appropriate for space-time coding
optimization, assuming a uniformed transmitter (UT) (that
is transmitters without channel state information). Finally, a
simple channel parameterization is provided which empirically
matches channel eigenvalue distributions well and provides a
simple approach to generate representative simulated channels
for space-time coding optimization.
MIMO systems provide a number of advantages over single-
antenna communication. Sensitivity to fading is reduced by the
spatial diversity provided by multiple spatial paths. Under certain
environmental conditions, the power requirements associated
with high spectral-efficiency communication can be significantly
reduced by avoiding the compressive region of the information
theoretic capacity bound. This is done by distributing energy
amongst multipath modes in the environment. Spectral efficiency
is defined as the total number of bits per second per Hz
transmitted from one array to the other. Because MIMO systems
use antenna arrays, interference can be mitigated naturally.
In this paper, outdoor MIMO channel phenomenology near
the PCS frequency allocation, 1.79 GHz, is discussed. The
channel-probing signal has a bandwidth of 1.3 MHz. This
bandwidth is sufficient to resolve some delays, inducing fre-
quency-selective fading in outdoor environments. In Sections II
and III, information theoretic capacity of MIMO communi-
cation systems and channel estimation are reviewed. Channel
difference metrics are introduced in Section IV. Performance
of MIMO communication systems and optimal selection
of space-time coding are dependent upon the complexity
of the channel [20], [21]. This phenomenology for outdoor
environments is investigated using MIMO channel-probing
experiments. The results are interpreted using a simple parame-
terization introduced in Section V. The channel phenomenology
experiments are described in Section VI, and the experimental
results, reporting estimates of channel complexity and station-
arity, are discussed in Section VII.
II. CHANNEL CAPACITY
The information theoretic capacity of MIMO systems has
been discussed widely [6]–[8]. It is assumed for the sake of the
2074 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004

following discussion that the receiver can accurately estimate a If (6) is not satisfied for some , it will not be satisfied for any
pseudostationary channel. Given this assumption, there are two smaller .
types of spectral-efficiency bounds: informed transmitter (IT)
and UT, depending on whether or not channel estimates are fed B. UT
back to the transmitter. If the channel is not known at the transmitter, then the optimal
For narrowband MIMO systems, the coupling between the transmission strategy is to transmit equal power with each an-
transmitter and receiver can be modeled using tenna, , [7]. Assuming that the receiver can
accurately estimate the channel, but the transmitter does not at-
(1) tempt to optimize its output to compensate for the channel, the
maximum spectral efficiency is given by
where is the (number of receive by transmit
antenna) channel matrix, containing the complex attenuation
(7)
between each transmit and receive antenna, is an
matrix containing the samples of the transmit array vector,
is an matrix containing the samples of the This is a common transmit constraint as it may be difficult to
complex receive-array output, and is an matrix provide the transmitter channel estimates.
containing zero-mean complex Gaussian noise. It is often useful Similarly to the IT case, the UT spectral-efficiency bound
to investigate the structure of the channel matrix and the is purely a function of the channel-matrix singular values. Ex-
mean-square attenuation independently. This can be achieved pressing the channel matrix with a singular vector decomposi-
by studying the root-mean-square normalized channel matrix tion, , the capacity is a function of eigenvalues, but
not of the eigenvectors, of
(2)

(3)
(8)
where is the mean-square transmitter-to-receiver attenuation,
is the normalized channel matrix, and indicates the where the singular-value entries of the diagonal matrix are
Frobenius norm. given by .

A. IT
There are a variety of possible transmitter constraints. Here
it is assumed that the fundamental limitation is the total power
transmitted. The optimization of the noise-nor-
malized transmit covariance matrix is constrained by the
total noise-normalized transmit power . Allowing different
transmit powers at each antenna, this constraint can be enforced
using the form . The results of the channel-spec-
tral-efficiency bounds discussions presented in [8] are repeated
here. The capacity can be achieved if the channel is known by
both the transmitter and receiver, giving
C. Frequency-Selective Channels
In environments where there is frequency-selective fading,
the channel matrix is a function of frequency . As has been
discussed in [22], the resulting capacity is a function of this
fading structure. Exploiting the fact that frequency channels are
orthogonal, the capacity in frequency-selective fading can be
calculated using an extension of (5) and (7). For the UT, this
leads to the frequency-selective spectral-efficiency bound

(4)

where the notation indicates determinant, indicates Her-

mitian conjugate, and indicates an identity matrix of size (9)
. Solving for the optimal , the resulting capacity is given
by
where the distance between frequency samples is given by ,
and -bin frequency-partitioned channel matrix is given by
(5)

where is an diagonal matrix with entries .. (10)

, whose values are the top eigenvalues .
of . The values must satisfy
The approximation is exact if the supported delay range of the
(6)
channel is sampled sufficiently.
BLISS et al.: MIMO WIRELESS COMMUNICATION CHANNEL PHENOMENOLOGY
For the IT channel capacity, power is optimally distributed
amongst both spatial modes and frequency channels. The ca-
pacity can be expressed
(11)
which is maximized by (5) with the appropriate substitutions
for the frequency-selective channel, and diagonal entries in
in (6) are selected from the eigenvalues of . Because of
the block diagonal structure of , the
space-frequency noise-normalized transmit covariance matrix
is a block diagonal matrix, normalized so that . where the -point discrete Fourier transform is represented by
III. ESTIMATION
The Gaussian probability density function for a multivariate,
signal-in-the-mean, statistical model of the received signal is
given by
(12)
where is the noise covariance matrix. The maximum-likeli-
hood estimate of is given by
(13)
assuming that the reference signals in are known and
is nonsingular. As one might intuit from the structure of (13),
if a signal’s sole use is channel estimation, then the choice of
, such that is proportional to the identity matrix (that is
equal-power orthogonal signals) is optimal for channel probing
in finite signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) environments. However, if
joint channel and signal detection is used, then orthogonal sig-
nals are not necessarily optimal for link performance.
The previous channel-estimation discussion explicitly as-
sumed flat fading. However, the frequency-selective channels
can be estimated by first estimating a finite impulse-response
MIMO channel which can be transformed to the frequency
domain.
A finite impulse-response extension of (1) is given by intro-
ducing delayed copies of at delays
.. (14)
. experience greater interference and thus worse performance.
so that the transmit matrix has dimension . The
resulting wideband channel matrix has the dimension
(15)
Using this form, an effective channel filter is associated with
each transmit-to-receive antenna link. Assuming regular delay
2075
sampling, the explicit frequency-selective form can be con-
structed using a discrete Fourier transform
(16)
or equivalently
(17)
and the Kronecker product is represented by .
IV. CHANNEL DIFFERENCE METRICS
A variety of metrics are possible. Here, two metrics are dis-
cussed. Both metrics are ad hoc, but are motivated by limiting
forms of the information theoretic capacity.
The first metric, discussed in Section IV-A, is sensitive to the
differences in channel eigenvalue distributions. While there are
an unlimited number of channel eigenvalue distributions that
can provide a particular capacity, for a given mean channel at-
tenuation and power, performance of space-time codes is sensi-
tive to the shape of the distribution. Because the optimization of
UT space-time codes depends upon the eigenvalue distribution
but not the eigenvector structure, the metric introduced in Sec-
tion IV-A is an appropriate metric for investigating this issue.
Specifically, space-time codes must select a rate versus redun-
dancy operating point [20], [21]. The optimal operating point
is a function of the shape of the channel eigenvalue distribution.
This metric is used to estimate the channel parameter introduced
in Section V-C.
The second metric, discussed in Section IV-B, is sensitive
to differences in both the singular-value distribution and the
channel eigenvector structure. In general, MIMO receivers
employ some sort of beamformer to coherently combine the
signals impinging upon each receive antenna. In dynamic
environments (either in time or frequency) channel estimates
can quickly become inaccurate. A measure of the adverse
effects of using these “stale” estimates is provided by this
metric. Effectively, this metric provides a measure of the
fractional capacity loss in the low SNR (or equivalently low
spectral-efficiency) limit. Because performance in the low SNR
limit is not affected by interference introduced by the other
transmit antennas, MIMO systems operating at higher SNR will
Consequently, this metric is an optimistic estimate of the
expected performance due to dynamic channels.
A. Eigenvalue-Based Metric
As was mentioned in Section II, MIMO capacity is only a
function of the channel singular values. Equivalently, capacity
is invariant under channel-matrix transformations of the form
(18)
2076 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
where and are arbitrary unitary matrices. Conse-
quently, for some applications it is useful to employ a metric
which is also invariant under this transformation. Because ca-
pacity is a function of the structure of the channel singular-value
distribution, the metric should be sensitive to this structure.
The channel capacity is a function of . A natural metric
would employ the distance between the capacity for two channel
matrices at the same average total received power, that is, the
same
(19)
However, there are two problems with this definition. First, the
difference is a function of . Second, there is degeneracy in
singular values that gives a particular capacity. To address
the first issue the difference can be investigated in a high SNR
limit, resulting in
(20)
where indicates the th largest eigenvalue of . To in-
crease the sensitivity to the shape of the eigenvalue distribution,
the metric is defined to be the Euclidean difference, assuming
that each eigenvalue is associated with an orthogonal dimension,
resulting in
(21)
B. Fractional Receiver-Loss Metric
In this section a power-weighted mean metric is intro-
duced. The metric takes into account both the eigenvalue and
eigenvector structure of the channels. It is motivated by the ef-
fect of receive beamformer mismatch on capacity. Starting with
(7), the low SNR UT capacity approximation is given by
(22)
where is the column of the channel matrix associated with
transmitter . In the low SNR limit, the optimal receive beam-
former is given by the matched response given in . If some
other beamformer is employed, , then signal energy is lost,
adversely affecting the capacity
(23)
One possible reason that a beamformer might use the wrong
matched spatial filter is channel nonstationarity. Assuming the
SNR is sufficiently low, the fractional capacity loss is given by
(24)
which is the power-weighted mean estimate, where
is defined to be the inner product between the “good”
and “bad” unit-norm array responses for the th transmitter. It
is generally desirable for metrics to be symmetric with respect
to and , thus avoiding moral attributions with regard to
channel matrices. Using the previous discussion as motivation,
a symmetric form of fractional capacity loss is given by
(25)
where the “power-weighted” average is evaluated over
transmitters.
The metric presented in (25) provides an estimate of the loss
in capacity if the incorrect channel is assumed in a low SNR en-
vironment. In general, the loss of capacity is much more signifi-
cant if operating in a high spectral efficiency, and therefore high
SNR regime. If only spatial mitigation is employed (as opposed
to a combination of spatial processing and multiuser detection
[23], [24]), a slight channel mismatch will introduce significant
interference, and thus strongly adversely affect demodulation
performance.
V. CHANNEL PHENOMENOLOGY
A. Singular Values
The singular-value distribution of , or the related eigen-
value distribution of , is a useful tool for understanding
the expected performance of MIMO communication systems.
From the discussion in Section II, it can be seen that the
channel capacity is a function of channel singular values, but
not the singular-vector structure of the channel. Thus, channel
phenomenology can be investigated by studying the statistics
of channel singular-value distributions.
BLISS et al.: MIMO WIRELESS COMMUNICATION CHANNEL PHENOMENOLOGY
B. Channel Parameterization
A commonly employed model assumes the channel is pro-
portional to a matrix, , where the entries are independently
drawn from a unit-norm complex circular Gaussian distribu-
tion. While the distribution is convenient, it does suffer from
a singular-value distribution that is overly optimistic for many
environments. One solution is to introduce spatial correlations
using the transformation [10]–[12]. While
this approach is limited [8], it produces simply more realistic
channels than the uncorrelated Gaussian model.
The spatial correlation matrices can be factored so that
and , where and are unitary
matrices, and and are positive semidefinite diagonal
matrices. When the arrays are located in environments that are
significantly different, then correlations seen by one array will
typically be much stronger than the other, and the effect of either
the left or right will dominate the shaping of the channel ma-
trix singular-value distribution. Conversely, if the environments
are similar then one would expect that . In prac-
tice, similar channel matrix singular-value distributions can be
achieved given either assumption. However, the required values
of and , are, of course, different. For the experiments dis-
cussed in this paper, both arrays are in similar environments and
a symmetric form seems a reasonable model. Assuming that the
number of transmit and receive antennas are equal and have sim-
ilar spatial correlation characteristics, the diagonal matrices can
be set equal, , producing the new random
channel matrix
(26)
(27)
where is used to set overall scale, is given by the size of
, and and indicate random unitary matrices. The form
of given here is somewhat arbitrary, but has the satisfying
characteristics that as a rank-one channel matrix is pro-
duced, and as a spatially uncorrelated Gaussian matrix
is produced; thus, the parameterization can easily approximate,
in a statistical sense, nearly all environments. This stochastic
channel parameterization has the advantage that it is not depen-
dent upon the particular causes of the correlation, or details of
the arrays or environment. The normalization for is chosen
so that the expected value of is .
The model can be related to the ergodic or mean capacity [8]
(averaged over an ensemble channel). Exploiting the fact that
MIMO capacity is convex cap, a bound on the mean capacity is
given by
(28)
This bound is not necessarily tight, but is useful for illustrating
the effects of channel parameter value on capacity. In Fig. 1,
2077
Fig. 1. Ratio of bounds on mean UT capacity of  = 0:2, 0.4, 0.6 to  = 1.
the ratio of capacity bounds for 0.2, 0.4, and 0.6 for a 4 4
MIMO system is displayed. In practice, the ratio of bounds tends
to produce slightly optimistic capacity results at values of . The
essential features are accurate. Assuming that the space-time
coding takes the channel statistics into account for values of
0.6 or greater, performance loss is not overwhelming. A second
interesting feature is that at very high SNR the ratio of capacity
slowly approaches 1. This is because at very high SNR even
strongly attenuated channel modes become useful. Modeling
approaches that introduce reduced “effective” numbers of an-
tennas do not reproduce this phenomenon well.
C. Channel Parameter Estimation
An estimate for associated with particular transmit and re-
ceive locations is given by minimizing the mean-square metric
given in (21)
(29)
where indicates the estimated value of . Here the expecta-
tion, denoted by , indicates averaging is over an ensemble
of for a given and an ensemble of for given transmit and
receiver sites.
It is worth noting that this approach does not necessarily pro-
vide an unbiased estimate of . Estimates of , using the metric
introduced in here, are dependent upon the received SNR. To
reduce the bias, one can add complex Gaussian noise to
to produce , mimicking the integrated SNR of the estimate
of .
Data presented here has sufficiently high SNR such that can
be estimated within .
VI. EXPERIMENT
The experimental system employed is a slightly modified
version of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Lincoln Laboratory system used previously [3], [23], [25]–[27].
The transmit array consists of up to eight arbitrary waveform
transmitters. The transmitters can support up to a 2 MHz
bandwidth. These transmitters can be used independently, as
two groups of four coherent transmitters or as a single co-
herent group of eight transmitters. The transmit systems can
be deployed in the laboratory or in vehicles. When operating
coherently as a multiantenna transmit system, the individual
2078 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
TABLE I
LIST OF TRANSMIT SITES
transmitters can send independent sequences using a common
local oscillator. Synchronization between transmitters and re-
ceiver and transmitter geolocation is provided by GPS receivers
in the transmitters and receivers.
The MIT Lincoln Laboratory array receiver system is a high-
performance 16-channel receiver system that can operate over
a range of 20 MHz to 2 GHz, supporting a bandwidth of up to
8 MHz. The receiver can be deployed in the laboratory or in a
stationary “bread truck.”
A. MIT Campus Experiment
The experiments were performed during July and August
2002 on and near the MIT campus. These outdoor exper-
iments were performed in a frequency allocation near the
PCS band (1.79 GHz). The transmitters periodically emitted
1.7 s bursts containing a combination of channel-probing and
space-time-coding waveforms. A variety of coding and inter-
ference regimes were explored for both moving and stationary
transmitters. The space-time-coding results are beyond the
scope of this paper and are discussed elsewhere [23], [24].
Channel-probing sequences using both four and eight transmit-
ters were used.
The receive antenna array was placed on top of a tall one-story
building (Brookline St. and Henry St.) surrounded by two- and
three-story buildings with a parking lot along one side. Different
four or eight antenna subsets of the 16-channel receiver were
used to improve statistical significance. The nearly linear re-
ceive array had a total aperture of less than 8 m, arranged as three
subapertures of less than 1.5 m each. The transmit arrays were
located on the top of vehicles within 2 km of the receive array.
On each vehicle four antennas were approximately located at
the vertices of a square, with separation of greater than two to
three wavelengths. When operating as an eight-element trans-
mitter, two adjacent parked vehicles were used, connected by a
cable that distributed a local oscillator signal.
The channel-probing sequence supports a bandwidth of
1.3 MHz with a length of 1.7 ms repeated ten times. All
four or eight transmitters emitted nearly orthogonal signals
simultaneously.
Fig. 2. Scatter plot of mean-squared SISO link attenuation, a , versus link
range for the outdoor environment near the PCS frequency allocation. The error
6
bars indicate a range of 1 standard deviation of the estimates at a given site.
Fig. 3. CDF of channel a estimates, normalized by the mean a for each site,
2 2
for SISO, 4 4 and 8 8 MIMO systems.
VII. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
Channel-complexity and channel-stationarity performance
results are presented in this section. A list of transmit sites
used for these results is presented in Table I. The table includes
distance between transmitter and receiver, velocity of trans-
mitter, the number of transmit antennas, and the estimated
for the transmit site. Uncertainty in is determined using the
bootstrap technique [28]. Cumulative distribution functions
(CDF) reported here are evaluated over appropriate entries
from Table I. The systematic uncertainty in the estimation of
caused by estimation bias, given the model, is less than 0.02.
A. Attenuation
The peak-normalized mean-squared single-input single-
output (SISO) attenuation (path gain) averaged over transmit
and receive antenna pairs for a given transmit site is displayed
in Fig. 2 for the outdoor environment. The uncertainty in the
estimate is evaluated using a bootstrap technique.
B. Channel Complexity
Channel complexity is presented using three different ap-
proaches. Variation in estimates, eigenvalue CDFs, and
estimate CDFs are presented.
In Fig. 3, CDFs of estimates nor-
malized by mean for each transmit site are displayed. CDFs
are displayed for narrowband SISO, 4 4, and 8 8 MIMO
systems. As one would expect, because of the spatial diversity,
the variation in mean antenna-pair received power decreases
dramatically as the number of antenna pairs increases. This
BLISS et al.: MIMO WIRELESS COMMUNICATION CHANNEL PHENOMENOLOGY
2
Fig. 4. CDF of narrowband channel eigenvalue distributions for 4 4 MIMO
systems: (a) simulated Gaussian channel and (b) experimental results.
demonstrates one of the most important statistical effects that
MIMO links exploit to improve communication link robustness.
For example, if one wanted to operate with a probability of 0.9
to close the link, one would have to operate the SISO link with
an excess SISO SNR ( ) margin of over 15 dB. The MIMO
systems received the added benefit of array gain, which is not
accounted for in the figure.
In Figs. 4 and 5, CDFs of eigenvalues are presented for 4 4
and 8 8 mean-squared-channel-matrix-element-normalized
narrowband channel matrices, . Both simulated
Gaussian channels and experimental results are displayed. Su-
perficially, the distributions of the simulated and experimental
distributions are similar. However, closer inspection reveals that
the experimental distributions cover a greater range of eigen-
values. This is the result of the steeper channel-eigenvalues
distribution that is observed in the experimental data compared
to the simulated Gaussian channel. The experimental CDFs are
evaluated over all site lists. Some care must be taken in inter-
preting these figures because eigenvalues are not independent.
Nonetheless, the steepness of the CDFs is remarkable. One
might interpret this to indicate that optimized space-time codes
should operate with a relatively high probability of success.
The CDFs for estimates are presented in Fig. 6. The mean
values of for each environment are
While one might expect smaller variation in the 8 8 systems
because of the much larger number of paths, this effect may have
been exaggerated in Fig. 6 because of the limited number of
8 8 sites available in the experiment.
2079
2
Fig. 5. CDF of narrowband channel eigenvalue distributions for 8 8 MIMO
systems: (a) simulated Gaussian channel and (b) experimental results.
Fig. 6. CDF of  estimates for 4 2 4 and 8 2 8 MIMO systems.
The values of the channel-complexity parameter, , are, of
course, dependent upon the details of the environment and
the geometry of the transmit and receive arrays. As can be
seen in Table I, the values of vary from one transmit site
to another transmit site. Furthermore, one would anticipate
significantly different values of in unlike environments,
such as the open plains of the Midwest or in highly elevated
towers. The dependency upon array geometries is somewhat
less clear. Because the arrays employed in this experiment
are spatially undersampled, the received signal experiences
significant spatial aliasing. Increasing the array aperture may
help resolve closely spaced scatterers; this occurs at the expense
of folding other widely spaced scatterers back on similar
array responses. Consequently, while perturbations in array
geometries certainly affect particular received signals, these
perturbations are not expected to affect strongly the statistical
properties of the channel; thus values of are not expected
to be a strong function of array geometry.
2080
(t ); (t) , for stationary and moving 4 4 MIMO systems.
Fig. 7. Eigenvalues, , of HH as a function of time for (a) stationary and
(b) moving transmitters. The same overall attenuation, estimated at t = 0, is
used for all time samples.
(t ); (t) , for stationary 4 4 MIMO system. Contours of CDF
of 1.
This point can be demonstrated by constraining the choice
of receive antennas used for calculating . By excluding or re-
quiring antennas to be consecutive and calculating under these
constraints, sensitivity to antenna separation can be investigated.
In the following table, three sets of constraints are implemented.
In the first column, all receive antennas are used. In the second
column, employed antennas are separated by at least two un-
used antennas. In the third column, only consecutive antennas
are used.
There is a slight bias for greater antenna separation to produce
larger values of , which is consistent with the expectation that
greater antenna separation produces more random channel ma-
trices. However, this trend is very subtle, and in all cases, the
results are statistically consistent with being independent of an-
tenna separation at these relatively large antenna separations.
C. Channel Stationarity
The temporal variation of eigenvalues of for stationary
and moving transmitters is displayed in Fig. 7. In this figure the
normalization is fixed, allowing for overall shifts in attenuation.
As one would expect, the eigenvalues of the moving transmitter
vary significantly more than those of the stationary environment.
However, the eigenvalues of the stationary transmitter do vary
somewhat. While the transmitters and receivers are physically
stationary, the environment does move. This effect is particu-
larly noticeable near busy roads. Furthermore, while the mul-
tiple antennas are driven using the same local oscillator, given
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
Fig. 8. Example time variation of power-weighted mean cos  ,
fH H g 2
Fig. 9. CDF of time variation of power-weighted mean cos  ,
fH H g 2
probabilities of 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4, 0.5, 0.6, 0.7, 0.8, and 0.9 are displayed.
Because there is little variation, all curves are compressed near
the commercial grade transmitters, there are always some small
relative-frequency offsets. The example variation is given for
transmit sites #7 and #14.
While the moving-transmitter eigenvalues fluctuate more
than those of the stationary transmitter, the values are re-
markably stable in time. Conversely, an example of the time
variation of the power-weighted mean metric [from
(25)], displayed in Fig. 8, varies significantly for the moving
transmitter within 10 ms. This indicates that the eigenvector
structure varies significantly, while the distribution of eigen-
values tends to be more stable. In the example, the stationary
transmitter is located at site #7, and the moving transmitter is
located at #14. Over the same period, the stationary transmitter
is relatively stable. CDFs for stationary and moving transmitters
are displayed in Figs. 9 and 10. In the figures, 4 4 MIMO
experiment sites with a speed less than or equal to 0.2 m/s were
considered to be “stationary” (sites: 7, 9, 16, and 18), and those
with speeds greater than 5 m/s were considered to be “moving”
(sites: 10, 12–15, 17).
As was discussed in Section IV-B, the performance implica-
tions of a particular value of depend upon the operating SNR
and the receiver design. At low SNR, the fractional UT capacity
loss due to receiver mismatch is given directly by the value of
. At high SNR, if interference mitigation is primarily achieved
through spatial antenna processing, then the performance loss
can be significantly worse. This is because contamination from
interfering transmit antennas is allowed to overwhelm the in-
tended signals at the outputs of inaccurate beamformers. Fur-
thermore, the significant variation of the moving transmitter is
an indication that implementing an IT MIMO system would be
BLISS et al.: MIMO WIRELESS COMMUNICATION CHANNEL PHENOMENOLOGY
CDF of time variation of power-weighted mean cos  ,
H(t ); H(t)g,
Fig. 10.
f 2
for moving 4 4 MIMO system. Contours of CDF
probabilities of 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4, 0.5, 0.6, 0.7, 0.8, and 0.9 are displayed.
Fig. 11. Example of frequency-selective variation of the power-weighted
mean cos  ,
fH H g
(f ); (f ) .
fH H g
Fig. 12. CDF of frequency-selective variation of the power-weighted mean
cos  ,
(f ); (f ) . Contours of CDF probabilities of 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4,
0.5, 0.6, 0.7, 0.8, and 0.9 are displayed.
very challenging for the moving transmitter, but might be viable
for some stationary MIMO systems.
D. Frequency-Selective Fading
An example of the frequency variation of the power-weighted
mean is displayed in Fig. 11. The variation is indicated
using the metric presented in (25). In the example, the stationary
transmitter is located at site #7. Relatively small frequency
offsets induce significant changes in . The
CDF of the frequency-selective channel variation is displayed
in Fig. 12 (using sites: 7, 9, 16, and 18). This sensitivity indi-
cates that there is significant resolved delay spread and that to
safely operate using the narrowband assumption, bandwidths
less than 100 kHz should be employed. It is worth noting that
2081
delay spread, and the resulting frequency-selective fading, is
both a function of environment and link length. Consequently,
some care must be taken in interpreting this result.
VIII. SUMMARY
In this paper, outdoor MIMO channel phenomenology was
discussed. Data from an experiment performed on and near
the MIT campus was used to study the phenomenology. The
phenomenology was investigated from the perspective of the
singular-value distributions of the channel matrices. A channel
parameterization approach was introduced. Two channel-dif-
ference metrics were introduced. The first was used to estimate
the channel parameter. The second metric was employed to
demonstrate significant channel variation both as a function
of time and frequency.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Opinions, interpretations, conclusions, and recommendations
are those of the authors and are not necessarily endorsed by the
United States Government.
The authors would like to thank the excellent MIT Lincoln
Laboratory staff involved in the MIMO experiment, in par-
ticular S. Tobin, J. Nowak, L. Duter, J. Mann, B. Downing,
P. Priestner, B. Devine, T. Tavilla, A. McKellips and G. Hatke.
The authors would also like to thank the MIT New Technology
Initiative Committee for their support. The authors would also
like to thank K. Forsythe, A. Yegulalp, and D. Ryan of MIT
Lincoln Laboratory and V. Tarokh of Harvard University for
their thoughtful comments. The authors would like to thank
N. Sunkavally of MIT for his contributions to the experiment
and the analysis.
REFERENCES
[1] W. C. Jakes, Microwave Mobile Communications. New York: Wiley,
1974.
[2] R. A. Monzingo and T. W. Miller, Introduction to Adaptive Ar-
rays. New York: Wiley, 1980.
[3] K. W. Forsythe, D. W. Bliss, and C. M. Keller, “Multichannel adaptive
beamforming and interference mitigation in multiuser CDMA systems,”
in Proc. 33rd Asilomar Conf. Signals, Systems & Computers, vol. 1, Pa-
cific Grove, CA, Oct. 1999, pp. 506–510.
[4] A. Wittneben, “Base station modulation diversity for digital SIMUL-
CAST,” in Proc. IEEE Vehicular Technology Conf., 1991, pp. 848–853.
[5] V. Weerackody, “Diversity for direct-sequence spread spectrum using
multiple transmit antennas,” in Proc. IEEE ICC, vol. 3, Geneva, 1993,
pp. 1775–1779.
[6] G. J. Foschini, “Layered space-time architecture for wireless commu-
nication in a fading environment when using multi-element antennas,”
Bell Labs Tech. J., vol. 1, no. 2, pp. 41–59, 1996.
[7] I. E. Telatar, “Capacity of multi-antenna Gaussian channels,” Eur. Trans.
Telecommun., vol. 10, no. 6, pp. 585–595, Nov.-Dec. 1999.
[8] D. W. Bliss, K. W. Forsythe, A. O. Hero, and A. F. Yegulalp, “Environ-
mental issues for MIMO capacity,” IEEE Trans. Signal Processing, vol.
50, pp. 2128–2142, Sept. 2002.
[9] P. Marinier, G. Y. Delisle, and C. L. Despins, “Temporal variations of the
indoor wireless millimeter-wave channel,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Prop-
agat., pp. 928–934, June 1998.
[10] D. Gesbert, H. Bolcskei, D. A. Gore, and A. J. Paulraj, “Performance
evaluation for scattering MIMO channel models,” in Proc. 34th Asilomar
Conf. Signals, Systems & Computers, vol. 1, Pacific Grove, CA, Oct.
2000, pp. 748–752.
[11] D.-S. Shui, G. J. Forschini, M. J. Gans, and J. M. Kahn, “Fading corre-
lation and its effect on the capacity of multielement antenna systems,”
IEEE Trans. Commun., vol. 48, pp. 502–513, Mar. 2000.
2082 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
[12] D. Chizhik, F. Rashid-Forrokhi, J. Ling, and A. Lozano, “Effect of an-
tenna separation on the capacity of blast in correlated channels,” IEEE
Commun. Lett., vol. 4, pp. 337–339, Nov. 2000.
[13] D. Hampicke, C. Schneider, M. Landmann, A. Richter, G. Sommerkorn,
and R. S. Thoma, “Measurement-based simulation of mobile radio chan-
nels with multiple antennas using a directional parametric data model,”
in Proc. IEEE Vehicular Technology Conf., vol. 2, 2001, pp. 1073–1077.
[14] M. Stoytchev and H. Safar, “Statistics of the MIMO radio channel in
indoor environments,” in Proc. IEEE Vehicular Technology Conf., vol.
3, 2001, pp. 1804–1808.
[15] D. P. McNamara, M. A. Beach, and P. N. Fletcher, “Experimental in-
vestigation of the temporal variation of MIMO channels,” in Proc. IEEE
Vehicular Technology Conf., vol. 2, 2001, pp. 1063–1067.
[16] C. C. Martin, N. R. Sollenberger, and J. H. Winters, “MIMO radio
channel measurements: Performance comparison of antenna configu-
rations,” in Proc. IEEE Vehicular Technology Conf., vol. 2, 2001, pp.
1225–1229.
[17] J. F. Kepler, T. P. Krauss, and S. Mukthavaram, “Delay spread measure-
ments on a wideband MIMO channel at 3.7 GHz,” in Proc. IEEE Vehic-
ular Technology Conf., vol. 4, 2002, pp. 2498–2502.
[18] T. Svantesson, “A double-bounce channel model for multi-polarized
MIMO systems,” in Proc. IEEE Vehicular Technology Conf., vol. 2,
2002, pp. 691–695.
[19] J. P. Kermoal, L. Schumacher, K. I. Pedersen, P. E. Mogensen, and
F. Frederiksen, “A stochastic MIMO radio channel model with ex-
perimental validation,” IEEE J. Select. Areas Commun., vol. 20, pp.
1211–1226, August 2002.
[20] L. Zheng and D. Tse, “Optimal diversity-multiplexing tradeoff in mul-
tiple antenna fading channels,” in Proc. 35th Asilomar Conf. Signals,
Systems & Computers, Pacific Grove, CA, Nov. 2001.
[21] H. E. Gamal, “On the robustness of space-time coding,” IEEE Trans.
Signal Processing, vol. 50, pp. 2417–2428, Oct. 2002.
[22] G. G. Raleigh and J. M. Cioffi, “Spatio-temporal coding for wireless
communications,” IEEE Trans. Commun., vol. 46, pp. 357–366, Mar.
1998.
[23] D. W. Bliss, P. H. Wu, and A. M. Chan, “Multichannel multiuser detec-
tion of space-time turbo codes: Experimental performance results,” in
Proc. 36th Asilomar Conf. Signals, Systems & Computers, Pacific Grove,
CA, Nov. 2002.
[24] D. W. Bliss, “Robust MIMO wireless communication in the presence of
interference using ad hoc antenna arrays,” presented at the Proc. Military
Communications Conf., MILCOM 2003, Boston, MA, Oct. 2003.
[25] , “Angle of arrival estimation in the presence of multiple access
interference for CDMA cellular phone systems,” in Proc. 2000 IEEE
Sensor Array and Multichannel Signal Processing Workshop, Cam-
bridge, MA, Ma. 2000.
[26] C. M. Keller and D. W. Bliss, “Cellular and PCS propagation measure-
ments and statistical models for urban multipath on an antenna array,”
in Proc. 2000 IEEE Sensor Array and Multichannel Signal Processing
Workshop, Cambridge, MA, Mar. 2000, pp. 32–36.
[27] D. W. Bliss, “Robust MIMO wireless communication in the presence of
interference using ad hoc antenna arrays,” presented at the MILCOM,
Boston, MA, Oct. 2003.
[28] B. Efron, The Jackknife, the Bootstrap and Other Resampling
Plans. Bristol, U.K.: Society for Industrial and Applied Mathe-
matics, 1982.
Daniel W. Bliss (M’97) received the B.S.E.E. degree
in electrical engineering from Arizona State Univer-
sity, Tuscon, in 1989 and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees
in physics from the University of California at San
Diego, in 1995 and 1997, respectively.
Employed by General Dynamics from 1989 to
1991, he designed avionics for the Atlas-Centaur
launch vehicle and performed research and devel-
opment of fault-tolerant avionics. As a member
of the Superconducting Magnet Group at General
Dynamics from 1991 to 1993, he performed mag-
netic field calculations and optimization for high-energy particle accelerator
superconducting magnets. His doctoral work rom 1993 to 1997, was in the
area of high-energy particle physics, searching for bound states of gluons,
studying the two-photon production of hadronic final states, and investigating
innovative techniques for lattice gauge theory calculations. Since 1997, he
has been employed by MIT Lincoln Laboratory, where he is currently a Staff
Member at in the Advanced Sensor Techniques Group, where he focuses on
multiantenna adaptive signal processing, primarily for communication systems,
and on parameter estimation bounds, primarily for geolocation. His current
research topics include algorithm development for multichannel multiuser
detectors (MCMUD) and information theoretic bounds and space-time coding
for MIMO communication systems.
Amanda M. Chan received the B.S.E.E. and
M.S.E.E. degrees in electrical engineering from the
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in 2000 and
2002, respectively.
Currently, she is an Associate Staff Member
in the Advanced Sensor Techniques Group, MIT
Lincoln Laboratory, Lexington, MA. Her interests
are in channel phenomenology. She has previously
worked with implementation of synthetic aperture
geolocation of cellular phones. Most recently, she
has worked on the implementation of MIMO channel
parameterization.
Nicholas B. Chang received the B.S.E. degree in
electrical engineering (magna cum laude) from
Princeton University, Princeton, NJ and the M.S.E.
degree in electrical engineering from the Univer-
sity of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in 2002 and 2004,
respectively.
He worked for MIT Lincoln Laboratory, Lex-
ington, MA, in 2001 and 2002, focusing on synthetic
aperture geolocation of wireless systems and channel
phenomenology of MIMO communications systems.
He is currently a Graduate Student in the Department
of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Michigan, Ann
Arbor.
Mr. Chang is a Member of Tau Beta Pi and Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research
Society.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
Service Oriented Statistics of Interruption Time Due
to Rainfall in Earth-Space Communication Systems
Emilio Matricciani
Abstract—The paper reports and discusses simulated statistics
obtained by the synthetic storm technique, in the Po Valley,
Northern Italy, on the interruptions (outages), due to rainfall,
observed in contiguous (clock) periods of the day of duration ,
with 1 min 24 h. The results refer to a 32 slant path at
11.6 GHz, although the main conclusions are independent of car-
rier frequency and of site, and are based on a large experimental
rain rate database (10.6 years of observation). The results can be
used to assess the quality and unavailability of services of duration
during a day in earth-space communication systems affected
by rain attenuation. A distinction is made and discussed between
channel unavailability and service unavailability. The numerical
results and the best fit and extrapolation formulas derived might
provide a rough approximation to the same statistics at different
elevation angles, clock intervals and carrier frequencies, for sites
with the same climate of the Po Valley.
Index Terms—Channel unavailability, diurnal cycles, fade
duration, microwave propagation, rain attenuation, service
unavailability.
I. INTRODUCTION
T HE design of satellite systems working in frequency bands
affected by rain attenuation, (dB), are based, today, only
on the long term probability distribution (i.e., fraction of time)
that is exceeded in an average year (or in the worst
month). In an age of a large variety of services offered, or to be
offered, to users from satellites or from troposphere platforms,
it would be useful to match system design to the time of the
day and to the expected duration of the services offered, e.g.,
internet sessions, digital video and audio broadcasting. The ap-
plication of forward error correction (FEC) codes, as currently
done, may make rainfall attenuation a less severe problem for a
satellite system in the 12-GHz band, if the system is designed
by taking into account not and its low values (i.e., the
range – ) and thus very short fade durations usually
considered in telephony services, a concept we can call channel
unavailability, but the number of interruptions of a maximum
duration that a user can tolerate for a certain service, a TV or
radio show, etc., a concept we can call service unavailability.
At higher frequencies (e.g., 20–30 and 40–50 GHz frequency
bands), coding gain may be, however, largely ineffective, both
for rain attenuation and for the “quasistatic” extra attenuation
due to other sources of fading, such as oxygen, water vapor
and clouds. Rain attenuation, however, is likely to cause long
random interruptions as the results below show.
Manuscript received March 3, 2003; revised October 27, 2003.
The author is with the Dipartimento di Elettronica e Informazione, Politec-
nico di Milano, 20133 Milan, Italy (e-mail: matricci@elet.polimi.it).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2004.832374
0018-926X/04$20.00 © 2004 IEEE
2083
The necessity to distinguish between channel unavailability
and service unavailability calls for statistics on the number (or
probability) of outages of a given duration in specific times of
the day, i.e., statistics on the interruptions of a service because
of excessive rain attenuation.
To author’s knowledge, however, this kind of statistics,
or service grades, and a clear distinction between channel
unavailability and service unavailability, have not yet been
established. Once this is done, the kind of statistics and the
scaling methods proposed in this paper could be used to design
a satellite system based on service unavailability rather than on
channel unavailability.
The assessment of these statistics for a geographical area and
a satellite system requires long term experiments and thus a very
large economic and human effort. Few experimental data col-
lected many years ago in relatively short observations and for
long intervals of the day (e.g., four hours), are available in the
open literature [1]–[5]. Reliable simulations, based on physical
prediction models and a long observation, are then welcome.
One such method is the “synthetic storm” technique [6] and the
long observation is our database of rain-rate time series.
For each rainstorm, physically described by a rain rate time
series collected at a site with a rain gauge, the synthetic storm
technique can generate a rain attenuation time series at any car-
rier frequency and polarization, for any slant path with elevation
angle larger than about 10 . The synthetic storm technique was
successfully tested to predict conventional long term ’s
[6], long term statistics of fade duration [7], long term ’s
relative to contiguous periods of the day of four hours [8]. If
simulated rain attenuation time series are compared to simulta-
neous real measurements (e.g., as done for Spino d’Adda in a
37.8 slant path to Italsat, at 18.77 GHz [9]), the agreement is
very good, especially when the rain storm motion is parallel to
projection to ground of the slant path. When the motion is not
parallel to projection to ground, the simulated time series are so
realistic that they might as well be measured in a long obser-
vation. In fact, the synthetic storm technique yields results that
are averaged over all the rain storms velocity field. These indi-
rect tests are of considerable importance for the present work
because, in our opinion, they suggest that our simulations can
provide results that remind experimental ones.
An earth-space microwave radio link is also affected by
fading due to clouds, water vapor and oxygen. The fading due
to these phenomena can be large (e.g., see [10]), but more
static than rain attenuation. They must be taken, of course,
into account in a full design of the communication system. At
microwaves, however, rainfall is still the major random physical
cause of fading that can affect a channel for intervals of time
2084 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
comparable to the duration of many services, so that the service
oriented statistics of interruptions reported below refer to rain
attenuation only.
We have applied the synthetic storm technique to simulate
11.6-GHz rain attenuation time series in a 32 slant path in
Northern Italy by means of a large and reliable database of rain
rate time series. As discussed above, we think that the results
can be considered a good estimate of true measurements of rain
attenuation in an earth-space channel in the 12 GHz band, or in
higher microwave frequency bands, once the results are scaled.
In [8], [11] we simulated, tested and discussed long term
probability distributions concerning contiguous (clock) periods
of equal duration (min) in a day, for several values of . In
the present paper, we present detailed long term statistics on the
number and probabilities of service interruption. The results are
then useful to assess the quality and unavailability (i.e., inter-
ruptions or outages) of services of duration in a day.
Next section sets the stage for our simulations, Section III
reports the simulated results, Sections IV and V provide em-
pirical formulas useful to generate predictions at different sites,
frequencies, duration of contiguous periods and elevation an-
gles, and Section VI draws some conclusions.
II. RADIO LINK SIMULATIONS AND EXPERIMENTAL
RAINFALL DATABASE
Once the radio link geometric and radio electrical parameters
have been specified and the synthetic storm technique has been
applied to a rain rate time series, we get a rain attenuation time
series [6]. The simulations refer to the following parameters.
a) Carrier frequency at 11.6 GHz, circular polarization,
although the main conclusions are independent of fre-
quency and polarization.
b) 32 slant path at Spino d’Adda (45.5 , 9.5 , 84 m
above sea level), a site in a flat countryside near Milan,
with rain conditions typical of the Po Valley. The ele-
vation angle and carrier frequency are those of a former
radio link to geostationary satellite Sirio (15 ), used in
the 1970s and 1980s for radio propagation experiments in
the 12-GHz band at Spino d’Adda.
c) The duration of the contiguous (clock) periods assumes
the following values: 1, 5, 10, 15, 30, 60 (1 h) min, and
2, 4, 6, 12, 24 h, synchronized with 00:00 hours of the
Universal Time (UT).
Fig. 1 shows an example of a simulated time series, which
shows a 2-h interruption between 16:00 and 18:00 h UT
(17:00–19:00 local time). The type of interruption shown
reminds of fade duration for a fixed interval [12], but it is not
exactly the same, for two reasons: (a) we have observed fixed
contiguous periods of the day because the services (e.g., TV,
audio broadcasting) start independently of weather conditions
and may be synchronized to the hour, to 15 min past the hour,
etc., and (b) the fade level exceeded in these intervals can be
larger than dB (threshold) at both the start and end times,
while fade durations statistics always concern the same value
of rain attenuation at both times.
For system design the results provide data on interruptions
(outages) of duration when the built-in power margin,
Fig. 1. Example of a rain attenuation time series generated by the synthetic
storm technique at 11.6 GHz, circular polarization, in a 32 slant path at Spino
d’Adda. For 1 dB threshold, for instance, a 2-h partial outage occurs between
14:00 and 16:00 UT (15:00 and 17:00 local time), a 2-h full outage occurs
between 16:00 and 18:00 UT (17:00 and 19:00) and another (synchronized) 2-h
partial outage at 18:00 UT (19:00).
(dB), is continuously less than in any clock period of dura-
tion . For example, for , the results yield the long term
probability distribution that is exceeded in any 1-h period of
the day. Now, since in a day there are 24 such contiguous pe-
riods, the statistics have been averaged over all the total number
of 1-h contiguous intervals in the observation period.
The results have been derived from a statistically reliable set
of rain rate time series (for a definition of a rain storm and
its duration, as measured with a rain gauge, see [6]) collected
at Spino d’Adda, with a continuous observation from October
1979 to December 1982 (326 rain storms) and from May 1992
to December 1997 (804 rain storms), and with a random obser-
vation from 1983 to 1987 (103 rain events), 1233 rain storms
in total, a very large database. Of the 1983–87 period we have
estimated an equivalent continuous observation period of about
885 600 min (1.7 years). The total observation period amounts
to 5 531 040 min, about 10.6 equivalent years, i.e., the order of
magnitude of the life of a commercial satellite, and the total time
is 225 425 min, i.e., 4.1% of an average year. As a
consequence the total number of contiguous periods observed is
given by 5 531 040 (min) divided by (min), e.g., 92 184 h for
.
III. SIMULATED RESULTS
In this section we show the simulated results and discuss the
important connection between the long term and the prob-
ability distribution of 1-min long fades.
A. Statistics for Different Values of
Table I reports the overall statistics on the number of outages
(interruptions) of duration in a day, for a given rain attenu-
ation threshold (dB), for thresholds up to 10 dB. We like to
show these numerical values because they can be useful to sim-
ulate systems directly, and also because future predictions de-
rived from theoretical models could be compared to the results
of this rather large database.
The trends shown in Table I are physically justified: the longer
is , the less likely is a full outage. For instance, for threshold
MATRICCIANI: SERVICE ORIENTED STATISTICS OF INTERRUPTION TIME DUE TO RAINFALL 2085

TABLE I
NUMBER OF OUTAGES (INTERRUPTIONS) FOR CONTIGUOUS (CLOCK) PERIODS OF DURATION T (min) OF THE DAY, AS A FUNCTION OF RAIN ATTENUATION
THRESHOLD A (dB) AT 11.6 GHz, IN A 32 SLANT PATH, AT SPINO d’ADDA, IN 10.6 YEARS OF OBSERVATION

the 24-h interval was never in outage conditions

(not explicitly shown in Table I because we found no outages).
On the contrary the two 12-h intervals experienced 14 outages
(interruptions), the 1440 1-min intervals experienced 225 425
outages for and 890 for , in 10.6 years
of observation. By dividing the data of Table I by 10.6 we get
the average number of service interruptions in a year, given that
.
For the system designer, however, probabilities are more
meaningful. If, for each , the data of Table I are divided by
, we obtain the long term probabilities, drawn
in Fig. 2 for , that a service of duration is
not provided continuously to a user in any of the contiguous
periods of duration , given that . As it clearly
appears, the longer the service duration , the less likely it may
be interrupted for the entire period. Notice, however, that these
statistics, once they are complemented to unity, cannot be read
as availability statistics (except for values of of the order
of 1 min, see Section III-B), because the “availability” would
surely include shorter intervals of partial outages (see Fig. 1
and Section IV-B).
Fig. 2. Probability that rain attenuation A (dB), predicted by the synthetic
The probabilities discussed above are long term results aver- storm technique, is exceeded in an average year at 11.6 GHz, in a 32 slant
aged in a day, so that they do not provide hints on diurnal peri- path at Spino d’Adda. Observation time is 10.6 years.
odic cycles, as those found in the long term ’s [11]. Figs. 3
and 4 show some examples of these cycles for and course, when larger values of are considered (Fig. 4,
, respectively, and for some values of threshold . ). These results agree with those reported in [8] and [11]
Also shown, as horizontal lines, the equivalent uniform distri- and show, once more, that the more intense fades, in the Po
bution of outages, i.e., the total number of outages divided by Valley, tend to occur in the afternoon and in the evening. The
the number of contiguous periods in a day. We notice that the consequence on system design is obvious, as service quality sig-
simulated distribution is not uniform. Only some intervals show nificantly depends not only on service duration, but also on the
a partial uniform distribution. The curves become smoother, of time the service is started.
2086 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004

Fig. 3. Number of occurrences of full outages in clock intervals of 5 min along a day for thresholds 0 dB (upper figure), 1 dB (middle) and 3 dB (lower) at
+
11.6 GHz, 32 slant path. The local time is one hour ahead of Universal Time (UT). Notice that, to show more clearly the cycles, 24 6 repeated hours are shown.
Numerical values are reported at the beginning of the interval. Observation time is 10.6 years. Horizontal dotted lines yield the equivalent uniform distributions.

Fig. 4. Number of occurrences of full outages in clock intervals of 15 min along a day for thresholds 0 dB (upper figure), 1 dB (middle) and 3 dB (lower) at
+
11.6 GHz, 32 slant path. The local time is one hour ahead of Universal Time (UT). Notice that, to show more clearly the cycles, 24 6 repeated hours are shown.
Numerical values are reported at the beginning of the interval. Observation time is 10.6 years. Horizontal dotted lines yield the equivalent uniform distributions.

B. Relation Between and the Probability Distribution of stance, for (the usual sampling time of rain attenuation
1-min Long Fades measurements) we would simply obtain:

The results for shown in Table I,

, once referred to the period of observation (10.6 years
or 5 531 040 min), yield the long-term probability distribution
(or fraction of time) that a given rain attenuation is exceeded.
This is the long term mentioned in the introduction and
currently used to design satellite systems, and obtained by mea-
surements or predictions. In fact, it is very likely, from a phys-
ical point of view, that during an interval as short as 1 min, the
channel is fully affected by rain attenuation, i.e., continuously,
so that, for a given threshold , the number of outages in any
shorter interval would be obtained by scaling the results accord-
ingly and, as a consequence of being the 1-min interval fully
attenuated, the relative frequencies would not change. For in-
(1)
In our opinion this is one of the physical reasons why the
predictions of the synthetic storm technique derived by means
of 1-min rain rate time series yield a good estimate of the mea-
surements [6], even if rain rate time series with smaller time
resolutions can improve the estimates of the highest peaks of
rain attenuation or its fastest rates of change [9].
Some experimental evidence supports this assumption. To-
gether with full outages, we have also counted the number of
partial outages, i.e., any interruption that lasts less than min.
For example, Fig. 1 shows 2 partial outages for .
MATRICCIANI: SERVICE ORIENTED STATISTICS OF INTERRUPTION TIME DUE TO RAINFALL 2087

A rough estimate of the interval at which partial outages be-

come full outages, for a given threshold exceeded, can be the
(interpolated) value of for which the number of occurrences
of partial outages equals the number of the full outages, i.e., par-
tial and full outages are equally likely. Fig. 5 shows the curve
obtained for our database. We can notice that for ,
so that intervals of about one hour are equally
likely to be fully or partially attenuated. For larger than about
1–2 dB a clear “knee” appears so that is approximately 3
or 4 min, regardless of the threshold . Fig. 5 predicts
for and for , the
latter being a threshold and a power margin very large for any
practical application today. These figures are significantly larger
than 1 min, the physical resolution of the simulated rain atten-
uation time series, so that 1-min intervals should be very likely
fully attenuated.
Another physical justification can be found in the frequency
extension of the power spectrum of rain attenuation which falls
off with a 20 dB/decade slope [13] up to a frequency of the
order of few hundredths of hertz, i.e., periods of the order of 1 or Fig. 5. Interpolated value of T (min) for which the number of occurrences of
partial outages equals the number of the full outages (partial and full outages
2 min. Beyond this frequency range, the spectrum is dominated are equally likely).
by another physical phenomenon, namely turbulence scintilla-
tion [14], more responsible of fade durations of the order of few
seconds, and here not of concern. For (recall that means both the value of the
In conclusions, with some justified confidence, we can attenuation and the threshold exceeded in the expression of any
suppose that in a radio link, with a built-in power margin , and thus the value to insert in the case is 0)
(dB) and affected by rain attenuation (dB), clock intervals and , for instance, (3) yields , i.e., 4.6%,
of 1 min, or less, are very likely to be either fully unavailable to be compared with the exact value 4.1% (corresponding to
when (threshold is very likely to be continuously 225 425 min) of Section I. For and ,
exceeded during the interval ), or fully available when we get : since there are 52 560 contiguous
(threshold is very likely to be never exceeded during the intervals of 10 min in 1 year, (3) yields
interval ). interruptions in an average year (Table I, accordingly, gives
).
IV. EMPIRICAL MODELS
B. Number of Synchronized Partial Interruptions
In this section we first model the number of full interruptions,
and afterwards we extend the concept of service unavailability Equation (2), or the data shown in Table I, can be used to
to include some partial outages. extend the concept of service unavailability by taking into ac-
count synchronized partial outages, i.e., by considering the in-
A. Number of Full Interruptions terruptions that last an interval , with the maximum
For numerical calculations and extrapolations, the column continuous interruption tolerated by users (e.g., Table I). The
data of Table I for can be modeled by simple math- meaning of a synchronized partial outage of duration is the
ematical functions of the power-law type, with a 0.1 dB -axis following: it is a continuous interval during which the service is
translation to include the threshold . The constants unavailable for a time less than the maximum tolerated by users,
below were determined by minimizing the root mean square but always synchronized with 00:00 UT. Fig. 1, for instance,
(rms) error. shows, for , a synchronized partial outage starting at
The model of the number of outages, as a function of the 18:00 UT.
threshold (dB) and interval (min), for , is Let us see this point by an example taken from Table I. Con-
given by: sider . We have 70 outages of 15 min , and
151 outages of 10 min (by reading the corresponding row of
(2) Table I). Now, since a 15-min outage includes some 10-min in-
with an rms error less than 10% for any , and for thresholds up terruptions, namely only two out of three, there must have been
to 10 dB. The number of interruptions in an average year is given synchronized partial outages of
by and the corresponding long term probability 10 min . In fact during a period of , a 10-min
distributions are obtained by dividing (2) by , Sec- interval (and thus a possible 10-min interruption) can start at
tion II, i.e. , , of the next 15-min period. The 10-min
interruption starting at , however, cannot give rise
(3) to a synchronized 15-min interruption because it is split into
2088
Fig. 6. Model derived percentage of synchronized partial outages (duration
T ), as a function of rain attenuation threshold, for several values of clock period
T , for a fixed ratio T =T = 0:8. Notice that when T = 1:25 min, T =
1 min. All curves intersect at A = 0:9 dB.
twointerruptions belonging to different 15-min contiguous pe-
riods. This splitting is taken into account by the presence of the
multiplying factor , also justified by a uniform
distribution within a short interval (Figs. 3 and 4).
Of course, the results on synchronized partial outages do not
include 10-min partial outages, which are not synchronized with
the clock periods. They are neither present, of course, in the
10-min statistics of Table I. In conclusion, from our results we
can easily estimate only the number of partial outages that start
at the beginning of the time slot of duration , and at multiples
of , as long as the ending time of the partial interruption is
within the period .
Since (2) is a function of both and , we can find the
number of the synchronized partial outages, , as
Fig. 6, as an example, shows the percentage of partial outages
, for , for several values of . We see,
for instance, that for and , the number
of synchronized partial outages, of duration
, is about 38% of the total number of 15-min interrup-
tions (about 74 according to (2), or 70 according to Table I),
i.e., . By (4) we can calculate all intermediate
cases between 1 min and 15 min, as necessary.
V. SCALING TO OTHER SITES, ELEVATION ANGLES
AND FREQUENCIES
The results of Section IV can be used to scale long term
’s, measured or calculated from one of the several pre-
diction models available in the literature, to a certain
with different values of , at least to sites with the
same climate of the Po Valley. As discussed in Section III, we
can assume that the reference time of the measured or predicted
is, to a rough approximation, equal to about 1 min, and
then apply (3) twice: the first time with and the
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
second time with as parameter. The ratio between the latter
and the former yields the scaling ratio to apply to current mea-
surements, or predictions, for obtaining new outage statistics for
clock periods of , i.e.
(5)
In (5) we have used the notation to refer to our reference
32 slant path at 11.6 GHz. Now the probability distribution of
the full outages, for a given threshold and clock interval ,
is given by
(6)
Equations (5) and (6) may provide a good estimate of the
measurements at sites other than Spino d’Adda, but with the
same type of climate, because of the following argument: al-
though (2) and (3) apply to this latter site, for a given A the
ratio (5) can be more independent of site and particular rainy
conditions. At another locality, the occurrences of 1-min and
interruptions, for a given , can be largely different
of those found at Spino d’Adda, but it is likely that both occur-
rences change in the same way so as to give a ratio that reminds
of that given by (5). A ratio gets rid of possible common mul-
tiplying factors. Partial outages can be scaled in the same way.
This provisional conclusion, however, should be tested against
real data.
Notice that (5) applies only to 11.6 GHz rain attenuation and
to a 32 slant path. To apply it to slant paths with different
radio electrical and geometric parameters we have to scale rain
attenuation.
To scale rain attenuation from a reference elevation angle
(32 in our case) to a different elevation angle , we can sup-
pose that (dB) is, to a first approximation, proportional to the
(average) rainy path length. Hence, for a fixed rain height (as
assumed in [6]), we get
(4)
(7)
As for frequency scaling, at microwaves we know that, for a
given probability, rain attenuation (dB) exceeded at a carrier
frequency can be empirically related to rain attenuation
(dB) exceeded at a carrier frequency , in the same slant path,
by the power law [15]
(8)
In conclusion, rain attenuation , in decibels, at carrier
frequency (GHz) in a slant path with elevation angle , can
be scaled according to (5)–(8), if, in (5), we insert the corre-
sponding value of rain attenuation at 11.6 GHz for a 32 slant
path, i.e., the value
(9)
MATRICCIANI: SERVICE ORIENTED STATISTICS OF INTERRUPTION TIME DUE TO RAINFALL
In (9), is a constant, once and are fixed. Equation (5) can
thus be used to find the ratio to scale to . For
instance, if we want to scale rain attenuation measured [or pre-
dicted, we must know ] at in a slant
path (zenith) to a different , from (9) we get , so that
rain attenuation to be inserted into (5) is reduced to 22%. Now,
we can calculate the scaling ratio for . For instance,
10 dB in a 90 slant path at 40 GHz yields 2.2 dB at 11.6 GHz
in the reference 32 slant path. Now, if , from (5)
we get , so that, from (6),
. From this probability (or relative fre-
quency) it is then possible to find the number of 10-min interrup-
tions, or synchronized partial interruptions, in an average year,
according to Section IV.
VI. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
The simulated results obtained by the synthetic storm tech-
nique can be considered, in our opinion, as experimental ones.
They provide statistics on the interruptions (outages), due to
rainfall, in contiguous (clock) periods of the day of duration .
The results are then useful to assess the quality and unavail-
ability of services of duration during a day, e.g., in a satellite
broadcasting system, or in a system using troposphere “geo-
stationary” platforms 20 km aloft, in brief, in any earth-space
radio link. The numerical results at 11.6 GHz in a 32 slant path
(Table I) and the best fit and extrapolation formulas (2)–(9) can
provide a rough approximation to the same statistics for other
elevation angles, clock periods and carrier frequencies, at sites
with the same climate of the Po Valley.
As for broadcasting system design, the data in Table I show,
for instance, that a TV program that lasts 1 h is likely to be
interrupted (“blocked”) in Northern Italy for
times in an average year, if no built-in power margin or FEC
gain are available (case ). For a power margin of 3 dB
(case ), in an average year (data of Table I, divided
by 10.6) there is one interruption of 30 min, 49 interruptions of
5 min, 365 interruptions of 1 min.
Now, let us consider a probability of bit error or less
(e.g., see [16], p. 450), and code the bit stream with one of the
latest turbo codes with code rate 1/2 and 18 iterations. Assuming
that in clear-sky conditions there are enough power and band-
width for the doubled bit rate, the turbo code yields a gain of
about 10 dB in the ratio between the energy per bit and the
one-sided white noise power density , , e.g., see [16,
p. 282, fig. 7.4]. Then, in an average year, in the Milan area,
by providing a system power margin (relative to clear-sky con-
ditions) only by means of the most effective turbo code, in an
average year there would be 84 interruptions of 1 min (Table I,
, 890/10.6), 8.4 interruptions of 5 min (some of
which can include, of course, 5 contiguous 1-min interruptions),
2.3 interruptions of 10 min, etc. These numbers provide results
averaged over a day (the uniform distribution of Figs. 3 and 4),
but in specific parts of the day, as Figs. 3 and 4 show, these values
can be exceeded several times, especially in the afternoon and in
the evening at Spino d’Adda, and a finer system design should
consider this fact.
2089
The application of FEC coding schemes, as currently done,
may make rainfall attenuation a less severe problem for a satel-
lite broadcasting system, if the system is designed by taking into
account not the conventional probability distribution and
its low values (i.e., the range – ) and thus very short
fade durations usually considered in telephony services (channel
unavailability), but the number of interruptions of a maximum
duration that a user can tolerate for a certain service, a TV or
radio show, etc., (service unavailability). Once a clear distinc-
tion between channel unavailability and service unavailability
is established, the statistics and the scaling methods proposed in
this paper could be used to design an earth-space system based
on service unavailability rather than on channel unavailability.
At higher frequencies (e.g., 30-40-50 GHz), coding gain may
be, however, largely ineffective, both for the “quasistatic” extra
attenuation due to oxygen, water vapor and clouds, and for rain
attenuation. For the latter, long random interruptions will be ex-
perienced, as Table I, would show, once were scaled.
REFERENCES
[1] J. Goldhirsh, “Cumulative slant path rain attenuation statistics associated
with the comstar beacon at 28.56 GHz for Wallops Island, VA,” IEEE
Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 27, pp. 752–758, 1979.
[2] H. W. Arnold, D. C. Cox, and A. J. Rustako, “Rain attenuation at 10–30
GHz along earth-space paths: elevation angle, frequency, seasonal, and
diurnal effects,” IEEE Trans. Commun., vol. 29, pp. 716–721, 1981.
[3] H. Fukuchi, T. Kozu, K. Nakamura, J. Awaka, H. Inomata, and Y. Otsu,
“Centimeter wave propagation experiments using the beacon signals of
CS and BSE satellites,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 31, pp.
603–613, 1983.
[4] M. Mauri, “Hourly variation of attenuation statistics at 11–12 GHz as
seen with SIRIO,” presented at the 32 Congr. Scientifico Int. per l’Elet-
tronica, Rome, 1985, pp. 81–85.
[5] P. J. I. de Maagt, S. I. E. Touw, J. Dijk, G. Brussaard, L. J. M. Wijde-
mans, and J. E. Allnut, “Diurnal variations of 11.2 GHz attenuation on
a satellite path in Indonesia,” Electron. Lett., vol. 29, pp. 2149–2150,
1993.
[6] E. Matricciani, “Physical-mathematical model of the dynamics of rain
attenuation based on rain rate time series and a two-layer vertical struc-
ture of precipitation,” Radio Science, vol. 31, pp. 281–295, 1996.
[7] , “Prediction of fade durations due to rain in satellite communica-
tion systems,” Radio Science, vol. 32, pp. 935–941, 1997.
[8] , “Diurnal distribution of rain attenuation in communication and
broadcasting satellite systems at 11.6 GHz in Italy,” IEEE Trans. Broad-
casting, vol. 44, pp. 250–258, 1998.
[9] E. Matricciani, M. Mauri, and C. Riva, “A rain rate data base useful to
simulate reliable rain attenuation time series for applications to satellite
and tropospheric communication systems,” in Proc. Eur. Conf. Wireless
Technology (ECWT 2002), Milan, Sept. 26–27, 2002, pp. 265–268.
[10] S. Ventouras, I. Otung, and C. Wrench, “Simulation of satellite systems
operating at Ka-band and above using experimental time series of tro-
pospheric attenuation,” in Proc. Inst. Elect. Eng. Colloquium on Simu-
lation and Modeling of Satellite Systems, London, U.K., Apr. 2002, pp.
11/1–11/5.
[11] E. Matricciani, “An assessment of rain attenuation impact on satellite
communication: matching service quality and system design to the time
of the day,” Space Commun., vol. 16, pp. 195–205, 2000.
[12] A. Safaai-Jazi, H. Ajaz, and W. L. Stutzman, “Empirical models for rain
fade time on Ku- and Ka-band satellite links,” IEEE Trans. Antennas
Propagat., vol. 43, pp. 1411–1415, 1995.
[13] E. Matricciani, “Physical-mathematical model of dynamics of rain at-
tenuation with application to power spectrum,” Electron. Lett., vol. 30,
pp. 522–524, 1994.
[14] E. Matricciani, M. Mauri, and C. Riva, “Scintillation and simultaneous
rain attenuation at 12.5 GHz to satellite Olympus,” Radio Science, vol.
22, pp. 1861–1866, 1997.
[15] G. Drufuca, “Rain attenuation statistics for frequencies above 10 GHz
from raingauges observations,” J. Rech. Atmosperique, pp. 399–411,
1974.
[16] T. Pratt, C. W. Bostian, and J. E. Allnutt, Satellite Communications, 2nd
ed. New York: Wiley, 2003.
2090 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004

Emilio Matricciani was born in Italy in 1952. After

serving in the army, he received the Laurea degree in
electronics engineering from Politecnico di Milano,
Milan, Italy, in 1978.
He joined Politecnico di Milano in 1978 as a
recipient of a research scholarship in satellite com-
munications, and in 1981, he became an Assistant
Professor of electrical communications. In 1987,
he joined the Università di Padova, Padua, Italy,
as an Associate professor of microwaves. Since
1991, he has been with Politecnico di Milano as
an Associate Professor of electrical communications. In the year 2001, he
qualified as a Full Professor of telecommunications. He has been involved in
the experiments conducted with the Italian satellite Sirio in the 1970s in the
12–14 and 18 GHz bands, and afterwards, in the planning and conducting
the experiments with Italsat in the 20–30 and 40–50 GHz bands, in the 1980s
and 1990s. His actual research interests include satellite communications
for fixed and mobile systems, radio wave propagation, history of science
and technology. In addition to the institutional activities, he teaches the
fundamental aspects of communicating scientific and technical information
to undergraduate, graduate, master, and doctorate students.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
Full-Wave Analysis of Dielectric Frequency-Selective
Surfaces Using a Vectorial Modal Method
Angela Coves, Benito Gimeno, Jordi Gil, Miguel V. Andrés, Member, IEEE, Angel A. San Blas, and
Vicente E. Boria, Senior Member, IEEE
Abstract—A novel vectorial modal method is presented for
studying guidance and scattering of frequency-selective structures
based on lossy all-dielectric multilayered waveguide gratings
for both TE and TM polarizations. The wave equation for the
transverse magnetic field is written in terms of a linear differential
operator satisfying an eigenvalue equation. The definition of an
auxiliary problem whose eigenvectors satisfy an orthogonality
relationship allows for a matrix representation of the eigenvalue
equation. Our proposed technique has been applied to the study
of lossy all-dielectric periodic guiding media with periodicity in
one dimension. This method yields the propagation constants and
field distributions in such media. The reflection and transmission
coefficients of a single layer under a plane-wave excitation can
be obtained by imposing the boundary conditions. Study of the
scattering parameters of the whole multilayered structure is
accomplished by the cascade connection of components as charac-
terized by their scattering parameters. Results obtained with this
method for the propagation characteristics of a one-dimensional
periodic dielectric medium are compared with those presented by
other authors, and results for the scattering of several dielectric
frequency-selective surfaces (DFSS) are compared with both
theoretical and experimental results presented in the literature,
finding a very good agreement. A symmetrical band-stop filter
with a single waveguide grating is also demonstrated theoretically.
Index Terms—Band-stop filter, dielectric grating, frequency-
selective surfaces, Galerkin method, orthogonality relationship,
vectorial modal method.
I. INTRODUCTION
T HE frequency-selective characteristics of multilayered
periodic structures, both dielectric [1]–[5] and metallic
[6]–[8] are of considerable importance in electromagnetics.
Periodic screens have been used in the last decades in many ap-
plications as filters, radomes and polarizers of electromagnetic
waves. A dielectric layer with periodically varying dielectric
constant can be used as an alternative way to obtain a frequency
selective surface. Dielectric waveguide gratings can be used
in the microwave-frequency band as dichroic subreflectors in
Manuscript received September 25, 2002; revised February 4, 2003. This
work was supported by the Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología, Spanish Gov-
ernment, under Research Projects TIC2000-0591-C03-01 and TIC2000-0591-
C03-03.
A. Coves and A. A. San Blas are with the Departamento de Física y Arquitec-
tura de Computadores, Universidad Miguel Hernández de Elche, 03202 Elche
(Alicante), Spain.
B. Gimeno and M. V. Andrés are with the Departamento de Física Aplicada y
Electromagnetismo- I.C.M.U.V., Universidad de Valencia, 46100 Burjasot (Va-
lencia), Spain.
J. Gil and V. E. Boria are with Departamento de Comunicaciones, Universidad
Politécnica de Valencia, 46022 Valencia, Spain.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2004.832507
0018-926X/04$20.00 © 2004 IEEE
2091
large reflecting antennas [9]. Thin-film dielectric structures
containing a periodic variation along the film have recently been
of considerable interest in integrated optics [10], because of the
important role they play in applications such as beam-to-sur-
face-wave couplers, filters, distributed feedback amplifiers and
lasers, nonlinear generation of second harmonics, and beam
reflection on steering devices of the Bragg type. Eielectric
frequency-selective surfaces (DFFS) have been analyzed with
a variety of different methods, both analytical and numerical.
Rigorous analytical methods [1], [11] for studying dielectric
periodic structures are limited however to gratings with special
simple groove shapes. Numerical methods [12], on the other
hand, have made possible the analysis of periodic structures of
significant geometry/material complexity in the periodic cell.
The numerical method presented in this paper is based on a
novel vectorial modal method [13], [14] for studying guidance
and scattering by lossy all-dielectric guiding periodic structures.
For the structures considered here, each layer is either a peri-
odic dielectric grating, formed by any number of lossy dielec-
tric slabs, or a uniform dielectric slab, and all grating layers
have the same periodicity. This formulation has been applied to
the accurate analysis of the modal spectrum (propagation con-
stants and fields distribution) of dielectric periodic structures
for both TE and TM polarizations, and results are successfully
compared with those presented in the technical literature. The
reflection and transmission coefficients of the structures under
a plane-wave excitation are obtained with the generalized scat-
tering matrix (GSM) theory [15], [16] and successfully com-
pared with both theoretical and experimental results obtained
by other authors.
It must be emphasized that the complexity of the new method
proposed in this paper does not increase with the number of di-
electric slabs present in the unit cells, such as it usually happens
with other classical analysis techniques (e.g., the TRM tech-
nique [17]). Furthermore, the presence of losses in the dielectric
slabs can be easily considered by simply introducing a complex
permittivity in the formulation derived.
The formalism used to obtain the modal spectrum of lossy
dielectric periodic structures and the orthogonality relations
of the modes is presented in Section II. In Section III-A,
numerical results obtained using this formalism for the propa-
gation constants and the fields distribution in the grating region
are compared with those presented in the bibliography. The
spectral response of several DFSS are obtained and compared
with both numerical and experimental results obtained by other
authors in Section III-B, and a symmetrical band-stop filter
with a single waveguide grating is also proved theoretically.
2092 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004

Fig. 1. Characteristic unit cell of a periodic dielectric medium.

II. THEORY eigenvectors of nonself-adjoint operators do not satisfy a stan-

The first objective of this section is to obtain the modal
spectrum of a general lossy all-dielectric periodic guiding
medium uniform in the axis. Next, making use of this
multimodal characterization, the boundary conditions between
adjacent layers will be imposed by means of the GSM approach
in order to obtain the scattering parameters of a one-dimensional
(1-D) dielectric FSS.
Next we present the theoretical bases of the method for
studying a dielectric 1-D periodic medium in the direction
with translational invariance along the axis (see Fig. 1). We
assume that the electric and magnetic fields in this medium can
be expressed as a linear superposition of fields with explicit
harmonic dependence on the coordinate (we assume that the
time dependence is always implicit and has an harmonic form
for all vector fields)
(1)
(2)
where is the propagation constant, and , represent the trans-
verse components to the direction of the electric and mag-
netic fields, respectively, and , are the components in the
direction. The transverse components of the fields, when no
sources are present, satisfy the vector wave equations [13], [14]
(3)
(4)
being the relative complex permittivity of the pe-
riodic medium, whereas is the free-space wavenumber
. In these equations, we can identify in square brackets
the differential operators governing the transverse components
evolution along the axis.
For our purposes, it is more interesting to rewrite (3) and (4)
as a pure 2-D eigenvalue problem for the differential evolution
operators and
(5)
where and are the eigenvectors of the and operators,
respectively; these operators are nonself-adjoint operators. The
dard orthogonality condition; this prevents the possibility of
expanding arbitrary functions in terms of the operator eigen-
vectors, which is in fact one of our objectives: obtain a modal
basis to represent the electromagnetic field. But we can still
represent (3) and (4) in a matrix form if such equations are
expressed in an auxiliary system which can be used to derive
the matrix form of the eigenvalue problem, whose eigenvectors
satisfy an orthogonality relationship of the form
(6)
For the auxiliary system we have used the modes corresponding
to a homogeneous medium of relative dielectric permittivity
as the auxiliary basis. The geometry of the problem is shown
in Fig. 1; the periodicity D of the structure has been chosen
in the direction, being the problem uniform in the axis.
The medium is assumed as nonmagnetic and periodic
in the direction, so it is fully characterized by its complex
relative permittivity in the unit cell defined as
(7)
where is the Heaviside function, is the number of
lossy dielectric slabs inside the periodic cell (which can be an
arbitrary number), and the i-th dielectric slab is centered at point
and its width is , as it is shown in Fig. 1. The more adequate
auxiliary basis functions in this case are the well-known Floquet
harmonics, i.e., the eigenfunctions of the evolution operator
corresponding to a periodic structure immersed in a homoge-
neous medium of relative permittivity [6]. For a medium in-
variant with the coordinate , the auxiliary basis of the Floquet
modes is formed by the set of TE and TM family modes [6]
(8)
(9)
COVES et al.: FULL-WAVE ANALYSIS OF DFSS USING VECTORIAL MODAL METHOD 2093

where function, which is a discontinuous function, and also its trans-

verse gradient. Some confusion may exist in the evaluation of
(10) these integrals due to the discontinuous nature of the dielectric
and is the angle of incidence of the fundamental harmonic function and its transverse gradient. In [19] it is described the
associated with the structure excitation. These modes satisfy the way to solve these integrals correctly for the case of a rectan-
orthogonality relationship (6) gular waveguide with a relative permittivity function defined as
a sum of lossy dielectric slabs. For the particular case of a 1-D
periodic dielectric medium, these integrals have been analyti-
(11) cally calculated for each polarization obtaining

Thus the modes of the real problem can be expanded in terms

of the auxiliary system as
(18)
(12)

where and are the complex coefficients of the modal ex-

pansion for the transverse magnetic and electric fields of the th
mode, respectively. We are certainly concerned with the matrix
representation of the linear operator of the real problem . The
matrix elements of the operator in the basis will then
be easily obtained by applying the standard Galerkin moment
method [18]. By inserting the first equation of (12) into the first
equation of (5), and applying the linear properties of , we find
(13)
The next step in the application of the Galerkin procedure is
to choose a set of weighting functions , and to take the
inner product for each yielding the following linear matrix
eigenvalue problem
(19)
where the summation includes all the lossy dielectric slabs in-
side the periodic cell. As a consequence, only a diagonalization
process for each polarization has to be performed numerically
for obtaining the propagation constants and the magnetic fields
of the periodic medium at each frequency point.
At this point, it is important to remark that we have trans-
formed the differential eigenvalue (5) for the operator , which
is responsible of the evolution of the transverse magnetic field,
into a linear matrix eigenvalue problem. An analog equation for
the operator , responsible of the evolution of the transverse
electric field, can be derived

(14) (20)
were the matrix elements of the operator are obtained as
follows: Thus, the information contained in the above matrix (14) and
(20) is the same as in the differential equations shown in (5).
(15) Diagonalization of the matrix yields the squared of the
th mode propagation constant (the th eigenvalue of ),
and also its transverse magnetic amplitude through the
For practical purposes, it is convenient to introduce the differ- knowledge of the th eigenvector . It is important to note
ence operator , resulting that the diagonalization of not only provides us with the
propagation constants (eigenvalues) and transverse magnetic
(16) amplitudes (eigenvectors) of the modes, but also with the
transverse electric fields of the modes, which are related to
Thus, the matrix elements of the operator are ob- through constraints derived from Maxwell’s equations [20].
tained by means of (15) This fact is very important from a computational point-of view,
because the diagonalization process for the matrix is only
(17) requested in the numerical implementation of this method.
Therefore, it is not necessary to implement the numerical
where the first term is diagonal because the operator is ex- diagonalization of the matrix corresponding to the electric
pressed in its own orthogonal basis. However, it can be easily operator .
shown that there is no coupling among TE and TM modes when However, the matrix has an infinite number of elements.
evaluating the integrals of the matrix elements of the oper- In order to develop a realistic method, we have to work with
ator. Thus, the problem can be easily separated into two TE and a finite set of well-known auxiliary fields. Unfortunately, there
TM polarizations. The integrals involved in the evaluation of the are no general conditions that guarantee the convergence of the
matrix elements of contain the relative dielectric permittivity expansions. This convergence will depend on both the nature of
2094 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
the operator and the auxiliary problem chosen to define the or-
thogonal basis. In general, we observe that the modes are better
described by increasing the number of auxiliary modes. In the
same way, auxiliary bases that can represent the most relevant
features of the real problem produce faster convergence. In any
case, numerical convergence tests must be done by sweeping the
number of auxiliary modes over meaningful ranges and studying
the stability of solutions.
Finally, the transverse electric field of the th mode is related
to through constraints given by Maxwell’s equations, which
in this case can be expressed in terms of the modal characteristic
impedances [6]
(21)
(22)
where these modal characteristic impedances are given by
(23)
(24)
Note that the TM characteristic impedance varies with the
coordinate, that is, the characteristic impedance is not a con-
stant because the relative permittivity is a function of the
coordinate.
Once obtained the fields and propagation constants in all
regions of the structure, both homogeneous and periodic, the
problem is reduced to obtain the scattering parameters of the
structure. To this end, the boundary conditions between adjacent
layers will be imposed, obtaining the GSM at each interface
between adjacent layers of the structure, i.e., the amplitudes of
reflected and transmitted modes. For a propagation distance
through a layer with propagation constants , the multimode
scattering matrix is defined as the scattering matrix of a uniform
transmission line of length [16]. Then, we construct the GSM
of the global structure by means of the cascaded connection
of the individual GSMs of the interfaces and the scattering
matrices corresponding to the propagation through the layers,
following the technique described in [16]. The global GSM
yields the amplitudes of the scattered modes, which are re-
flected and transmitted by the structure, considering an incident
plane wave with a unit amplitude. Finally, the reflectance
and transmittance of the structure are easily obtained.
In the described theory, when all modes are included, the
matrix is infinitely-dimensional. In order to develop a realistic
method, we have to work with a finite set of well-known
auxiliary fields to expand the modes of each periodic dielectric
layer in terms of the modes of the auxiliary basis functions.
On the other hand, also the multimode scattering matrix is
infinitely-dimensional. The most straightforward way to reduce
the scattering problem to a computationally tractable form is
to truncate the individual layer multimode scattering matrices
at a finite size which is large enough to allow for accurate
calculation of the scattered modes, reflected and transmitted,
which are significant in the overall solution but small enough to
be tractable for numerical calculation. Then, for each particular
case, a study of convergence must be performed in order to reach
an accurate solution for both the propagation characteristics
in each periodic layer, and the scattering parameters of the
overall structure.
III. NUMERICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
A. Accuracy and Convergence Properties of the Modal
Expansion in Periodic Dielectric Media
In order to compare our results for the propagation charac-
teristics of an infinite periodic dielectric structure with those
obtained previously by other authors, we first examine an in-
finite periodic structure (see Fig. 1) with five dielectric slabs
within the unit cell of period . The parame-
ters are , , , ,
, , , ,
, , and . In the
calculations the auxiliary system used was an infinite homoge-
neous dielectric medium with with the same period
of the real problem. Results of the convergence study of the so-
lutions of this infinite periodic medium are shown in Fig. (2a)
and (b). In these figures it is represented, for TE [Fig. 2(a)] and
TM [Fig. 2(b)] polarization, the normalized propagation con-
stant of the first and third mode (left-hand axis), and
the sixth mode (right-hand axis) as a function of the number
of auxiliary modes, which in this case are the Floquet modes
of an infinite homogeneous medium with relative permittivity
. Results are obtained for a frequency of 10 GHz and
for a normalized Floquet wavenumber . For TE
polarization it can be seen that for all modes represented the con-
vergence is reached with only 15 modes of the auxiliary basis,
taking 0.01 s per frequency point for obtaining the first fifteen
modes (in a Pentium II@350 MHz processor). Nevertheless, a
higher number of auxiliary modes is needed for the case of TM
polarization in order to reach the convergence of the solutions,
which in this case is auxiliary Floquet modes, which
takes again only 0.01 s per point.
For the same problem considered before, Fig. 3 shows the
curves of the normalized propagation constant as a func-
tion of the normalized Floquet wavenumber of the
first and second mode for both TE and TM polarizations. In this
figure the results calculated in [21] with the transverse resonant
method (TRM) are also shown, and an excellent agreement is
observed.
The present method also allows the calculation of the field
patterns. The electric field distribution of the first and second
mode along the characteristic cell for the geometry of Fig. 2
is shown in Fig. 4. Fig. 4(a) shows the behavior of the elec-
tric field normalized with respect to its maximum value for the
first and second TE modes as a function of the normalized co-
ordinate for values of (straight line) and 1
(dashed line). In this figure we have also represented the results
calculated in [21] for the first TE mode at and
, showing an excellent agreement with our re-
sults. The normalized magnetic field for the first and second TM
mode is shown in Fig. 4(b) as a function of for values of
(straight line) and 1 (dashed line). We have also
represented the results calculated in [22] for the first TM mode at
COVES et al.: FULL-WAVE ANALYSIS OF DFSS USING VECTORIAL MODAL METHOD 2095

Fig. 2. Study of convergence of the normalized propagation constant j=k j as a function of the number N of auxiliary modes for the first and third mode
(left-hand axis), and sixth mode (right-hand axis) for both (a) TE and (b) TM polarizations of an infinite periodic dielectric medium with five dielectric slabs within
the unit cell. Parameters: D = 17:99 mm, " = 1:0, " = 1:28, " = 2:56, " = 1:28, " = 1:0, "~ = 1:0, l = 5:105 mm, l = 2:09 mm,
l = 3:60 mm, l = 2:09 mm and l = 5:105 mm. Results obtained for a normalized Floquet wavenumber (k D= ) = 0 and a working frequency of
10 GHz.

modes included in the construction of the GSMs. The re-

flectance for lower frequency is represented in
the right-hand axis. The second and third frequency, represented
in the left-hand axis, are resonant frequencies of the grating. For
all the cases considered, the reflected and transmitted fields were
found to conserve power to within one part in , that is, the
total active reflected and transmitted power coefficients related
to the propagation modes differ from unity by less than .
For the numerical results shown in the rest of this section, it was
sufficient to take modes in the construction of the mul-
timode scattering matrices.
The frequency dependence of the reflectance of the grating is
shown in Fig. 6; our results are compared with those calculated
in [17] with the TRM. For this case we have chosen
and , taking 0.01 s per frequency point, including the
Fig. 3. Normalized propagation constant j=k j as a function of the
normalized Floquet wavenumber (k D= ) of the first and second mode for
CPU time for the computation of the modes and the scattering
both TE and TM polarizations of the geometry detailed in Fig. 2. Comparison analysis. The agreement between both methods is excellent.
between our results (lines) and results obtained with the TRM method [21] The second case analyzed is the transmittance of a periodic
(dots).
dielectric grating immersed in air for a TM-polarized wave at
normal incidence. The structure is characterized by a periodic
, and for the second TM mode at , cell of period , with two dielectric slabs with
showing also a good agreement with our results. parameters , (plexiglas), and
(air); the width of the grating is (see
Fig. 7) and . In the calculations a loss tangent of
B. Plane-Wave Scattering by a DFSS
(lossy dielectric) was used, and we have con-
Following the analysis of Section II, we have carried out nu- sidered an angle of incidence on the structure of to take
merical studies of the reflection and transmission coefficients of into account the possible asymmetry of the experimental setup
several dielectric FSSs in comparison with theoretical and ex- as explained in [23]. We have chosen and ,
perimental results obtained by other authors. The first case an- taking 0.33 s per frequency point. Fig. 7 compares the calcu-
alyzed is a periodic dielectric grating formed by two dielectric lated response using this method with the experimentally mea-
slabs within the unit cell of period and thick- sured response, finding a good agreement.
ness immersed in air under a TE plane wave The third case analyzed is a multilayered periodic structure
incidence at ; we have set , with two grating layers and six homogeneous layers [see
, and . Results of the convergence Fig. 8(a)] between air and a substrate. The parameters of this
study of the reflection coefficient of this structure are shown in structure are , , , ,
Fig. 5. In this figure it is represented the reflection coefficient , , and . The
at three different frequencies as a function of the number of grating thicknesses are and
2096 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004

Fig. 4. Field distributions along the unit cell of the first and second mode for the geometry of Fig. 2. (a) Distribution of the normalized electric field for the first
and second TE mode at (k D= ) = 0 (straight line) and 1 (dashed line). Results calculated in [21] are shown with dots. (b) Distribution of the normalized
magnetic field for the first and second TM mode at (k D= ) = 0 (straight line) and 1 (dashed line). Results calculated in [22] are also shown with dots.

Fig. 7. Calculated and measured transmittance of a periodic dielectric grating

Fig. 5. Convergence study of the reflectance of a periodic dielectric grating
in air as a function of the number of modes M included in the construction of
the GSMs. The results are presented for three different frequencies under a TE
plane wave incidence at  = 45 . The grating has a period D = 1:0 mm and
thickness h = 1:713 mm with parameters: l = l = 0:5 mm, " = 2:56,
" = 1:44, "~ = 1:44.
Fig. 6. Frequency dependence of the reflectance of the periodic dielectric
grating detailed in Fig. 5 under a TE plane wave incidence at  = 45 .
Comparison between our results (line) and those calculated in [17] with the
TRM (dots).
. In Fig. 8(b) we compare
our results for the transmittance of the structure for a normal
immersed in air for a TM-polarized incident wave. The grating period is D =
30:0 mm and the thickness is h = 8:7 mm. Parameters: l = l = 15:0 mm,
" = 2:59, " = 1:0, "~ = 1:0. Comparison between our results (lines)
and the experimental ones (dots) presented in [23].
TE-polarized incident wave with those obtained in [24] with the
rigorous coupled-wave theory, showing a good concordance.
For this case we chose and , taking 0.11 s per
frequency point.
Finally, a novel design of a reflection (band-stop) filter
for TE-polarization has been performed using the presented
theory. The design of a reflection filter involves the selection
of the filter parameters such as the thickness of each layer
either homogeneous or periodic and the dielectric permittivity
distribution within the unit cell of the periodic layers, in order
to achieve symmetrical line shapes and reduced reflectance
around the central wavelength, for a particular polarization
and angle of the incident wave. A simple reflection filter
with a single-layer waveguide grating has been designed for a
normal TE-polarized incident wave, containing a rectangular
grating composed of two dielectric materials whose reflectance
is shown in Fig. 9, with the structure illustrated in the inset.
The spectral response shown in Fig. 9 can be predicted using
classical unmodulated slab waveguide theory. For the greater
part of the spectrum, the grating has the reflectance of a thin
film with a dielectric constant equal to the average dielectric
constant of the grating. The grating thickness has been chosen
COVES et al.: FULL-WAVE ANALYSIS OF DFSS USING VECTORIAL MODAL METHOD
Fig. 8. Transmittance of a multilayered periodic structure with two grating layers (layers 1 and 7) and six homogeneous layers between air and a substrate.
Comparison between our results (line) and those calculated in [24] with the rigorous coupled-wave theory (dots).
Fig. 9. Reflection filter spectral response with the structure illustrated in the
inset. The peak frequency is centered at 15 GHz. The filter parameters are: D =
11:28 mm, h = 4:37 mm, " = 6:13 (E-glass), " = 3:7 (silica), l =
l = D=2.
to be half-wavelength for the central wavelength of the filter, so
the spectral response shows a reduced reflectance around this
wavelength. But at a specific frequency (resonance frequency)
the diffractive character of the grating enables the incident wave
to excite a leaky mode supportable by the grating, resulting in a
transmission null, as shown in Fig. 9 [25]. The approximate value
for the resonance frequency location can be predicted imposing
the phase-match condition for the equivalent unmodulated slab
waveguide , where is the propagation
constant of the unmodulated waveguide in the y-direction,
and is the wavevector provided by the grating. At this
frequency the waveguide mode is excited, and this mode will
reradiate plane waves into the air regions above and below
the layer through the same space harmonic, thereby acting as
a leaky wave. The reradiated waves interfere with the directly
reflected and transmitted fields, and when the two components
above the layer add in phase, strong reflection takes place.
For a given thickness and dielectric materials of the grating,
the resonance frequency can be adjusted choosing an adequate
value of the grating period such that it coincides with the central
frequency of the filter, resulting in a symmetrical reflection
2097
filter with small sideband reflection. To maximize the efficiency
of this device, a subwavelength grating period is chosen in
order to permit that only the zero order Floquet mode to
propagates in free space. The filter has been designed in the
spectral range of 13–17 GHz, for the peak frequency centered
at 15 GHz, having the following parameters: ,
, (E-glass), (silica),
and . The spectral response of the
filter in Fig. 9 shows that in the range of 13–17 GHz
(except around the band-stop frequency), and in the
range of 14.88–15.12 GHz, thus being the bandwidth (full
width at half maximum of the reflected power)
(1.6%). In the calculations we have chosen and ,
taking 0.03 s per frequency point.
IV. CONCLUSION
P
A vectorial modal method has been applied to analyze 1-D
periodic dielectric media with any number of lossy dielectric
slabs within the unit cell for both TE and TM polarizations.
This formulation allows the study of electromagnetic scattering
from multilayered periodic structures by means of the GSM
theory. The study of a wide variety of configurations with
small computational cost has been performed. Furthermore,
we have tested the theory by comparison with theoretical and
experimental results found in the technical literature, showing
a good agreement. A reflection filter using practical materials
has been designed for a central frequency of 15 GHz, showing
low symmetrical sidebands in the range of 13–17 GHz. New
techniques for filter design are opened applying the filter
synthesis theory with transmission lines for band-stop, band-
pass and low-pass filters with periodic structures. In future, we
are also interested in the analysis of the 3-D oblique incidence
upon the dielectric grating.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank the Reviewers for their useful
comments and suggestions.
2098 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
REFERENCES
[1] T. K. Gaylord and M. G. Moharam, “Analysis and applications of
optical diffraction by gratings,” Proc. IEEE, vol. 73, pp. 894–938,
May 1985.
[2] M. K. Moaveni, “Plane wave diffraction by dielectric gratings, finite-
difference formulation,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 37, pp.
1026–1031, Aug. 1989.
[3] J. C. W. A. Costa and A. J. Giarola, “Analysis of the selective behavior
of multilayer structures with a dielectric grating,” IEEE Trans. Antennas
Propagat., vol. 43, pp. 529–533, May 1995.
[4] C. Zuffada and T. Cwik, “Synthesis of novel all-dielectric grating filters
using genetic algorithms,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 46, pp.
657–663, May 1998.
[5] A. Coves, B. Gimeno, D. Camilleri, M. V. Andres, A. San Blas, and
V. E. Boria, “Scattering by dielectric frequency-selective surfaces
using a vectorial modal method,” in IEEE AP-S Int. Symp. and
URSI National Radio Sci. Meeting, San Antonio, TX, June 16–21,
2002, pp. 580–583.
[6] R. Mittra, C. H. Chan, and T. Cwik, “Techniques for analyzing frequency
selective surfaces—a review,” Proc. IEEE, vol. 76, pp. 1593–1615, Dec.
1988.
[7] K. Kobayashi, “Diffraction of a plane wave by a thick strip grating,”
IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 37, pp. 459–470, Apr. 1989.
[8] T. Cwik and R. Mittra, “The cascade connection of planar periodic sur-
faces and lossy dielectric layers to form an arbitrary periodic screen,”
Proc. IEEE, vol. 76, pp. 1593–1615, Dec. 1988.
[9] V. D. Agrawal and W. A. Imbriale, “Design of a dichroic Cassegrain
subreflector,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 27, pp. 466–473,
1979.
[10] S. S. Wang and R. Magnusson, “Design of waveguide-grating filters with
symmetrical line shapes and low sidebands,” Opt. Lett., vol. 19, no. 12,
pp. 919–921, Jun. 1994.
[11] S. T. Peng, T. Tamir, and H. L. Bertoni, “Theory of periodic dielectric
waveguides,” IEEE Trans. Microwave Theory Techniques, vol. 23, pp.
123–133, Jan. 1975.
[12] W. P. Pinello, R. Lee, and A. C. Cangellaris, “Finite element modeling of
electro-magnetic wave interactions with periodic dielectric structures,”
IEEE Trans. Microwave Theory Tech., vol. 42, pp. 2294–2301, Dec.
1994.
[13] E. Silvestre, M. V. Andres, and P. Andres, “Biorthonormal-basis method
for the vector description of optical-fiber modes,” J. Lightwave Technol.,
vol. 16, no. 5, pp. 923–928, May 1998.
[14] E. Silvestre, M. A. Abian, B. Gimeno, A. Ferrando, M. V. Andres, and
V. E. Boria, “Analysis of inhomogeneously filled waveguides using a
bi-orthonormal-basis method,” IEEE Trans. Microwave Theory Tech.,
vol. 48, pp. 589–596, Apr. 2000.
[15] R. C. Hall, R. Mittra, and K. M. Mitzner, “Analysis of multilayered peri-
odic structures using generalized scattering matrix theory,” IEEE Trans.
Antennas Propagat., vol. 36, pp. 511–517, Apr. 1988.
[16] T. S. Chu and T. Itoh, “Generalized scattering matrix method for anal-
ysis of cascaded and offset microstrip step discontinuities,” IEEE Trans.
Microwave Theory Tech., vol. 34, pp. 280–284, Feb. 1986.
[17] H. L. Bertoni, L. H. S. Cheo, and T. Tamir, “Frequency-selective reflec-
tion and transmission by a periodic dielectric layer,” IEEE Trans. An-
tennas Propagat., vol. 37, pp. 78–83, Jan. 1989.
[18] D. G. Dudley, Mathematical Foundations for Electromagnetic Theory,
1st ed. Piscataway, NJ: IEEE Press, 1994.
[19] A. Coves, B. Gimeno, M. V. Andres, J. A. Montsoriu, and E. Silvestre,
“Evaluation of Discontinuities in Modal Vectorial Methods,” , submitted
for publication.
[20] R. E. Collin, Field Theory of Guided Waves, 2nd ed. New York: IEEE
Press, 1991.
[21] J. C. W. A. Costa and A. J. Giarola, “Electromagnetic wave propaga-
tion in multilayer dielectric periodic structures,” IEEE Trans. Antennas
Propagat., vol. 41, pp. 1432–1438, Oct. 1993.
[22] , “Wave propagation in multilayer dielectric periodic structures,”
in IEEE AP-S Int. Symp. Digest, vol. 4, Ann Arbor, MI, 1993, pp.
1964–1967.
[23] S. Tibuleac, R. Magnusson, T. A. Maldonado, P. P. Young, and T. R.
Holzheimer, “Dielectric frequency-selective structures incorporating
waveguide gratings,” IEEE Trans. Microwave Theory Tech., vol. 48, pp.
553–561, Apr. 2000.
[24] R. Magnusson and S. S. Wang, “Transmission bandpass guided-mode
resonance filters,” Appl. Opt., vol. 34, no. 35, pp. 8106–8109, Dec. 1995.
[25] T. Tamir and F. Y. Kou, “Varieties of leaky waves and their excitation,”
IEEE J. Quant. Electron., vol. 22, pp. 544–551, 1986.
Angela Coves was born in Elche, Spain, on May 20,
1976. She received the Licenciada degree in physics
from the Universidad de Valencia, Valencia, Spain,
in 1999, where she is currently working toward the
Ph.D.
She is currently with the Departamento de Física
Aplicada y Electromagnetismo, Universidad de
Valencia. Since 2001, she has been an Assistant
Professor with the Departamento de Física y Ar-
quitectura de Computadores, Universidad Miguel
Hernández de Elche, Elche (Alicante), Spain. Her
current research interests include numerical methods in computer-aided tech-
niques for the analysis of microwave passive components such as waveguide
structures and multilayered periodic structures including dielectric media.
Benito Gimeno was born in Valencia, Spain, on Jan-
uary 29, 1964. He received the Licenciado degree in
Physics in 1987 and the Ph.D. degree in 1992, both
from the Universidad de Valencia, Spain.
He was a Fellow at the Universidad de Valencia
from 1987 to 1990. Since 1990, he served as Assis-
tant Professor in the Departmento de Física Aplicada
y Electromagnetismo at the Universidad de Valencia,
where he became Associate Professor in 1997.
He was working at European Space Research and
Technology Centre of the European Space Agency
(ESTEC) as a Research Fellow during 1994 and 1995. In 2003, he obtained
a fellowship from the Spanish Government for a short stay (three months) at
the Universita degli Studi di Pavia, Pavia, Italy, as a Visiting Scientific. He
is currently with the Departamento de Física Aplicada y Electromagnetismo-
I.C.M.U.V., Universidad de Valencia, Burjasot (Valencia), Spain. His current
research interests include the areas of computer-aided techniques for analysis
of microwave passive components, waveguide and cavities structures including
dielectric resonators and photonic band-gap crystals.
Jordi Gil was born in Valencia, Spain, on April 27,
1977. He received the Licenciado degree in physics
from the Universidad de Valencia, in 2000, where he
is currently working toward the Ph.D.
He is currently working at the Ingegneria dei Sis-
temi IDS-S.p.A., Pisa, Italy. Since 2001, he has been
a young researcher in the frame of the EC project
MMCODEF “Millimeter-wave and Microwave
Components Design Framework for Ground and
Space Multimedia Network” in collaboration with
the European Space Agency (ESA). His current
research interests include numerical methods in computer-aided techniques for
the analysis of microwave passive components such as waveguide structures
and multilayered periodic structures including dielectric media.
Miguel V. Andrés (M’91) was born in Valencia,
Spain, in 1957. He received the Licenciado en Física
degree in 1979 and the Doctor en Física (Ph.D.) de-
gree in 1985, both from the Universidad de Valencia.
From 1983, he served successively as Assistant
Professor and Lecturer in the Departamento de
Física Aplicada, Universidad de Valencia. From
1984 to 1987, he was visiting for several periods the
Department of Physics, University of Surrey, U.K.,
as a Research Fellow. Until 1984, he was engaged
in research on microwave surface waveguides. His
current research interests are optical fiber devices and systems for signal
processing and sensor applications, and electromagnetic wave propagation in
microwave and optical waveguides and devices.
Dr. M. V. Andrés is a Member of the Institute of Physics (IOP).
COVES et al.: FULL-WAVE ANALYSIS OF DFSS USING VECTORIAL MODAL METHOD
Angel A. San Blas was born in Fortaleny (Valencia),
Spain, on September 20, 1976. He received the Inge-
niero de Telecomunicación degree from the Univer-
sidad Politécnica de Valencia, in November 2000.
In 2001, he was awarded a researcher position in
the Departamento de Comunicaciones, Universidad
Politécnica de Valencia, where he worked for two
years. In 2003, he joined the Departamento de
Física y Arquitectura de Computadores, Universidad
Miguel Hernández de Elche, Spain, where he is
currently an Assistant Professor. His current research
interests include the analysis of discontinuities in waveguide structures, design
of microwave filters, and coaxial excitation of microwave devices.
2099
Vicente E. Boria (SM’02) was born in Valencia,
Spain, on May 18, 1970. He received the Ingeniero
de Telecomunicación degree with first-class honors
and the “Doctor Ingeniero de Telecomunicación”
degree from the Universidad Politécnica de Valencia,
Valencia, Spain, in 1993 and 1997, respectively.
In 1993, he joined the Departamento de Comu-
nicaciones, Universidad Politécnica de Valencia,
where he was an Assistant Lecturer from 1993 to
1995, a Lecturer from 1996 to 1997, an Associate
Professor from 1998 to 2002, and became Full
Professor in 2003. In 1995 and 1996, he was awarded a Spanish Trainee
position at ESTEC-ESA, Noordwijk, the Netherlands, where he worked in
the area of electromagnetic analysis and design of waveguide devices. He
has authored or coauthored over 20 papers in refereed international technical
journals and over 70 papers in international conference proceedings in his areas
of research interest. His current research interests include numerical methods
for the analysis of waveguide and scattering structures, automated design of
waveguide components, radiating systems, measurement techniques and power
effects in passive systems.
In 1993, Dr. Boria received from the Spanish “Ministerio de Educación y
Ciencia” the First National Prize of Telecommunication Engineering Studies for
his outstanding student record. In 2001, he received from the Social Council of
Universidad Politécnica de Valencia the First Research Prize for his outstanding
activity during the period 1995 to 2000. Since 1992, he has been a member of
the IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society (IEEE MTT-S) and of
the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society (IEEE AP-S). Since 2003, he has
been a member of the Technical Committee of the IEEE-MTT International
Microwave Symposium and of the European Microwave Conference.
2100 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004

On the Interaction Between Electric and Magnetic

Currents in Stratified Media
Daniel Llorens del Río and Juan R. Mosig, Fellow, IEEE

Abstract—The presence of both electric and magnetic current

elements embedded in stratified media is necessary to model many
problems of interest in current integrated circuit and printed
antenna technology. The integral equation formulation as applied
to these problems is reviewed. Special attention is given to the
Green’s dyadic for the electric field generated by a magnetic
current element. The fact that spectral-domain transmission line
Green’s functions for a multilayered structure are closed form
integrable along the axis normal to the stratification is exploited
to greatly improve the efficiency and the accuracy of the method.
Theory and implementation are demonstrated in two practical
problems: 1) arbitrarily shaped apertures in thick conducting
screens, and 2) a metallic airbridge over a slot line.
Fig. 1. Aperture in thick screen: original problem. Above and below the screen
Index Terms—Integral equations, slot antennas, apertures in lie arbitrary, laterally open multilayered media.
thick screens, airbridges.

thickness effect is particularly important in millimetric CPW

I. INTRODUCTION
R ECENT progress in printed circuit technology has
made pervasive the use of multiple ground-plane, mul-
tiple-via connected circuits [1]. Coplanar waveguide (CPW)
has finally become the transmission line of choice for most
millimeter-wave printed circuit applications [2], for example
when integrated with slot antennas. In most cases, the CPW
is used together with airbridges or combined with via-holes
interconnects.
In all these structures, the most efficient approach is to
model slots and apertures with equivalent magnetic currents
and metallic interconnections (vias, airbridges) with equivalent
electric currents. The scattered fields would then be obtained,
invoking linearity, as convolutions of the equivalent currents
with the adequate Green’s functions
(1a)
(1b)
circuits that use compact filters [5] where very narrow slots are
common. As it will be shown in this paper, an efficient and gen-
eral modeling approach is to use vertical electric currents in the
lateral metallic walls and horizontal magnetic currents in the
apertures themselves. Therefore, we have again a mixed situa-
tion where the four Green’s functions in (1) are needed.
In the case of multilayered media, and are usu-
ally written in a mixed potential form [6]. For and ,
it is more advantageous, if electric and magnetic cells do not
overlap, to keep the field formulation. The strong singularities
of these functions will be reduced to absolutely integrable sin-
gularities with a preprocessing of the vertical coordinate in the
spectral domain, which was pioneered in [7] and extended in
scope in [8] and [9]. This preprocessing greatly increases the
efficiency and accuracy of the method, but requires that all un-
knowns be exactly perpendicular or parallel to the axis of strati-
fication (a “2.5D” geometry). Most printed technology products
match this requirement.

A particularly interesting situation is encountered when mod-
eling slots in thick metallic planes. An approximate method to
deal with this problem, termed the “Delta” approach, has re-
cently been presented in [3]. In its final formulation, this method
only provides a first order approximation to the effect of finite
thickness and neglects the effect of the walls, particularly the
possible coupling between the walls at both sides of the slot.
Other methods [4] only consider the walls approximately. The
Manuscript received June 2, 2003; revisedAugust 22, 2003. This work was
supported by the ESA/ESTEC under Contract 14062/00/NL/GD.
The authors are with the Laboratory of Electromagnetics and Acoustics
(LEMA), Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, EPFL-Ecublens Lausanne,
CH-1015, Switzerland (e-mail: daniel.llorensdelrio@epfl.ch).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2004.832329
0018-926X/04$20.00 © 2004 IEEE
II. MODELING APERTURES IN THICK SCREENS
To illustrate the general strategy proposed in this paper to deal
with interactions, we start by considering the “thick slot”
problem of Fig. 1, where a stratified medium includes a thick
ground plane in which a slot has been created. This
problem is usually solved by using equivalence principles to re-
duce it to a more tractable configuration. Fig. 2 shows the stan-
dard strategy, which divides the problem in three parts linked
by magnetic currents. In the layered media above and below the
thick slot, standard MoM integral equation approaches may be
used. The medium representing the slot is now a cavity (or a
waveguide closed at both ends); here, apropiate modal expan-
sions or cavity/waveguide Green’s functions should be used.
LLORENS DEL RÍO AND MOSIG: ON THE INTERACTION BETWEEN ELECTRIC AND MAGNETIC CURRENTS IN STRATIFIED MEDIA 2101

we assume that incident excitation waves exist outside the slot,

on both sides. Therefore, the only unknowns will be magnetic
currents above and below the slot, and electric current
on the vertical walls of the slot.
Accordingly, the equivalent thick slot problem of Fig. 3 yields
three coupled integral equations. The first two impose conti-
nuity of electric and magnetic tangential field at lower and upper
apertures:

Fig. 2. Equivalent problem with cavity or closed waveguide. (2a)

(2b)

The third integral equation forces the electric tangential field

to vanish on electric walls

(2c)

In these equations, the currents in the upper and lower sides of

Fig. 3. Equivalent problem with laterally open parallel plate medium and
wall electric current unknowns. Numbers 1–5 refer to regions where equivalent
currents J or M do exist.
This method has two main inconvenients. Firstly, the modes of
the waveguide must be computed, which is difficult to do for
a waveguide of arbitrary section. Secondly, the modal expan-
sion must be matched at the apertures to the multilayered media
above and below, which requires the computation of extra cou-
pling integrals.
In this paper, we propose a new strategy for creating an equiv-
alent problem. The geometry is again divided into three regions,
and the media above and below are the same. However, in the
medium representing the thick slot (the “internal” medium), the
equivalent is now a parallel plate waveguide (PPWG). To ac-
count for the metallic walls, we add unknown vertical electric
currents embedded in the PPWG. With this strategy, we need to
compute interactions between horizontal magnetic currents and
vertical electric currents. As this situation arises in many other
configurations (for instance, airbridges over slot lines) this is the
main concern of this paper.
A. Formulation
It is apparent that in either of these strategies, the com-
putational burden will at least double when compared to
a zero-thickness analysis, owing to the slot aperture being
meshed twice. For a general solution to the problem, this is
impossible to avoid. Still, a blind attack on the problem would
not be excessively time-consuming for this reason, but for
the complex, nonanalytical dependence of the space domain
PPWG’s Green’s function on the three coordinates , and
(Fig. 3).
For the sake of simplicity, we shall assume that the media
above and below the slot are devoid of scatterers which could
support additional induced electric and magnetic currents. Also
the slot and the superindices of the Green’s functions
refer to the regions of the problem as indicated (Fig. 3). This
formulation can be easily generalized to a more complicated
geometry. Any external media can be theoretically handled by
providing appropiate Green’s functions and/or by
including additional unknown currents as required.
The magnetic and electric equivalent currents are then ex-
panded as linear combinations of rooftop basis functions and
and tested with a Galerkin approach. This results in a moment
block matrix of the form
(3)
The symmetry of , and submatrices stems, respectively,
from the following reciprocity relationships between reaction
terms [10]
(4a)
(4b)
(4c)
The matrix of (3) is not, however, symmetric. If, instead of a
strict Galerkin approach, a set of test functions is used,
a symmetric matrix results, as noticed by Harrington [6]. This
is equivalent to multiplying the first two (block) rows of system
(3) by .
The submatrices contain terms of the type
. They are computed with a dual mixed potential expres-
sion involving potential Green’s functions , which can
present an integrable singularity of type . It is remarkable
that each individual Green’s function in (2b) will diverge
as , so a double aperture formulation such as the one
used here will not work with vanishingly small screen thick-
ness. Even with moderately small thickness, it will be advanta-
geous to extract not only the singular part of each reaction term
2102 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004

, but also the contribution of the closest im- correspond to spatial domain rotational symmetry
ages. This is clearly a limitation of the double-aperture formula-
tion, as has already been pointed [11]. The “Delta” formulation (8a)
[3] is specifically designed to handle the limiting case. (8b)
The submatrix involves terms of the form . (8c)
These are computed by putting in full mixed potential
form, according to the formulation in [12]. Rectangular rooftops Making use of the identities (14) in Appendix I, at most four
are used to expand in an orthogonal mesh.1 The classical Sommerfeld transform operations are needed to obtain the trans-
Sommerfeld form for is used, as in [8], but the computa- verse components , and only one to obtain
tion of [13] is never necessary, because it can be substi- (vertical magnetic currents are not considered).
tuted by proper application of reciprocity relation (4c). We note These operations are
that the line integrals inherent in our choice of the Sommerfeld
form of do not appear in the particular case of a homoge- (9a)
neously filled PPWG. Otherwise, the spectral integration tech- (9b)
nique, which is detailed in the next section for the elements of
(9c)
, is also applied to the computation of the elements of . The
integrated functions to be tabulated present at most a logarithmic (9d)
singularity. (9e)

B. Submatrices Therefore, the azimuthal dependence of is evaluated (in-

expensively) during matrix fill.
These contain elements of the form , which
All off-diagonal components are singular at the origin
are handled with a pure field formulation. For a generalized
as , with bounded, when . This can be
PPWG (which may be filled with a number of stratified dielec-
gathered from the behavior of the free space dyadic (with
tric layers), the spectral Green’s dyadic has the form
)

(5)

(10)
The various components are obtained from the well known
spectral TL model, where the stratified medium is represented
by two (TE and TM) equivalent transmission line networks, and In principle, as discussed in previous sections, every Green’s
all field quantities can be expressed in terms of voltages and function will depend on three space coordinates, , and .
currents in this network, under either voltage or cur- However, the vertical regularity of the structure makes it pos-
rent excitation [14]. We have cast them in the following sible to take this dependence into account in the spectral do-
form, ready for numerical implementation: main. For it is well known that the existence of a TL model for
the stratified medium ensures that the dependence with respect
(6a) to the vertical coordinates will be of the form
(6b)
(6c)
(11)
(6d)
(6e) where parameters do not depend on the vertical co-
(6f) ordinates once source and observer layers are fixed. Formulae
of this type, that explicitly reveal the exponential dependence
(6g)
on both vertical coordinates and for any transmission line
parameter ( or ) have been presented in [8] and, more re-
whose symmetry properties
cently, again in [9].
(7a) The transverse Fourier transform does not affect the vertical
dependence; thus, any spatial integration along can be car-
(7b) ried over in the spectral domain, analytically. This effectively
(7c) eliminates the spatial Green’s functions dependence on these
1We
coordinates, avoiding cumbersome three-dimensional spatial
shall use the conditions that
• e=e ^e(z; ) = e ^e (z )e (); (separability)
interpolation during matrix-of-moments fill.
• e ? k
z^ or e z^ (orthogonality). In the particular case of elements of the type
A mesh of the kind needed is pictured in Fig. 8. is fixed because it corresponds to a horizontal
LLORENS DEL RÍO AND MOSIG: ON THE INTERACTION BETWEEN ELECTRIC AND MAGNETIC CURRENTS IN STRATIFIED MEDIA
TABLE I
GREEN’S FUNCTIONS FOR THE COMPUTATION OF ELEMENTS OF H
AND THEIR SINGULARITIES AT THE ORIGIN
magnetic current cell. Therefore, only the -dependence has to
be treated in the spectral domain. With the same requisites of
orthogonality of the mesh for the vertical walls, we can write
(12)
The last right-hand term in the series of equalities of (12) is
the key for a successful numerical integration. The new “inte-
grated” dyadic has reduced-order singularities. The
exact type of these singularities can be obtained either from the
“integrated” spatial static Green dyadic, or from the behavior of
the spectral dyadic as . The first approach is more prac-
tical because it allows to obtain closed analytical expressions
for the singular part of the reaction term, in a manner similar to
what is done in [15] for potential integrals. This development
is detailed in Appendix II. The resulting singularity extraction
procedure is necessary for an efficient and accurate computa-
tion of when electric and magnetic cells share
an edge. Thanks to the spectral integration in (12), the strongest
singularity of ’s elements is absolutely integrable, which
makes the technique much easier to apply.
With the spectral integration technique, six Sommerfeld
transforms are required per vertical cell level-magnetic layer
pair: four for the horizontally oriented half-rooftops
and one for either increasing or decreasing
vertically oriented half-rooftops. This is
summarized in Table I. For example, in the mesh of Fig. 8,
which has two vertical cell levels and two magnetic layers, a
total of functions of this type must be tabulated.
C. Discussion
In addition to avoidance of three-dimensional interpolation,
the spectral preprocessing technique has four advantages. These
are not restricted to the interactions between current elements of
different type, but in that case they are particularly important,
because a field formulation is employed.
2103
• Integrated Green’s functions have better spectral behavior
and are thus easier to evaluate in the spatial domain.
• Spatial integration becomes simpler, not only because sur-
face integrals are reduced to line integrals, but also be-
cause they exhibit weaker singularities at the origin
than their nonintegrated counterparts.
• Tables may be reused for differently shaped slots, as long
as the vertical structure (on which spectral integration de-
pends) remains unchanged.
• Since vertical integrations are analytical, accuracy is
increased.
It is important to make a note about the method used to
perform the Sommerfeld inversion. An elliptical integration
path circumventing the spectral Green’s function singularities
[16], combined with the weighted averages algorithm [17] for
the tail of the integral along the real axis, is used throughout.
The different Green’s functions to be tabulated are classified
in vectors according to their singularity type, and transformed
in block; therefore, for each of these vectors, the spectral TL
model is solved only once. This classification is necessary
because the weighted averages algorithm is an extrapolation
method that needs information about the asymptotic behavior
of the integrand as to perform optimally.
D. Examples
Two different examples, a rectangular slot and a “dogbone”
slot antenna, have been analyzed, built and measured. A series of
breadboards has been built for each, where slot thickness varies
from 35 m (printed slot, essentially a zero thickness case) to
several millimeter.
The rectangular slot antenna is fed by coupling to a 50 mi-
crostrip line. Its dimensions are 25 mm 5 mm and it is found
to resonate at 6.32 GHz on mm, substrate,
when metal thickness equals 35 m.
The series of measured breadboards included screens with
thicknesses of , and mm. Comparison between dif-
ferent numerical models and measurements is given in Figs. 4–6
for conciseness, comparison for the 3 and 6 mm cases has been
omitted, but it is reported in [18]. Three different theoretical pre-
dictions are shown as follows:
• the “Delta” function approach [3];
• a rigorous mode-matching cavity model [19];
• the technique described in this paper.
Our technique always follows closely the cavity results (while
avoiding the cavity formulation) up to -thick slots, and
that both agree very well with measurements. As expected,
the “Delta” approach is good only for thin slots (up to ).
It can be seen that even for slot thickness as small as ,
the effect on resonant frequency is clearly nonnegligible (a
% displacement) which stresses the interest and need of
this analysis.
The second model is a “dogbone”-shaped slot antenna, also
fed by coupling to a 50 microstrip line (Fig. 7).
2104 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004

Fig. 4. Rectangular slot antenna: thickness 35 m  =1400 at 6 GHz. Fig. 6. Rectangular slot antenna: thickness 10 mm  =5 at 6 GHz.

Fig. 7. ”Dogbone” slot in thick screen, fed by microstripline. Dimensions in

millimeters: r = 2 5 = 2 5 = 34 = 5 = 47
: ;e : ;l ;w ;l ;w : = 2 164 =
;p
Fig. 5. Rectangular slot antenna: thickness 1 mm  =50 at 6 GHz. 95
: . Substrate: h = 0 76
: mm, = 2 485 : .

The mesh used in the MoM analysis is shown in Fig. 8.

The freely available mesh generator, TRIANGLE,2 was used.
The choice of a triangular mesh for the magnetic unknowns
is justified by the fact that, opposite to the vertical walls, slot
geometry can be rather complex. It is worth pointing out that
a shape like the “dogbone” does not add any complexity to
our approach, while the cavity approach would become very
cumbersome and, indeed, it has not been considered here.
The breadboard series included screens mm, mm, and
mm thick. They were made of brass and gold-plated for
best contact with the printed antenna substrate; their size was Fig. 8. Mesh for the “dogbone” model with mask of thickness =3 mm, with
14 cm 14 cm, large enough to avoid finite ground plane size two vertical electric cell levels between the parallel plates. Electric cells in white
influencing input impedance. +
(microstripline sides of dogbone slot), magnetic cells in gray (top and bottom
of dogbone).
Simulations and measurements are compared in Figs. 9 to
11. It can be seen that the numerical analysis follows closely
the behavior indicated by the measurements, as thickness in-
creases. The opening of the resonance loop in the Smith chart is
2http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~quake/triangle.html characteristic.
LLORENS DEL RÍO AND MOSIG: ON THE INTERACTION BETWEEN ELECTRIC AND MAGNETIC CURRENTS IN STRATIFIED MEDIA 2105

Fig. 11. ”Dogbone” antenna: thickness 5 mm  =12 at 5 GHz.

Fig. 9. ”Dogbone” antenna: thickness 35 m
 =1700 at 5 GHz.
Despite its very different nature, the IE formulation of the
airbridge/slot problem is basically equivalent to that of the
thick slot and again the interaction plays an essential
role. Due to the presence of horizontal electric cells, a new
submatrix type appears, that contains interactions of
the form . These are computed again with a
mixed potential formulation, where the corresponding Green’s
functions have been integrated in the spectral domain along
the source coordinate. In addition, line integral terms appear
because of the airbridge corners [21].

A. Examples
As a test case, a slot loop antenna that resonates at 3 GHz
has been selected. This antenna (Fig. 12) was a model for
studying the radiating element of open structure, integrated
receiver front-ends for submillimeter-wave operation [22]. In
that application, the diode can be connected in series to the feed
line; then, the airbridge (in the symmetrical position) is used to
provide a dc return path. The airbridge should not affect the RF
characteristics of the slot loop, so it should be comparatively
long.
In the asymmetrical position, the airbridge can be used to
connect to ground a diode that has been placed at the center of
Fig. 10. ”Dogbone” antenna: thickness 1 mm  =60 at 5 GHz. the loop. The role of the airbridge is wholly different because
now it must conduct RF signal. The slot loop, which is about
one wavelength at RF, presents a magnetic current null at that
III. AIRBRIDGE MODELING
position, which allows for a very short airbridge.
CPW circuits usually require airbridges for proper operation, For the first case, a series of airbridges of different form
to eliminate the unwanted slotline mode [2]. In many circuits, factors, listed in Fig. 13, was built, and antenna impedance
such as the dual-mode filter introduced in [20], or in MEMS was measured at the end of the CPW feeding line (Fig. 14).
delay lines, the response of the circuit is highly dependent on An excellent agreement is observed for all cases, as compared
airbridge dimensions. to simulations (Fig. 15). It can be appreciated that for the
2106
Fig. 12. Slot antenna propotype. Dimensions in millimeters: r = 15:92; w = 2; l = 19:89; w = 1:140; s = 0:930; w = 0:126; s = 2:748. Substrate:
h = 1:57 mm,  = 2:33.
Fig. 13. Dimensions (in millimeters) for each case of Figs. 14, and 15.
longest airbridge (case #2) the main resonance of the bare
loop is least affected.
The asymmetrical placement of the airbridge produces in
turn a very complex behavior, with multiple resonances, due to
the introduction of asymmetric modes in the loop. The main
resonance of the bare loop remains unaffected however, be-
cause at that frequency the condition imposed by the airbridge
matches the natural symmetric configuration of magnetic
currents. Again, comparison of measurement and simulation
(Fig. 16) shows good agreement.
IV. CONCLUSION
A technique to compute interactions between electric and
magnetic currents embedded in multilayered media has been
described, as applied to the analysis of 1) slots in metalliza-
tion screens of finite thickness, and 2) airbridges in slot/CPW
circuits.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
Fig. 14. Measured jS j for the slot loop antenna of Fig. 12 with the airbridges
of Fig. 13, with airbridges on the symmetrical position.
For the “thick slot” problem, this is done by solving for mag-
netic currents at both sides of the slot and for electric currents
at the walls on its contour. The problem posed by these ver-
tical walls inside a parallel-plate medium is ideally suited to a
mixed spectral-spatial formulation. A pure mixed potential for-
mulation has been kept for the electric elements. For the parallel
plate medium, this choice leads to less integral types and con-
sequently to reduced memory requirements and faster compu-
tations. For electric-magnetic interactions, a field formulation is
used. The singularity of the mixed-type Green’s functions
is integrated over the source cell (always a magnetic current cell)
with a closed formula.
The method presented here has the flexibility required to go
beyond regular slot shapes, where the use of the cavity approach
would be much more involved. This ability has been demon-
strated with the analysis of a “dogbone”-shaped aperture.
LLORENS DEL RÍO AND MOSIG: ON THE INTERACTION BETWEEN ELECTRIC AND MAGNETIC CURRENTS IN STRATIFIED MEDIA 2107

(14a)
(14b)

(14c)

(14d)

(14e)

APPENDIX II
SINGULARITY EXTRACTION
When in (12) is a triangular RWG rooftop, the inner inte-
gral in (12) is proportional to (substituting the static part of (10)
for )

(15a)
Fig. 15. Computed jS j for the slot loop antenna of Fig. 12 with the airbridges
of Fig. 13, with airbridges on the symmetrical position. (15b)

where (15a) is for vertically oriented and (15b) for horizon-

tally oriented , i.e., . These integrals are both analyt-
ical. The second one results in an integral over which has the
same mild-type singularity of a regular potential Green’s func-
tion [15]. For (15a), if is a constant and

(16)

is substituted in (15a), we obtain

(17)

This is absolutely integrable, as can be shown by considering

(18)
Fig. 16. Computed and measured jS j for the slot loop antenna of Fig. 12
with an airbridge (case #4 of Fig. 13) on the asymmetrical position.
(because ). Noting
that
Quite remarkably, the same technique has been applied to
a very different problem, namely, the analysis of the effect of (19)
an airbridge short-circuiting a slot loop antenna at different po-
sitions. Again, comparison with measurements has shown the
validity of the method.

APPENDIX I
TRANSFORM RELATIONS

(13a)

(13b)
2108 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
we may write, separating from an infinitesimal region
around , say, a circular sector of radius
(20)
The second term becomes zero as , and the integrand of
the third term is bounded, so it also vanishes as . There
remains
(21)
which is immediate.
If is a linear function of , the resulting integral can be
seen to be a combination of (17) and a term of the same type as
(15b).
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank Dr. Lin of ESTEC (Earth
Observation Programs) for his support of this work.
REFERENCES
[1] H. Chen, Q. Li, L. Tsang, C.-C. Huang, and V. Jandhyala, “Analysis of
a large number of vias and differential signaling in multilayered struc-
tures,” IEEE Trans. Microwave Theory Tech., vol. 51, pp. 818–829, Mar.
2003.
[2] R. Simons, Coplanar Waveguide Circuits, Components and Systems, 1st
ed. New York: Wiley, 2001.
[3] J. R. Mosig, Scattering by arbitrarily-shaped slots in thick conducting
screens: An approximate solution, in IEEE Trans. on Antennas Prop..
Accepted for publication to.
[4] D. T. Auckland and R. F. Harrington, “Electromagnetic transmission
through a filled slit in a conducting screen of finite thickness, TE case,”
IEEE Trans. Microwave Theory Tech., vol. 26, pp. 499–505, July 1978.
[5] J. Sor, Y. Qian, and T. Itoh, “Miniature low-loss CPW periodic structures
for filter applications,” IEEE Trans. Microwave Theory Tech., vol. 49,
pp. 2336–2341, Dec. 2001.
[6] R. F. Harrington, Field Computation by Moment Methods, 1st ed. New
York: Macmillan, 1968.
[7] M.-J. Tsai, C. Chen, N. G. Alexopoulos, and T.-S. Horng, “Multiple ar-
bitrary shape via-hole and air-bridge transitions in multilayered struc-
tures,” IEEE Trans. Microwave Theory Tech., vol. 44, pp. 2504–2511,
Dec. 1996.
[8] N. Kınayman and M. I. Aksun, “Efficient use of closed-form Green’s
functions for the analysis of planar geometries with vertical connec-
tions,” IEEE Trans. Microwave Theory Tech., vol. 45, pp. 593–603, May
1997.
[9] M. Vrancken and G. A. E. Vandenbosch, “Hybrid dyadic-mixed poten-
tial and combined spectral-space domain integral-equation analysis of
quasi 3-D structures in stratified media,” IEEE Trans. Microwave Theory
Tech., vol. 51, pp. 216–225, Jan. 2003.
[10] V. H. Rumsey, “Reaction concept in electromagnetic theory,” Physical
Rev., vol. 94, no. 6, pp. 1483–1491, June 1954.
[11] R. F. Harrington and D. T. Auckland, “Electromagnetic transmission
through narrow slots in thick conducting screens,” IEEE Trans. Antennas
Propagat., vol. 28, pp. 616–622, Sept. 1980.
[12] J. Chen, A. A. Kishk, and A. W. Glisson, “Application of a new MPIE
formulation to the analysis of a dielectric resonator embedded in a
multilayered medium coupled to a microstrip circuit,” IEEE Trans.
Microwave Theory Tech., vol. 49, pp. 263–279, Feb. 2001.
[13] K. A. Michalski and D. Zheng, “Electromagnetic scattering and radation
by surfaces of arbitrary shape in layered media, part II: Implementation
and results for contiguous half-spaces,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Prop-
agat., vol. 38, pp. 345–352, Mar. 1990.
[14] K. A. Michalski and J. R. Mosig, “Multilayered media Green’s functions
in integral equation formulations,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol.
45, pp. 508–519, Mar. 1997.
[15] D. R. Wilton, S. Rao, A. W. Glisson, D. H. Schaubert, O. Al-Bundak,
and C. M. Butler, “Potential integrals for uniform and linear source dis-
tributions on polygonal and polyhedral domains,” IEEE Trans. Antennas
Propagat., vol. 32, pp. 276–281, Mar. 1984.
[16] P. Gay-Balmaz and J. R. Mosig, “Three dimensional planar radiating
structures in stratified media,” Int. J. Microwave and Millimeter-Wave
CAE, vol. 3, no. 5, pp. 330–343, 1997.
[17] J. R. Mosig, “Integral equation technique,” in Numerical Techniques
for Microwave and Millimeter-Wave Passive Structures, 1st ed, T. Itoh,
Ed. New York: Wiley, 1989, ch. 3.
[18] D. Llorens del Río, I. Stevanović, and J. R. Mosig, “Analysis of printed
structures including thick slots,” presented at the Proc. COST-284
Meeting, Budapest, Apr. 2003.
[19] A. Álvarez Melcón, “Applications of the integral equation technique to
the analysis and synthesis of multilayered printed shielded microwave
filters and cavity backed antennas,” Ph.D. dissertation, Ecole Polytech-
nique Fédérale de Lausanne, LEMA-DE, 1998.
[20] L. Cohen, H. Baudrand, D. Bajon, and J. Puech, “Full wave analysis of
coplanar four-poles resonators using odd and even modes,” in Proc. Int.
Workshop on Microwave Filters, Toulouse, France, June 2002.
[21] T. M. Grzegorczyk and J. R. Mosig, “Line charge distributions arising in
the integral equation treatment of bent scatterers in stratified media,” in
Proc. Inst. Elect. Eng. Microw. Antennas Propag., vol. 148, Dec. 2001,
pp. 365–368.
[22] P. Otero, G. V. Eleftheriades, and J. R. Mosig, “Integrated modified rect-
angular loop slot antenna on substrate lenses for millimeter- and sub-
millimeter-wave frequencies mixer applications,” IEEE Trans. Antennas
Propagat., vol. 46, pp. 1489–1497, Oct. 1998.
Daniel Llorens del Río received the Electrical Engi-
neer degree from the University of Málaga, Málaga,
Spain, in 2000. He is currently working toward the
Ph.D. degree at the Laboratory of Electromagnetics
and Acoustics, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lau-
sanne (EPFL), Switzerland.
His research interests are numerical methods and
antenna modeling.
Juan R. Mosig (S’76–M’87–SM’94–F’99) was
born in Cadiz, Spain. He received the Electrical
Engineer degree in 1973 from the Universidad
Politecnica de Madrid, Spain. In 1976, he joined
the Laboratory of Electromagnetics and Acoustics
(LEMA), Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
(EPFL), Switzerland, from which he obtained the
Ph.D. degree in 1983.
Since 1991, he has been a Professor at EPFL and
since 2000, the Head of the EPFL Laboratory of Elec-
tromagnetics and Acoustics. In 1984, he was a Vis-
iting Research Associate at Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY.
He has also held scientific appointments at universities of Rennes (France), Nice
(France), Technical University of Danemark and the University of Colorado at
Boulder. He is the author of four chapters in books on microstrip antennas and
circuits and more than 100 reviewed papers. He is co-organizer and lecturer of
yearly short courses in numerical electromagnetics (Europe and USA). He is
the Chairman of a European COST project on antennas and is responsible for
several research projects for the European Space Agency. His research interests
include electromagnetic theory, numerical methods and planar antennas.
Dr. Mosig is a Member of the Swiss Federal Commission for Space
Applications.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
Scattering by Arbitrarily-Shaped Slots in Thick
Conducting Screens: An Approximate Solution
Juan R. Mosig, Fellow, IEEE
Abstract—In this paper, the integral equation formulation of
the thick aperture problem is reviewed and then modified to
make it continuously valid for any aperture thickness. Hence,
the new proposed thick aperture formulation is free from the
difficulties usually encountered when applying it to a vanishing
thickness slot. Afterwards, a simplification of the formulation is
proposed, which reduces dramatically the computational burden
while providing valid results for apertures whose thicknesses
remain small compared with their linear transverse dimensions
but having otherwise arbitrary shapes and sizes. Preliminary
numerical results confirm the validity of the proposed technique
and show clearly its advantages.
Index Terms—Thick slots, apertures, conducting screens, inte-
gral equations, Green’s functions.
I. INTRODUCTION
A CLASSICAL problem in EM-theory is the scattering
of an electromagnetic wave by an aperture in a con-
ducting thick screen. This problem has countless applications
in modern technology, ranging from waveguide filters using
interconnecting wall holes and irises to cavity-backed slot-fed
antennas and passing through many problems of field pen-
etration through slits and holes, of paramount relevance in
electromagnetic compatibility. In a general case (Fig. 1), the
screen may be curved and have a nonzero thickness, the aper-
ture will have arbitrary shape and dimensions and even the
lateral metallic walls associated to the aperture rim may have
an irregular profile, thus leading to a truly three-dimensional
(3-D) problem. In this work, we will concentrate in the case
where the thick conducting screen is bound by two parallel
surfaces and is locally flat. Even with this simplification, the
problem remains 3-D and for analysis purposes, a reduction to
two dimensions has been traditionally obtained in two ways.
With reference to Fig. 1, either the screen thickness is neglected
and then we formulate the problem in two coordinates
locally tangential to the screen, or a translational symmetry
along one tangential coordinate is assumed, and then we
work in a 2-D cut of the problem defined by its profile in the
coordinates.
Historically, the first model analyzed was the zero-thickness
screen (frequently but improperly called the zero-thickness slot
geometry). This problem can be traced back to Lord Rayleigh
Manuscript received June 23, 2003; revised September 1, 2003.
This work was supported by the Swiss “Office Fédérale de l’Education et de
la Science” under Grant European COST-284 Action.
The author is with the Laboratory of Electromagnetics and Acoustics
(LEMA), Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, EPFL-Ecublens Lausanne,
CH-1015, Switzerland (e-mail: juan.mosig@epfl.ch).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2004.832325
0018-926X/04$20.00 © 2004 IEEE
2109
Fig. 1. General geometry for an arbitrarily shaped aperture in a conducting
curved screen of variable thickness.
in 1897 [1] and was extensively analyzed in a series of classical
papers (see [2]–[5], to mention but a few) mainly dealing with
electrically small slots. Consequently, quasistatic or low fre-
quency approximations were used. On the other hand, specific
techniques were also developed for large apertures, using geo-
metrical [6] and spectral [7] theories of diffraction. The rigorous
formulation of a zero-thickness aperture with arbitrary size and
shape is made through the use of the equivalence theorem and
equivalent magnetic currents. This leads to an integral equation
problem solved with the use of dyadic Green’s functions [8].
This nowadays classical formulation was extensively discussed
in an excellent review paper [9] and is summarized in advanced
textbooks in electromagnetics [10].
The second 2-D model, assuming translational invariance and
valid for long, thin apertures (slits) was solved by using asymp-
totic Wiener-Hopf techniques [11] or coupled integral equations
[12]. These works deal essentially with thick slots having rect-
angular profiles in the plane. The integral equation approach was
extended to arbitrary profiles [13] and was also combined with
finite elements to cope with more general configurations pos-
sibly including inhomogeneous media [14], [15].
Back to the general 3-D aperture problem of Fig. 1, it can be
formally solved by using equivalence principles leading to a set
of coupled equations. Typically, the two outer problems (outside
the thick slot) will be formulated as integral equations and the
inner problem (inside the thick slot) as a cavity problem where
the Helmholtz equation is to be satisfied. In practice, the numer-
ical implementation will be a difficult task, asking in the external
regions for complicated Green’s functions and 2-D-boundary
elements, which must be coupled to 3-D-finite elements inside
the slot. A clever simplified implementation, based on the reci-
procity principle [16] has been used to analyze microstrip an-
tennas fed through reasonably thick rectangular slots [17].
Finally, it must be mentioned that the circular aperture case
is of particular relevance in optics, and that the thick case has
2110
Fig. 2. Two arbitrary regions connected through a slot on a conducting screen
of finite (a) and zero (b) thickness.
been solved by Roberts in an optical context [18], emphasizing
the determination of plane wave reflection and transmission
coefficients.
In this paper, the integral equation formulation of the thick
aperture problem is reviewed and then modified to make it
continuously valid for any aperture thickness. Hence, the new
proposed thick aperture formulation is free from the difficulties
usually encountered when applying it to a vanishing thickness
slot. Afterwards, a simplification of the formulation is pro-
posed, which reduces dramatically the computational burden
while providing valid results for apertures whose thicknesses
remain small compared with their linear transverse dimensions
(or with the square root of their surface) but having otherwise
arbitrary shapes and sizes.
II. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
The procedure leading to the coupled integral equations
which solve the problem of a thick slot is well known [10],
[12], [14], [15]. We will briefly recall it here for the sake of
completeness and for introducing the notation used throughout
this paper. Consider the generic problem of Fig. 2(a), in which
two arbitrary inhomogeneous regions and are originally
separated by a thick conducting wall. The region also
includes a set of impressed currents (sources). A portion
of the screen is suppressed, leaving a 3-D-hole, which defines a
new region , connecting and [Fig. 2(a)]. As stated in
the introduction, in most problems of practical interest the con-
ducting screen is limited by two parallel surfaces and is locally
flat. Also, the region is usually a cylindrical volume with
arbitrary but constant cross-section in the -plane and with its
axis parallel to the screen’s normal coordinate . Nevertheless,
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
the theory which follows is also formally valid for the more
general geometry of Fig. 1.
Following the standard procedure, we replace the two open-
ings of the thick aperture by zero-thickness conducting surfaces.
The two sides of the surface separating regions and
will be denoted and , while the two sides of the surface
separating regions and will be denoted and .
Now, according to the equivalence theorem, we define un-
known equivalent magnetic surface currents in the following
way [Fig. 2(a)]
(1)
Since surface magnetic currents are cross products of unit
normal vectors and electric fields, the continuity of the tan-
gential electric field is automatically fulfilled in the interfaces
between our three regions. The introduction of the conducting
surfaces allows the consideration of three formally independent
problems, one for each region, that are indirectly coupled
through the equivalent magnetic currents. In particular the
region becomes a cavity fully bounded by conducting walls.
We use now the well known concept of “short-circuited exci-
tation fields” [19], defined as the fields created by
the impressed sources in the region where they exist (here )
but with the aperture opening covered by the conducting sur-
face. With the introduction of the scattered fields
existing in each region, the boundary conditions imposing the
continuity of the tangential components of the total magnetic
field across the two interfaces are written as
(2)
where, to keep the notation simple, we have avoided to show the
cross product with the normal unit vector , but it is understood
from now on that we only consider the tangential compo-
nents of the fields.
The transposition of these boundary conditions into integral
equations should be straightforward. Invoking linearity and
superposition, we can write the scattered fields due to any
induced or equivalent source as a convolution of the source
with the pertinent dyadic Green’s functions over the source’s
domain of existence . For instance, the magnetic field of a
magnetic current is
(3)
where we have introduced the convolution notation . To de-
velop the first boundary condition in (2), we remark that the scat-
tered magnetic field in the region is that created by ,
while in region the fields are due to and to
. When we consider the fields at the interface, the
three above mentioned currents acts through convolution with,
respectively, the three Green’s functions
MOSIG: SCATTERING BY ARBITRARILY-SHAPED SLOTS IN THICK CONDUCTING SCREENS 2111

that we abridge as, respectively, , and . These

Green’s functions are also “short-circuited,” i.e., they are the
Green’s functions associated to the respective regions when they
are isolated (decoupled) from each other by conducting zero
thickness walls placed in the thick aperture surfaces.
Applying an identical reasoning to the second boundary
condition, we can now translate directly the set (2) into the
following system of two coupled integral equations:

(4)

The system of equations (4) for the unknowns and

fully defines the thick slot problem. Although in theory they
can be used for the general problem of Fig. 1, the calculation
of Green’s functions would be too much involved. Hence, we
will restrict from now on our analysis to the simpler geometries
of the kind illustrated in Fig. 2(a), leaving the general problem
to numerically intensive techniques like finite elements or finite
differences.

III. CAVITY GREEN’S FUNCTIONS AND THE

ZERO THICKNESS SLOT
If we start from the very beginning considering a zero thick-
ness slot, the cavity region shrinks to a null volume and we
only need to consider two regions and separated by an
interface in whose sides and we define equivalent surface
magnetic currents and [Fig. 2(b)]. The single integral
Fig. 3. (a) Four cavity Green’s functions, (b) a generic situation, and (c) its
equation is now solution by images.

(5)
Therefore, if we solve the system of (4) associated to the thick
slot problem in the limiting case of a vanishing slot thickness
, we should end up with the result ,
which is the solution of the integral equation (5). Unfortunately,
this is not the case in practice, as the cavity Green’s functions
show a divergent behavior when the cavity thickness vanishes.
This fact deserves further consideration and will be investigated
now.
The four cavity Green’s functions correspond to the
four interactions shown in Fig. 3(a). Electromagnetic reciprocity
ensures that we must have
(6)
where the index reminds us that this Green’s functions
correspond to a “mutual” interaction between the two parallel
surfaces bounding the slot and hence the cavity. With this
simplified notation, the set of coupled integral equations (4)
can be cast into a convenient matricial form
(7)
where electromagnetic reciprocity ensures the symmetry of the
Green’s functions matrix. A further simplification can be used
if the interior of the cavity is homogeneous or it is symmetri-
cally filled with dielectric media, because then we would have
by symmetry
(8)
where the index reminds us that this Green’s functions corre-
spond to a “self” interaction of one of the surfaces bounding the
slot and hence the cavity with itself.
In all cases, the four cavity Green’s functions corre-
spond all to particular cases of the situation depicted in Fig. 3(b).
Formally, we can solve this problem by transforming the cavity
into an infinite waveguide. This is achieved by taking images
of the source respect to both the lower and upper cavity walls
as in Fig. 3(c). But in this situation, it is well-known that all
the images will keep the sign of the original magnetic source.
Therefore, all the Green’s functions (which are of the
HM-type) will diverge in the limiting case, as all the images co-
alesce into a single source of infinite intensity.
This heuristic conclusion will be confirmed later on by a rig-
orous analytic development in a more specific geometry. At this
time, let us simply point out the evident consequence: in its
current formulation (7), the thick aperture problem cannot be
solved numerically in the limiting case of a zero thickness slot,
since all the elements in the Green’s function matrix would di-
verge. Indeed, numerical difficulties should be expected when
2112 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
trying to solve (7) for small values of the thickness , and alter-
nate forms must be investigated to provide a smooth transition
to the zero-thickness case.
IV. AN ALGEBRAIC INTERLUDE
To throw out some extra light in the problems revealed in the
previous section, let us consider the algebraic counterpart of the
integral equation system (7), namely the linear system
(9)
where the coefficients play the role of the potentially di-
verging cavity Green’s functions and . The formal
solution of this system is
(10)
Now, we can easily see that if under a certain condition
all the coefficients diverge but in such a way that the fol-
lowing conditions are satisfied:
(11)
then we obtain the limit solution
(12)
which is indeed the solution of the algebraic equation equiva-
lent to the zero-thickness slot integral equation (5). The conclu-
sion is that the thick slot equation (7) contains as a particular
case the zero-thickness slot solution, if the cavity Green’s func-
tions fulfill conditions equivalent to (11). These conditions will
be checked in a coming section. But even with these conditions
satisfied, the presence of the convolution operator prevents the
use of the equation (7) in situations approaching the zero thick-
ness case and an improved formulation of the thick slot problem
must be sought after. To get some hints about what must be done,
let us progress a further step in the simplification of our problem
and move from algebra to arithmetic by introducing a set of nu-
merical values for the coefficients, namely
(13)
which reproduce quite faithfully the numerical conditions
arising in a typical thin-slot situation. The corresponding linear
system is
(14)
A close look to this system with engineer eyes reveals two very
similar equations (the information about the field values in both
sides of the slot). Therefore, the logical thought is to replace the
original equations by their sum and difference
(15)
We also have two close unknowns (the values of the mag-
netic currents in both sides of the slot). So, the meaningful
quantities are their average and their deviation from average.
Therefore, we replace also the unknowns by their half-sum and
half-difference
(16)
with the result
(17)
We have here finally uncovered the clue for a successful at-
tack to problem. The combination in the first equation
of (17) includes both a small coefficient and a small unknown
and hence can be safely neglected. Therefore by starting with
, the first equation provides directly the initial guess
for the average value . This is already an excellent esti-
mation of the true solutions of the original system (14), namely
. If we need a better estimation pro-
viding different values for the unknowns, we just replace
in the second equation and obtain directly , and
therefore and . If still better accu-
racy is needed, the cyclic iteration can be pursued indefinitely.
Now, coming back to formal algebra, let us symbolize our linear
system (14) by the matrix equation
(18)
It is easy to show that replacing the original individual equations
by their sum and difference, is equivalent to premultiplication by
a matrix and the linear system (15) corresponds to the matrix
equation
(19)
By the same token, replacing the original unknowns by their
half-sum and half-difference can be also related to this matrix
since
(20)
and therefore the final transformed problem (17), easily
amenable to an iterative solution, is formally given by
(21)
But is just a scaled version of the unitary 45 rotation matrix
(22)
MOSIG: SCATTERING BY ARBITRARILY-SHAPED SLOTS IN THICK CONDUCTING SCREENS 2113

Hence, we conclude that the potentially useful transformation of gent term is . Therefore, the second line in (26) automati-
our linear system is just achieved by pre- and post-multiplying cally gives the result , and the first line reduces to the
by a 45 rotation matrix. zero-thickness slot equation.
Hence, we can set up the following procedure for thin slots:
V. THICK SLOT INTEGRAL EQUATIONS AND Step 1) assume
ROTATION MATRICES Step 2) solve a modified zero-thickness slot equation to ob-
Let us apply to our thick slot matrix integral equation (7) the tain a first estimate of
pre- and post-multiplications by the rotation matrix as indi-
cated in (21). The final result is given in (23), at the bottom of (27)
the page, where we have introduced the “average” and “devia-
tion” values of the magnetic currents in the slot Step 3) estimate by solving the equation

(24)

The matrix equation (23) looks much more complicated than the
original one (7) and it could be feared that we have worsened
our chances. But, as in the numerical example of the previous
section, the first line in the system (23) is the clue, since none
of its elements will diverge when the slot thickness vanishes,
if conditions (11) are fulfilled. We can therefore start with the
assumption and solve the first equation in the system
(23) to obtain a first estimation of . It is remarkable indeed
that if media and in both sides of the slot are identical (for
instance, free space), then we have and then the
first equation in (23) becomes uncoupled, directly providing the
exact value of . tegral equation (5), but with the Green’s function kernel cor-
To clarify these ideas, let us fully develop the proposed proce-
dure in the case of a slot filled by an homogeneous or symmet-
rically disposed dielectric medium, and therefore satisfying the
symmetry condition (8). In this case, the notation can be greatly
simplified by introducing the combinations
(25)
that we can call the “sigma” and “delta” cavity Green’s func-
tions ( and ).
For a vanishing thickness slot, the sigma Green’s function will
diverge but the delta one will vanish. With this notation, it is a
straightforward matter to show that the matrix equation (23) is
equivalent to
Step 4) improve, if necessary, the estimation of by
solving
Step 5) go to Step 3).
It is worth mentioning that all the above steps are single un-
coupled integral equations. In most cases, stopping after the
Step 2) will be enough to predict the first order deviation from
the zero-thickness case introduced by a reasonable slot thick-
ness. In fact, Step 2) is identical to the zero-thickness slot in-
rected by an additive term . Therefore, if the “delta” cavity
Green’s functions could be approximated by an easily com-
putable expression, the Step 2) would provide first corrections
for thick slots with no increase in the computational complexity.
The next section proposes some reasonable expressions for the
“delta” Green’s function.
VI. APPROXIMATIONS FOR DELTA AND
SIGMA GREEN’S FUNCTIONS
First of all we move from fields to potentials and introduce
the convenient formalism of the “Mixed Potential Integral Equa-
tion” [20], [21]. Until now, all the Green’s functions referred
in previous section are of the HM-type (magnetic field due to
a magnetic current). Therefore any generic convolution in the
previous sections can be expanded in terms of potentials

(28)
(26)
where and are the vector and scalar potentials associated
This is a great improvement with respect to the original matrix with transverse magnetic currents and is the equivalent
equation (7)! When the slot thickness vanishes, the only diver- magnetic charge.

(23)
2114 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004

As it is well known, in free space we have for the mixed po-

tential Green’s functions the values

(29)

with the free space scalar Green’s function given by

(30) Fig. 4. Approximating arbitrarily shaped cylindrical cavities by a parallel plate

waveguide.

The question is how to compute these quantities in the cavity

geometry. The problem is not trivial and will depend obviously
on the cavity’s shape and on the medium filling it. In general,
for arbitrary shaped slots, the answer can be obtained only by
intensive numerical procedures. But we may try to introduce a
powerful approximation, which should lead to reasonable re-
sults if the slot’s transverse dimensions aren’t smaller than the
slot thickness: we just neglect the lateral conducting walls of
the cavity. Although the validity of this assumption can only
be judged a posteriori, its appeal is enormous. First, the cavity
delta and sigma Green’s functions will have “universal” expres-
sions independent of the slot/cavity shape. And secondly, these
expressions will be reasonably simple.
Fig. 4 shows the parallel plate waveguide configuration which
remains when we neglect the lateral walls. In this case, relations
(29) are still valid, but the scalar Green’s function is no longer
the free-space one (30). Its calculation is easily performed in
the spectral domain [20]. For a source located on the lower wall
we get the result Fig. 5. Modulus of the normalized delta Green’s function for several slot
thicknesses: t = =1000 (dashed line), t = =100 (dotted line), and
t = =10 (dash-dotted line). The straight solid line is the free space Green’s
function.

(31) where is the radial source-observer distance. A series expan-

A partial check of the above result is provided by the fact that
if we let go to infinity (the parallel plate waveguide reduces
to its lower plate), we obtain , which is
the expected result, twice the free space value. Keeping now
finite and particularizing to the values and , we get
the potential versions of our cavity “self” and “mutual” Green’s
functions (6), (8) and making sums and differences with them
we get the potential versions of our cavity “sigma” and “delta”
Green’s functions (25)
(32)
We have here a clear confirmation of our theoretical predictions.
While the “self,” “mutual,” and “sigma” cavity Green’s func-
tions diverge for a vanishing slot thickness , the “delta”
function goes to zero. Moreover, it is straightforward to show
that these Green’s functions fulfill the conditions equivalent to
(11). Moving from the spectral domain to the space domain, we
can write the “delta” potential Green’s function as a Sommer-
feld integral
(33)
sion of the hyperbolic tangent in the above equation will result in
a series expression for the delta Green’s function. The amazing
result is that the delta Green’s function can be expressed as an
alternating-sign infinite series identical to the scalar potential
of an electric point charge when both source and observer are in
the mid-plane of the parallel plate waveguide. To obtain specific
information about the near field (quasistatic) behavior, we look
at the asymptotical spectral behavior for . Since in this
case the hyperbolic tangent becomes unity, the delta Green’s
function corresponds in the near field to twice the free space
Green’s function . This behavior is confirmed by the numer-
ical evaluation of the Sommerfeld integral (33) using well tested
algorithms [22], [23].
Fig. 5 shows the normalized potential delta Green’s function
for three slot thicknesses of 0.001, 0.01, and 0.1 free
space wavelengths. It is evident at a glance how in the near field
behaves as , since the diagonal line in Fig. 5 is
. As a rule of thumb, we could infer from Fig. 5 that
the delta Green’s functions remain close to twice the free space
Green’s function while the radial distance is smaller than the
slot thickness (say ). But for greater radial distances,
the values of the delta Green’s function decay very fast and it
should be possible to neglect it.
To put these results in perspective, let us consider a slot
in a thick conducting screen separating two semi-infinite free
MOSIG: SCATTERING BY ARBITRARILY-SHAPED SLOTS IN THICK CONDUCTING SCREENS 2115

2
Fig. 6. Thick   slot of thickness  =10 illuminated by normally incident
plane wave having its electric field along the y -coordinate.

spaces. The equation to be solved is (27) or rather its mixed

potential MPIE form. Hence, applying (28) to (27) we will Fig. 7. Normalized x-component of magnetic current along the line y =  =2
over a square  2  aperture of thickness  =10. Normal incidence plane
get for instance a combination for  5 3
wave illumination. —M ; —M ; —M ; —zero-thickness slot. Solid
the scalar potential. We can easily demonstrate using image line—real part, dashed line—imaginary part.
theory that the potential Green’s functions and ,
associated with the seminfinite media, are both given by twice
the free space Green’s function . Therefore,
is just . But the correction term also behaves in the
near field as and therefore the total kernel is expected to
have a quasistatic behavior of type . It could be objected
that an additive “correction” identical to the corrected term
shouldn’t be called a correction, being much more than this.
But this is only the limiting near-field situation, when the
source-observer distance is smaller than the slot thickness. For
larger radial distances, the delta Green’s function decays very
fast (Fig. 5) and so does its “correcting” effect.

VII. PRELIMINARY RESULTS

To check the validity of our assumptions and of our proposed

equations, several very simple numerical experiments have been
performed on a rather thick square slot (transverse dimensions
and thickness ) (Fig. 6). The slot has been made
in a screen separating two semiinfinite free space regions and it
is excited with a normally incident plane wave having its elec-
tric field along the -coordinate. The main and more interesting
component of the magnetic current is then along . We have
considered this component along the two medians of the square
slot, a “longitudinal” one and the transverse one
(Fig. 6). The problem has been first solved with a
rigorous treatment, where the set of equations (4) is used, to-
gether with exact expressions for the Green’s functions in the
cavity. This “full wave cavity” model gives then the most accu-
rate expressions for the currents and in both sides of the
slot, represented by circles and squares in Figs. 7 and 8. They
show the expected behavior from a slot. But it must
be pointed out that the full wave cavity approach is a very time
consuming method, mainly due to the bad convergence of cavity
Green’s functions and their lack of translational symmetry. And
the situation will be much worse, not to say untractable, for an
arbitrarily shaped slot. Even disregarding the cavity problem,
Fig. 8. Normalized x-component of magnetic current along the line x =  =2
over a square  2  aperture of thickness  =10. Normal incidence plane
 5 3
wave illumination. —M ; —M ; —M ; —zero-thickness slot. Solid
line—real part, dashed line—imaginary part.
we should expect an important slowdown with respect to the
zero thickness case, since we have twice more unknowns.
The snag with the zero-thickness formulation (5) is that it
gives unsatisfactory results, since we get a unique current
(stars in Figs. 7–8) that only matches the true values in one side
of the aperture (in this case, the excitation side). Using our cor-
rected equation (27), we obtain a first estimation for , which
happens to be an almost perfect average value (diamonds in
Figs. 7 and 8). This clearly indicates that the iterative process
of Section V will converge very quickly.
Results of these iterations will be reported in a coming paper.
Here, we will rather explore how good are the results obtained
with (27), that doesn’t introduce any numerical overload with
respect to the zero thickness case. To this end, we have con-
sidered the same square slot, thick, excited this
2116
Fig. 9. Radiation pattern in E -plane. Full-wave cavity approach (solid line), “Delta approach” (dashed line), Zero-thickness approximation (dash-dotted line).
Square  2  aperture of  =10 thickness. Plane wave impinging from bottom with 45 incidence and H -field polarized in x-direction.
time with a plane wave incident at an angle of 45 . Fig. 9 shows
the scattered field radiation pattern obtained with the rigorous
“full-wave cavity model,” assuming a zero-thickness slot and
with our “delta approach.” Even without iterations, the delta
approach already provides a much better result than the zero-
thickness approach and with no increase in computational com-
plexity. Moreover, accuracy can be increased if needed. This
would be essential when looking for precise predictions of near
field quantities.
VIII. CONCLUSION
In this paper, we present a rigorous integral equation for-
mulation of the thick aperture problem providing a smooth
transition to the zero-thickness case, inspired by an analogy
with an algebraic problem. The full usefulness of the new
formulation is only evident if the cavity Green’s functions can
be easily calculated or at least efficiently approximated. In this
paper, we propose to use as starting point the zero-thickness
case. Consequently, a logical approximation is to neglect the
internal lateral walls of the slot and to assume that the equiv-
alent cavity is a parallel plate waveguide. The final result is a
new integral equation whose unknown is the average value of
the magnetic currents in both sides of the thick slot. And this
new equation has exactly the same degree of complexity as
the zero thickness slot equation, since the only modification
is the addition of a correcting “delta” term for the Green’s
functions, that can be analytically approximated and that dis-
appears naturally in the zero-thickness limiting case.
It is hard to obtain an a priori estimate of the accuracy of this
approximate technique. It should logically work better for large
shallow slots and deteriorate as the slot thickness increases. But
the analysis of rather electrically thick slots should still lead
to reasonable results if the slot’s transverse dimensions remain
large compared with its thickness. In any case, thicknesses of
the order of a tenth of wavelength should not pose any real
challenge as the results in this paper demonstrate for the scat-
tered field. If the knowledge of the average value of the cur-
rents is not sufficient, the technique can always be improved by
looping across an iterative process, which provides improved
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
values of the half-difference and half-sum of the magnetic cur-
rents in both sides of the slots. Also, other approximations of
the cavity Green’s functions could be explored, like the use of
images respect to the lateral walls or a modal waveguide expan-
sion, that should be excellent for very deep and narrow slots.
The formulation presented is this paper is very flexible
and combines naturally well with the integral equation based
models currently used for cavity backed antennas, thick irises
in waveguide filters, slot-fed patches and thick coplanar lines.
These configurations and many related ones are of paramount
relevance in innovative and emerging applications, where con-
ducting wall thickness cannot be any more neglected, because
of the technology (self-supporting metallic plates rather than
printed sheets), the frequency (mm- and sub mm-waves) or
both. An intensive numerical exploration of these geometries,
including predictions of very sensitive near-field quantities like
multiport scattering parameters, should provide a more detailed
appraisal of the scope of this theory and of its accuracy.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Thanks are given to Dr. E. Suter, McKinsey Consultants,
Geneva, Switzerland, and to Mr. I. Stevanović, LEMA-EPFL,
Switzerland, for helpful discussions and numerical checking of
the ideas developed in this paper.
REFERENCES
[1] L. Rayleigh, “On the incidence of aerial and electric waves upon small
obstacles in the form of ellipsoids or elliptic cylinders, and on the
passage of electric waves through a circular aperture in a conducting
screen,” Phil. Mag., vol. 44, pp. 28–52, July 1897.
[2] H. A. Bethe, “Theory of diffraction by small holes,” Phys. Rev., vol. 66,
pp. 163–182, Oct. 1944.
[3] H. Levine and J. Schwinger, “On the theory of difraction by an aperture
in an infinite plane screen I,” Phys. Rev., vol. 74, pp. 958–974, 1948.
[4] , “On the theory of difraction by an aperture in an infinite plane
screen II,” Phys. Rev., vol. 75, pp. 1423–1432, 1949.
[5] Y. Rahmat-Samii and R. Mittra, “Electromagnetic coupling through
small apertures in a conducting screen,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Prop-
agat., vol. AP-25, pp. 180–187, Mar. 1977.
[6] J. B. Keller, “Geometrical theory of diffraction,” J. Appl. Phys., vol. 28,
pp. 426–444, 1962.
[7] R. Mittra, Y. Rahmat-Samii, and W. Ko, “Spectral theory of diffraction,”
Appl. Phys., vol. 10, pp. 1–13, 1976.
MOSIG: SCATTERING BY ARBITRARILY-SHAPED SLOTS IN THICK CONDUCTING SCREENS
[8] C. T. Tai, Generalized Vector and Dyadic Analysis. New York: IEEE
Press, 1992.
[9] C. M. Butler, Y. Rahmat-Samii, and R. Mittra, “Electromagnetic pene-
tration through apertures in conducting surfaces,” IEEE Trans. Antennas
Propagat., vol. AP-26, pp. 82–93, Jan. 1978.
[10] C. Balanis, Advanced Engineering Electromagnetics. New York:
Wiley, 1989.
[11] S. C. Kashyap and M. A. K. Hamid, “Diffraction characteristics of a
slit in a thick conducting screen,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol.
AP-19, pp. 499–507, July 1971.
[12] F. L. Neerhoff and G. Mur, “Diffraction of a plane electromagnetic wave
by a slit in a thick screen placed between two different media,” Appl. Sci.
Res., vol. 28, pp. 73–88, July 1973.
[13] D. T. Auckland and R. F. Harrington, “A nonmodal formulation for elec-
tromagnetic transmission through a filled slot of arbitrary cross-section
in a thick conducting screen,” IEEE Trans. Microwave Theory Tech., vol.
MTT-28, pp. 548–555, June 1980.
[14] J. Jin and J. Volakis, “TM scattering by an inhomogeneously filled aper-
ture in a thick conducting plane,” in Proc. Inst. Elect. Eng., vol. 137,
June 1990, pp. 153–159.
[15] S. Gedney and R. Mittra, “Electromagnetic transmission through inho-
mogeneously filled slots in a thick conducting plane—Arbitrary inci-
dence,” IEEE Trans. Electromagn. Compat., vol. 34, pp. 404–415, Nov.
1992.
[16] D. M. Pozar, “A microstrip antenna aperture coupled to a microstrip
line,” Electron. Lett., vol. 21, pp. 49–50, 1985.
[17] P. Haddad and D. Pozar, “Characterization of aperture coupled mi-
crostrip patch antenna with thick ground plane,” Electron. Lett., vol. 30,
pp. 1106–1107, July 1994.
[18] A. Roberts, “Electromagnetic theory of diffraction by a circular aperture
in a thick, perfectly conducting screen,” J. Opt. Soc. Amer. A, Opt. Image
Sci., vol. 4, pp. 1970–1983, Oct. 1987.
[19] J. Van Bladel, Electromagnetic Fields. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964.
[20] J. R. Mosig, “Integral equation technique,” in Numerical Techniques for
Microwave and Milimeter Wave Passive Structures. New York: Wiley,
1989, ch. 3.
2117
[21] K. Michalski and J. R. Mosig, “Multilayered media Green’s functions in
integral equation formulations,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol.
45, pp. 508–519, Mar. 1997.
[22] J. R. Mosig, R. C. Hall, and F. E. Gardiol, “Numerical analysis of mi-
crostrip patch antennas,” in Handbook of Microstrip Antennas, London,
U.K.: Peregrinus, 1989, ch. 8.
[23] K. Michalski, “Extrapolation methods for sommerfeld integral tails,”
IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 46, pp. 1405–1418, Oct. 1998.
Juan R. Mosig (S’76–M’87–SM’94–F’99) was
born in Cadiz, Spain. He received the Electrical
Engineer degree in 1973 from the Universidad
Politecnica de Madrid, Spain. In 1976, he joined
the Laboratory of Electromagnetics and Acoustics
(LEMA), Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
(EPFL), Switzerland, from which he obtained the
Ph.D. degree in 1983.
Since 1991, he has been a Professor at EPFL and
since 2000, the Head of the EPFL Laboratory of Elec-
tromagnetics and Acoustics. In 1984, he was a Vis-
iting Research Associate at Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY.
He has also held scientific appointments at universities of Rennes (France), Nice
(France), Technical University of Danemark and the University of Colorado at
Boulder. He is the author of four chapters in books on microstrip antennas and
circuits and more than 100 reviewed papers. He is co-organizer and lecturer of
yearly short courses in numerical electromagnetics (Europe and USA). He is
the Chairman of a European COST project on antennas and is responsible for
several research projects for the European Space Agency. His research interests
include electromagnetic theory, numerical methods and planar antennas.
Dr. Mosig is a Member of the Swiss Federal Commission for Space
Applications.
2118 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
Double Higher Order Method of Moments for Surface
Integral Equation Modeling of Metallic and Dielectric
Antennas and Scatterers
Miroslav Djordjević, Member, IEEE, and Branislav M. Notaroš, Senior Member, IEEE
Abstract—A novel double higher order Galerkin-type method of
moments based on higher order geometrical modeling and higher
order current modeling is proposed for surface integral equation
analysis of combined metallic and dielectric antennas and scat-
terers of arbitrary shapes. The technique employs generalized
curvilinear quadrilaterals of arbitrary geometrical orders for
the approximation of geometry (metallic and dielectric surfaces)
and hierarchical divergence-conforming polynomial vector basis
functions of arbitrary orders for the approximation of electric
and magnetic surface currents within the elements. The geomet-
rical orders and current-approximation orders of the elements
are entirely independent from each other, and can be combined
independently for the best overall performance of the method in
different applications. The results obtained by the higher order
technique are validated against the analytical solutions and the
numerical results obtained by low-order moment-method tech-
niques from literature. The examples show excellent accuracy,
flexibility, and efficiency of the new technique at modeling of both
current variation and curvature, and demonstrate advantages of
large-domain models using curved quadrilaterals of high geomet-
rical orders with basis functions of high current-approximation
orders over commonly used small-domain models and low-order
techniques. The reduction in the number of unknowns is by an
order of magnitude when compared to low-order solutions.
Index Terms—Electromagnetic analysis, electromagnetic scat-
tering, higher order modeling, integral equations, method of
moments (MoM).
I. INTRODUCTION
A NTENNAS involved in modern wireless systems are
often composed of metallic and dielectric parts of ar-
bitrary shapes and with arbitrary curvature. There is a clear
need for advanced analysis and design tools for predicting the
performance and optimizing the parameters of such antennas
prior to costly prototype development. These tools have to
be based on general computational electromagnetic methods
for modeling of arbitrary three-dimensional (3-D) combined
metallic and dielectric structures. In addition, antenna designers
demand that the simulation tools be accurate, fast, reliable, and
run on relatively small computing platforms, such as standard
desktop PCs.
One of the most general approaches to the analysis of metallic
and dielectric structures is the surface integral equation (SIE)
Manuscript received February 14, 2003; revised August 4, 2003. This work
was supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant ECS-0115756.
The authors are with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engi-
neering, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, Dartmouth, MA 02747-2300
USA (e-mail: miroslav@ieee.org; bnotaros@umassd.edu).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2004.833175
0018-926X/04$20.00 © 2004 IEEE
approach, where both electric and magnetic surface currents
are introduced over boundary surfaces between homogeneous
parts of the structure, and surface integral equations based
on boundary conditions for both electric and magnetic field
intensity vectors are solved with current densities as unknowns.
The SIEs are discretized by the method of moments (MoM)
[1], which gives rise to MoM-SIE modeling techniques [2]–[4].
Overall, the MoM-SIE method is an extremely powerful and
versatile numerical methodology for electromagnetic-field
simulation in antenna and scattering applications that involve
perfectly conducting and penetrable (dielectric and linear
magnetic) materials.
However, practically all the existing 3-D MoM-SIE simu-
lation tools for metallic/dielectric structures are low-order or
small-domain (subdomain) techniques—the structure is mod-
eled by surface geometrical elements (boundary elements) that
are electrically very small and the electric and magnetic currents
over the elements are approximated by low-order (zeroth-order
and first-order) basis functions. More precisely, the boundary
elements (patches) are on the order of in each dimension,
being the wavelength in the medium. This results in a very
large number of unknowns (unknown current-distribution coef-
ficients) needed to obtain results of satisfactory accuracy, with
all the associated problems and enormous requirements in com-
putational resources. In addition, commonly used boundary ele-
ments are in the form of flat triangular and quadrilateral patches,
and thus they do not provide enough flexibility and efficiency in
modeling of structures with pronounced curvature.
An alternative which can greatly reduce the number of un-
knowns for a given problem and enhance further the accuracy
and efficiency of the MoM-SIE analysis in antenna/scattering
applications is the higher order or large-domain computational
approach. According to this approach, a structure is approxi-
mated by a number of as large as possible geometrical elements,
and the approximation of current components within individual
elements is in the form of a single (two-fold) functional series
of sufficiently high order. Only relatively recently the computa-
tional electromagnetics (CEM) community has started to exten-
sively investigate and employ higher order surface and volume
elements and higher order basis functions in the frame of MoM,
including both the SIE formulation [5]–[9] and volume integral
equation (VIE) formulation [10]–[15], and the finite element
method (FEM) [6], [16]–[20].
For MoM-SIE modeling of general structures that may pos-
sess arbitrary curvature, it is essential to have both higher order
geometrical flexibility for curvature modeling and higher order
DJORDJEVIĆ AND NOTAROŠ: DOUBLE HIGHER ORDER MoM FOR SIE MODELING
current-approximation flexibility for current modeling in the
same method. In other words, if higher order (large-domain)
basis functions for currents are used on flat patches, many small
patches may be required for the geometrical precision of the
model, and then higher order basis functions actually reduce
to low-order functions (on small patches). On the other hand,
geometrical flexibility of curved patches can be fully exploited
only if they can be made electrically large, which implies the
use of higher order current expansions within the elements as
well. Finally, in order to make the modeling of realistic struc-
tures optimal, it is convenient to have elements of different or-
ders and sizes combined together in the same model. If all of
these requirements are to be satisfied, implementation of hier-
archical-type higher order polynomial basis functions for the
approximation of electric and magnetic surface currents over
curved boundary elements seems to be the right choice.
This paper proposes a novel higher order (large-domain)
PC-oriented Galerkin-type MoM-SIE technique for 3-D elec-
tromagnetics based on higher order geometrical modeling and
higher order current modeling, which we refer to as a double
higher order method. The surface elements proposed for the ap-
proximation of geometry (metallic and dielectric surfaces) are
generalized curvilinear quadrilaterals of arbitrary geometrical
orders. The basis functions proposed for the approximation of
currents within the elements are hierarchical divergence-con-
forming polynomial vector basis functions of arbitrary orders.
The proposed technique represents a generalization of the
MoM-SIE technique [9], where bilinear quadrilateral surface
elements (boundary elements of the first geometrical order)
are used with higher order polynomial current expansions.
The new method enables excellent curvature modeling (e.g.,
a sphere is practically perfectly modeled by only six curved
quadrilateral boundary elements of the fourth geometrical
order) and excellent current-distribution modeling (e.g., using
the eighth-order polynomial current-approximation in the two
parametric coordinates on a quadrilateral boundary element).
This enables using large curved MoM quadrilaterals that are on
the order of (e.g., ) in each dimension as building
blocks for modeling of the electromagnetic structure (i.e.,
the boundary elements can be by two orders of magnitude
larger in area than traditional low-order boundary elements).
Element orders in the model, however, can also be low, so that
the lower order modeling approach is actually included in the
higher order modeling. The geometrical orders and current-ap-
proximation orders of the elements are entirely independent
from each other, and the two sets of parameters of the double
higher order model can be combined independently for the best
overall performance of the method. Because the proposed basis
functions are hierarchical, a whole spectrum of element sizes
with the corresponding current-approximation orders can be
used at the same time in a single simulation model of a com-
plex structure. Additionally, each individual element can have
drastically different edge lengths, enabling a whole range of
“regular” and “irregular” element shapes (e.g., square-shaped,
rectangular, strip-like, trapezoidal, triangle-like, etc.) to be
used in a simulation model as well. Some preliminary results
2119
of double-higher order MoM modeling of purely metallic
structures are presented in [21].
This paper is organized as follows. Section II presents the
mathematical development of the proposed boundary elements
and describes numerical components of the new double higher
order MoM-SIE technique. This includes the derivation of sur-
face integral equations for electric and magnetic surface current
density vectors as unknown quantities, development of general-
ized Galerkin impedances (the system matrix elements) for arbi-
trary boundary elements (i.e., for any choice of surface elements
for geometrical modeling and any choice of divergence-con-
forming basis functions for current modeling), generation of
generalized curvilinear quadrilateral elements for higher order
modeling of geometry, implementation of hierarchical polyno-
mial vector basis functions for higher order modeling of currents
over the quadrilaterals, and evaluation of generalized Galerkin
impedances for the new proposed double higher order quadri-
lateral elements. In Section III, the accuracy, convergence, and
efficiency of the new MoM-SIE technique are evaluated and
discussed in several characteristic examples. The results ob-
tained by the higher order MoM are compared with the an-
alytical solutions and the numerical results obtained by low-
order MoM techniques from literature. Numerical examples in-
clude a dihedral corner reflector, a metallic spherical scatterer
(analyzed using six different higher order models), a dielectric
spherical scatterer (analyzed using five different higher order
models), and a circular cylinder of finite length with attached
wire monopoles. The examples show excellent flexibility and
efficiency of the new technique at modeling of both current
variation and curvature, and demonstrate its advantages over
low-order MoM techniques.
II. NOVEL DOUBLE HIGHER ORDER MOM FOR
ELECTROMAGNETIC MODELING
A. Surface Integral Equation Formulation
Consider an electromagnetic system consisting of arbitrarily
shaped metallic and dielectric bodies. Let the system be excited
by a time-harmonic electromagnetic field of complex field-in-
tensities and , and angular frequency . This field may
be a combination of incident plane waves or the impressed field
of one or more concentrated generators. According to the sur-
face equivalence principle (generalized Huygens’ principle), we
can break the entire system into subsystems, each representing
one of the dielectric regions (domains), together with the be-
longing metallic surfaces, with the remaining space being filled
with the same medium. One of the domains is the external space
surrounding the structure. The scattered electric and magnetic
fields, and , in each domain can be expressed in terms of
the equivalent (artificial) surface electric current, of density ,
and equivalent (artificial) surface magnetic currents, of density
, which are placed on the boundary surface of the domain,
with the objective to produce a zero total field in the surrounding
space. On the metallic surfaces, only the surface electric currents
exist (these are actual currents) and .
2120 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004

The boundary conditions for the tangential components of the B. Generalized Galerkin Impedances for Arbitrary Surface
total (incident plus scattered) electric and magnetic field vectors Elements
on the boundary surface between any two adjacent dielectric Assume first that all the surfaces (metallic and dielectric)
domains (domains 1 and 2) yield in the system are approximated by a number of arbitrary sur-
face elements. Let us approximate the surface electric and mag-
netic current density vectors, and , over every element
(1) in the model by a convenient set of basis functions with un-
known complex current-distribution coefficients. In order to de-
(2) termine these coefficients, the EFIE/MFIE system in (1)–(3) is
tested by means of the Galerkin method, i.e., using the same
where we assume that the incident (impressed) field is present functions used for current expansion. The four types of general-
only in domain 1. On the conducting bodies, the boundary con- ized Galerkin impedances (the system matrix elements) corre-
ditions (1) and (2) reduce to only, so for metallic sponding to the four combinations of electric- and magnetic-cur-
surfaces in domain 1 we have rent testing functions and defined on the th surface
element and the electric- and magnetic-current basis func-
(3) tions and defined on the th element in the model are
given by
The scattered electric field in the region of complex permit-
tivity and complex permeability is expressed in terms of the (15)
electric and magnetic current densities as follows:
(4)
(16)
(5)
(6)
(17)
while the scattered magnetic field is obtained as
(7) (18)
(8)
(9) The generalized voltages (the excitation column-matrix ele-
ments) are evaluated as
In the above expressions, and are the magnetic and elec-
tric vector potentials, and and are the electric and magnetic (19)
scalar potentials, respectively. The potentials are given by

(10) (20)

(11) Substituting (5) into (15), expanding , and ap-

plying the surface divergence theorem leads to the following ex-
pressions for electric/electric Galerkin impedances:
(12)

(13)

where is the boundary surface of the considered domain, and

the Green’s function for the unbounded homogeneous medium
of parameters and (21)

(14)
being the propagation coefficient in the medium and the
distance of the field point from the source point.
Having in mind the integral expressions for fields and in
(4)–13, (1)–(3) represent a set of coupled electric/magnetic field
integral equations (EFIE/MFIE) for and as unknowns,
which can be discretized and solved using the MoM.
where is the outward normal to the boundary contour
of the surface . When the divergence-conforming current ex-
pansion on boundary elements is used, the last term in (21) is
identically equal to zero, because the normal components of
testing functions are either zero at the element edges or the
two contributions of the elements sharing an edge exactly cancel
out in the final expressions for generalized impedances. Finally,
DJORDJEVIĆ AND NOTAROŠ: DOUBLE HIGHER ORDER MoM FOR SIE MODELING
expressing the potentials in (21) in terms of the electric-current
basis function over the th surface element , we obtain
(22)
Similarly, starting with (6) and (11), expanding ,
and performing a cyclic permutation of the scalar triple product,
the expression for electric/magnetic generalized impedances in
(16) can be transformed to read
(23)
By duality, the magnetic/electric and magnetic/magnetic gen-
eralized Galerkin impedances in (17) and (18) have the same re-
spective forms as those in (23) and (22), and are given by
(24)
(25)
Equations (22)–(25) provide general expressions for MoM
generalized impedances for solving the EFIE/MFIE in (1)–(3)
using any type of surface discretization and any adopted set
of divergence-conforming basis functions in the context of the
Galerkin method. In what follows, we shall restrict our attention
to the specific higher order MoM technique proposed for anal-
ysis of electromagnetic radiation and scattering in this paper.
C. Higher Order Geometrical Modeling
As basic building blocks for geometrical modeling of
3-D electromagnetic structures of arbitrary shape and mate-
rial composition, we propose generalized curved parametric
quadrilaterals of higher (theoretically arbitrary) geometrical
orders (Fig. 1). A generalized quadrilateral is determined by
points (interpolation nodes) arbitrarily
positioned in space, where and ( , ) are
geometrical orders of the element along - and - parametric
coordinates, respectively (note that the orders do not need to be
2121
Fig. 1. Generalized parametric quadrilateral of geometrical orders K and
K (K ;K  1). M = (K + 1)(K + 1) is the total number of
interpolation points.
the same within an element). The quadrilateral can be described
analytically as
(26)
where are the position vectors of the interpo-
lation nodes, are Lagrange-type interpolation polyno-
mials satisfying the Kronecker delta relation ,
with and representing the parametric coordinates of the
th node, and are constant vector coefficients related to
. For more details on geometrical properties
of parametric elements (in the context of FEM) the reader is
referred to [22], [23].
In this paper, we use the equidistant distribution of interpola-
tion nodes along each coordinate in the parametric space, while
the use of specific nonequidistant node distributions, which
would provide additional modeling flexibility and accuracy in
some applications, is possible as well. In addition, any other
choice of higher order surface expansions for geometrical
modeling that can be represented as a double sum of 2-D power
functions (e.g., parametric quadrilaterals using spline
functions for describing the geometry) can also readily be
implemented in our method for electromagnetic analysis.
Note that, in general, the surface tangent is discontinuous
on the boundary of two attached curved generalized parametric
quadrilateral elements defined by (26), regardless of the geo-
metrical orders and of the quadrilaterals. However, this
geometrical discontinuity across the boundaries of adjacent ele-
ments becomes less pronounced as the elements of higher ge-
ometrical orders are used. For instance, when approximating
a circular cylinder using 32 interpolation points along its cir-
cumference and three different geometrical models constructed
from: (A) 32 first-order elements; (B) 16
second-order elements; and (C) eight fourth-
order elements per cylinder circumference,
the angles between the surface tangents of the neighboring ele-
ments at the junctions in models (A), (B), and (C) are 168.750 ,
179.787 , and 180.011 , respectively, compared to the exact
180 . If a more accurate model is needed, one can increase the
total number and/or geometrical orders of patches. Note also
that this geometrical problem is not present if the geometry is
2122 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004

described in terms of spline functions, which can provide con-
tinuous surface tangents across the edges shared by curved el-
ements (e.g., third-order splines used to solve scattering from
bodies of revolution in [24]).
All the geometries considered as examples in this paper are
modeled using specialized geometrical preprocessor codes, and
no general meshers are employed. Development and discussions
of general geometrical preprocessors for mesh generation for
an arbitrary geometry using higher order surface elements is
beyond the scope of this paper.
D. Higher Order Basis Functions for Electric and Magnetic
Currents
Electric and magnetic surface current density vectors over
every generalized quadrilateral in the model are represented as
(27)
to be a preferable choice for modeling of surface currents in all
applications. It enables considerable reductions in the overall
number of unknowns, at no expense in terms of the accuracy of
current and charge modeling over surfaces. An excellent theo-
retical elaboration of this approach (in the context of FEM) can
be found in [25].
E. Generalized Galerkin Impedances for Higher Order
Quadrilateral Elements
The unknown coefficients and in (27) and (28) are
determined by solving the EFIE/MFIE system with the gener-
alized Galerkin impedances given in (22)–(25), which we now
specialize for the implementation of generalized curved quadri-
lateral elements of arbitrary geometrical orders, (26), and hier-
archical divergence-conforming polynomial vector basis func-
tions of arbitrary current-approximation orders, (29). Without
the loss of generality, we consider only the -components of
basis and testing functions. Furthermore, we consider the func-
tions in the following simplified form:
(32)

where are the simple 2-D power functions

(33)
The generalized Galerkin impedances corresponding to the
(28) complete basis functions in (29) can be obtained as a linear
combination of those corresponding to the simplified functions
where are divergence-conforming hierarchical-type vector in (32) and (33). In addition, the impedances for any higher
basis functions defined as order set of basis functions of divergence-conforming polyno-
mial type can also be constructed as a linear combination of the
impedances for the simple power functions in (32) and (33). A
notable example may be higher order hierarchical basis func-
tions with improved orthogonality properties constructed from
ultraspherical and Chebyshev polynomials [26], [27] (note that
the technique presented in [26], [27] is restricted to bilinear
quadrilaterals (elements with ) only, as well as
, even that these basis functions, being more complicated than the reg-
, odd ular polynomials, require larger MoM matrix filling times, and
(29) are therefore impractical when iterative solvers are not used).
Upon substituting (32) into (22), the electric/electric imped-
Parameters and are the adopted degrees of the poly-
ances corresponding to the testing function defined by indexes
nomial current approximation, which are entirely independent
and on the th quadrilateral and the basis function de-
from the element geometrical orders ( and ), and ,
fined by indexes and on the th quadrilateral become
, , and are unknown current-distribution coeffi-
cients. The unitary vectors and in (29) are obtained as

(30)
with given in (26), and is the Jacobian of the covariant trans-
formation
(31)
Note, that the sum limits in (27) and (28) that correspond to
the variations of a current density vector component in the di-
rection across that component are by one smaller than the orders
corresponding to the variations in the other parametric coordi-
nate. This mixed-order arrangement, which ensures equal ap-
proximation orders for surface charge densities corresponding
to the - and -directed current basis functions, has been found (34)
DJORDJEVIĆ AND NOTAROŠ: DOUBLE HIGHER ORDER MoM FOR SIE MODELING 2123

where and are the current-approximation orders

of the th quadrilateral along the - and -coordinate, respec-
tively, and are the corresponding orders for the th
quadrilateral, and the integration limits in both quadrilaterals are
and . The source-to-field distance
is computed as

(35) (39)
Taking into account the parametric representation of the where is the basic Galerkin field integral evaluated as
quadrilateral surface element, (26), then leads to the final
expression:

(40)

Note that only two types of scalar basic Galerkin integrals,

and in (37) and (40), are needed for the entire Galerkin
(36) impedance matrix. Moreover, only -integrals are sufficient
for purely metallic structures. These integrals are evaluated
where and are the geometrical orders along the - only once for any pair, and , of quadrilateral elements in
and -coordinate, respectively, and are the geometrical the model. Rapid and accurate combined numerical/analytical
vector coefficients in the polynomial expansion of the th methods are developed for the integration over curved higher
quadrilateral, , , and are the corresponding order generalized quadrilateral surfaces, for the - and -inte-
parameters for the th quadrilateral in the model, and is the grals. When the distance in (35) is relatively small (or zero),
basic Galerkin potential integral given by the procedure of extracting the (quasi)singularity is performed
[28]. As can be expected, the problems with the (quasi)singular
integration are more pronounced with the field integrals. Effi-
cient algorithms for recursive construction of the generalized
Galerkin impedances and the EFIE/MFIE system matrix are
(37) used in order to avoid redundant operations related to the sum-
mation indexes in the Gauss–Legendre integration formulas, as
Similarly, using (32) and expanding the gradient of Green’s
well as the indexes and for current expansions and and
function, the electric/magnetic impedances in (23) are trans-
for geometrical representations within the impedances.
formed to
Starting with the generalized voltages given in (19) and (20),
several models of lumped and distributed excitations and loads
[29] are included in the proposed MoM technique (loads are in-
troduced using the concept of a compensating electric field). The
resulting system of linear algebraic equations with complex un-
knowns and is solved classically, by the Gaussian elim-
ination. By postprocessing of these coefficients, the currents
and over any generalized quadrilateral in the model and
fields and in any dielectric region (including the far field)
are obtained.

III. NUMERICAL RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

A. Dihedral Corner Reflector
As an example of structures with flat surfaces, consider the
scattering from a metallic 90 dihedral corner reflector. The two
(38) plates, each being large, are modeled by a
total of bilinear quadrilateral elements
Using (26) then yields , which in this case reduce to squares, with the polynomial
degrees in all of the elements. Without the use
of symmetry, this results in unknowns. Fig. 2
shows the radar cross-section (RCS) of the reflector in the full
azimuthal (horizontal) plane for the vertical polarization of the
incident plane wave. The results obtained by the higher order
2124 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
Fig. 2. Radar cross-section of a 90 dihedral corner reflector, in the full
horizontal plane, for the vertical polarization of the incident plane wave,
obtained by the higher order MoM and by the low-order MoM from [30].
Fig. 3. Radar cross-section of a dihedral corner reflector for four different
orders (2, 4, 6, and 8) of the polynomial approximation of currents in the higher
order MoM.
MoM are compared with the low-order MoM results from [30]
(the number of unknowns is not specified in [30]), and an excel-
lent agreement is observed. Note that the quadrilaterals in the
higher order model are on a side.
The convergence analysis of the higher order current approxi-
mation is performed for this example. Four different levels of the
polynomial approximation of currents are adopted: (1)
; (2) ; The total numbers of unknowns without the use of symmetry
(3) ; and (4)
. The corresponding RCS results are shown
in Fig. 3. We observe excellent convergence properties of the
polynomial basis functions, the RCS prediction average abso-
lute differences between levels (1) and (2), (2) and (3), and (3)
and (4), being 7.6, 3.4, and 0.3 dB, respectively. In specific, note
that even the second-order current approximation yields accu-
rate result for the lobes at the directions perpendicular to the
dihedral sides. Additionally, with the fourth-order basis func-
tions, the dominant double-reflected fields in the forward re-
gion of the reflector are also predicted reasonably accurately. Fi-
nally, the sixth-order (or higher) current-approximation model
adds the accuracy in the computation of fields in the back re-
gion of the reflector as well. Note also that the estimated number
Fig. 4. Four geometrical models of a spherical scatterer constructed from (a)
K
96, (b) 216, (c) 384, and (d) 600 bilinear quadrilaterals ( = K = 1).
of unknowns, based on a topological analysis, for a common
low-order MoM solution with the reflector subdivided into trian-
gular patches with Rao–Wilton–Glisson (RWG) basis functions
[31] is around 12000, which is about 10 times the number of un-
knowns required by the higher order MoM and .
B. Metallic Spherical Scatterer
As an example of curved metallic structures, consider a spher-
ical metallic scatterer of radius illuminated by an inci-
dent plane electromagnetic wave in the frequency range 10–600
MHz. In the first set of experiments, the first-order geomet-
rical modeling is employed ( in all elements).
Four different geometrical models constructed from (1)
bilinear quadrilaterals [Fig. 4(a)], (2)
bilinear quadrilaterals [Fig. 4(b)], (3)
bilinear quadrilaterals [Fig. 4(c)], and (4)
bilinear quadrilaterals [Fig. 4(d)]
are implemented, with the second-order current approximation
in every element in all of the four models.
in models (1), (2), (3), and (4) amount to 768, 1728,
3072, and 4800, respectively.
Shown in Fig. 5 is the RCS of the sphere, normalized to the
sphere cross-section area, as a function of . The results ob-
tained by the higher order MoM are compared with the analyt-
ical solution in the form of Mie’s series. An excellent agree-
ment between the numerical results obtained with the model (4)
and analytical results is observed with the average absolute RCS
prediction error less than 3%, while models (1), (2), and (3) pro-
vide acceptable results only up to the frequency at which
0.53, 1, and 1.6, respectively [the results obtained by the model
(1) are not shown in Fig. 5]. Note that an increase in the cur-
rent-approximation orders and in models (1)–(3) does
not yield better results at higher frequencies, meaning that the
DJORDJEVIĆ AND NOTAROŠ: DOUBLE HIGHER ORDER MoM FOR SIE MODELING
Fig. 5. Normalized radar cross-section [RCS=(a  )] of a metallic sphere, for
three higher order MoM models employing the first-order geometrical modeling
in Fig. 4(b)–(d), respectively, along with the exact solution (Mie’s series).
Fig. 6. Induced electric surface current over the surface of the model
in Fig. 4(b) at two frequencies, corresponding to (a) a= = 0:6 and (b)
a= = 1:2.
errors in the RCS prediction using these models are a conse-
quence of the inaccuracy in geometrical modeling of the sphere
surface. Note also that, even though this is an almost small-do-
main application of the proposed large-domain method, where
a large number (600) of elements (with relatively low current
approximation orders) is needed for the sphere surface to be ge-
ometrically accurately represented by parametric surfaces of the
first geometrical order, the largest quadrilateral elements in the
model (4) are on a side at the highest frequency consid-
ered, which is still considerably above the usual small-domain
limit of . quadrilaterals [Fig. 7(a)] in conjunction with the eighth-order
For an additional insight into the correlation of errors in
modeling of geometry and errors in modeling of currents,
Fig. 6 shows the induced electric surface current over the
surface of the model (2) at two frequencies, corresponding to
(a) and (b) . We observe that, while the
mutual orientation of quadrilateral elements in the model at the
frequency (a) does not influence the surface current distribution
over the sphere surface, the interconnections and surface-tan-
gent discontinuities between quadrilaterals at the frequency
(b) act like wedges, and a nonphysical current distribution is
2125
Fig. 7. Two geometrical models of a spherical scatterer constructed from (a)
six and (b) 24 generalized quadrilaterals of the fourth geometrical order (K =
K = 4).
Fig. 8. Normalized radar cross-section [RCS=(a  )] of a metallic sphere,
for two higher order MoM models employing the fourth-order geometrical
modeling in Fig. 7(a) and (b), respectively, along with the exact solution (Mie’s
series).
obtained that follows the geometry of the quadrilateral mesh,
where the variations of the current density magnitude clearly
indicate the boundaries of the quadrilaterals constituting the
model. These variations, of course, do not exist on the surface
of the actual spherical scatterer. In other words, the error in
modeling of curvature expressed in terms of the wavelength
is negligible at the frequency (a), while at the frequency (b),
it can not be ignored. The same conclusion is then translated
from the current distribution consideration to the far field and
RCS computation at frequencies (a) and (b), as can be observed
from Fig. 5.
In the second set of experiments, the fourth-order geometrical
modeling is employed ( 4 in all elements). The
sphere surface is first approximated by (A) 6 fourth-order
current approximation ( 8) in each element and
then by (B) 24 fourth-order quadrilaterals
[Fig. 7(b)] with the sixth-order current approximation (
6) in each element. This results in a total of 768
and 1728 unknowns in models (A) and (B), respectively, with
no symmetry used.
Fig. 8 shows the simulated RCS of the sphere obtained by
the two geometrically higher order MoM models, as compared
with the exact solution calculated in terms of Mie’s series. We
observe an excellent agreement between the numerical results
2126
Fig. 9. Normalized radar cross-section [RCS=(a  )] of a dielectric
(" = 2:25) sphere, for three higher order MoM models employing the
first-order geometrical modeling in Fig. 4(a)–(c), respectively, along with the
exact solution (Mie’s series).
obtained with the model (A) and analytical results up to the fre-
quency at which and the curved quadrilateral ele-
ments in the model are approximately across. In particular,
the maximum absolute RCS prediction error is less than 1% for
(quadrilaterals are maximally across), and
then increases slightly for . With the model
(B), an excellent agreement with the exact solution is obtained
in the entire frequency range considered, with the maximum ab-
solute RCS prediction error less than 0.5% for and
less than 3% for . analysis results as significantly as in the case of nonpenetrable
Note that all the results for scattering from metallic spheres
presented in this subsection are obtained by solving the EFIE
(3) and no treatment of internal resonances is applied. The new
double higher order method appears to yield equally accurate
results at the internal resonances of the sphere, even though the
condition number of the MoM matrix is very large at these fre-
quencies. The RCS solution is sensitive to internal resonances
only when the current approximation orders are not sufficient,
which is also in agreement with the previous results [32].
C. Dielectric Spherical Scatterer
As an example of curved dielectric structures, consider a
spherical dielectric scatterer 1 m in radius in the frequency
range 10–600 MHz. The relative permittivity of the dielectric
is (polyethylene). Shown in Fig. 9 is the RCS of the
sphere calculated using the first-order geometrical modeling
, with the sphere surface being approximated
by means of (1) bilinear quadrilaterals [Fig. 4(a)], (2)
bilinear quadrilaterals [Fig. 4(b)], and (3)
bilinear quadrilaterals [Fig. 4(c)], along with the analytical so-
lution in the form of Mie’s series. The adopted electric and
magnetic current approximation orders in models (1), (2), and
(3) are 4, 2, and 2 and the resulting total numbers
of unknowns 6144, 3456, and 6144, respectively. We
observe that the RCS predictions are slightly shifted toward
higher frequencies with all the three models, the frequency
shift being the most pronounced with the model (1) at higher
frequencies. The fact that the geometrical models are inscribed
into the sphere certainly contributes to this shift of the results.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
Fig. 10. Normalized radar cross-section [RCS=(a  )] of a dielectric (" =
2:25) sphere, for two higher order MoM models employing the fourth-order
geometrical modeling in Fig. 7(a) and (b), respectively, along with the exact
solution (Mie’s series).
Note, however, that a very good agreement can be observed
between the numerical results obtained by the model (3) and
the analytical results in the entire frequency range considered.
Note also that the numerical results in Fig. 9 obtained by any of
the three models in Fig. 4(a)–(c) are significantly more accurate
than the corresponding numerical results obtained with the
same models for the metallic sphere (Fig. 5), which can be
attributed to the fact that inaccuracies in modeling of surfaces
of penetrable (dielectric) bodies do not degrade the overall
(metallic) bodies.
Fig. 10 shows the RCS of the dielectric sphere evaluated using
the two fourth-order geometrical models
shown in Fig. 7. In the model (A), the adopted electric and
magnetic current approximation orders are
, while in the model (B), these orders are set
to be . We observe that, as
compared to the exact solution (Mie’s series), the model (A)
performs well up to the frequency at which
and the curved quadrilateral elements in the model are about
or across .
Furthermore, the maximum absolute RCS prediction error is
less than 2% for , with the maximum length
of curved quadrilateral elements not exceeding
. The model (B) provides an accurate RCS predic-
tion in the entire frequency range considered (quadrilaterals are
across at the highest frequency), with the maximum
absolute error less than 1% for (maximum
side dimension of quadrilaterals is about ) and a slightly
increased error in the rest of the frequency range considered due
to a minimal frequency shift of the results.
D. Wire Monopoles Attached to a Metallic Cylinder
As an example of antennas with curved surfaces, consider a
system of wire monopoles attached to a metallic cylinder. The
radius of the cylinder is 10 cm and its height 22 cm. The system
is analyzed in two configurations: (1) with a single 12-cm
monopole antenna attached to the cylinder and (2) with an 8-cm
driven monopole and 44-cm parasitic monopole attached to the
DJORDJEVIĆ AND NOTAROŠ: DOUBLE HIGHER ORDER MoM FOR SIE MODELING 2127

Fig. 12. Normalized far field pattern and the antenna input impedance
Fig. 11. Circular cylinder of finite length with attached wire monopoles,
K
modeled by 32 biquadratic ( = K = 2) quadrilaterals and two wires.
of the antenna system in Fig. 11 with only one monopole antenna present
[configuration (1)], obtained by the higher order MoM and by the low-order
MoM from [33].

cylinder, as indicated in Fig. 11. The radii of the driven and

passive monopoles are 1 and 2 mm, respectively. The antenna
system is analyzed at the frequency of 833 MHz.
Shown in Fig. 11 is the simulated geometrical model of the
structure. The cylinder is modeled using 28 and 32 second-order
quadrilateral surface elements in configura-
tions (1) and (2), respectively. Each monopole is modeled by
a single straight wire segment. The driven monopole is fed by
a point delta generator at its base. Note that the triangle-like
curved quadrilaterals are used around the wire-to-surface con-
nections in order to easily enable current continuity across junc-
tions. Note also that the flexibility of the generalized quadrilat-
erals at approximating both the curvature of the surface and the
curvature of the edges of the cylinder, along with their flexibility
to accommodate for degenerate quadrilateral shapes, enable the
effective modeling of the cylinder with two junctions by means
Fig. 13. Normalized far field pattern and the antenna input impedance of
of only 32 surface elements. Note finally that neither the fact the antenna system in Fig. 11 with both a driven monopole and a parasitic
that the two adjacent outer edges of the quadrilaterals approx- monopole present [configuration (2)], obtained by the higher order MoM and
imating the bases of the cylinder form an angle of 180 at the by the low-order MoM from [33].
quadrilateral vertex they share nor the fact that the quadrilat-
eral edges in the wire-to-surface junctions are extremely short IV. CONCLUSION
(on the order of the wire radius) as compared to the other three
edges of the quadrilateral do not deteriorate the accuracy of the This paper has proposed a highly efficient and accurate
current modeling and the overall accuracy of the analysis. double higher order PC-oriented Galerkin-type MoM for mod-
The results for the radiated far field obtained by the higher eling of arbitrary metallic and dielectric antennas and scatterers.
order MoM are compared with the results obtained by the The method is based on higher order geometrical modeling
low-order MoM from [33]. The patterns are shown in Fig. 12 and higher order current modeling in the context of the SIE
for the configuration (1) and Fig. 13 for the configuration (2). formulation for combined metallic (perfectly conducting)
The two-fold symmetry is used in both MoM approaches and a and dielectric (penetrable) structures. It employs generalized
very good agreement of the two sets of results is observed. The curvilinear quadrilaterals of arbitrary geometrical orders for the
discrepancy between the results is less than 3.5% in the entire approximation of geometry (metallic and dielectric surfaces)
pattern range in Fig. 13 and is practically nonexistent in Fig. 12. and hierarchical divergence-conforming polynomial vector
The simulation results for the monopole antenna impedance for basis functions of arbitrary orders for the approximation of
the two configurations are given in Figs. 12 and 13 as well. We electric and magnetic surface currents within the elements. The
observe that the impedances computed by the two methods also geometrical orders and current-approximation orders of the
agree very well. Note that the numbers of unknowns required elements are entirely independent from each other, and can be
by the higher order MoM, 49 for the configuration (1) and combined independently for the best overall performance of
62 for the configuration (2), are considerably smaller than the the method in different applications. The paper has presented
corresponding numbers of unknowns required by the low-order the mathematical and computational development of the new
MoM [33], 936 and 986. MoM-SIE technique, including the evaluation of generalized
2128 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
Galerkin impedances (MoM matrix elements) for double higher
order quadrilateral boundary elements.
The accuracy, convergence, and efficiency of the new
MoM-SIE technique have been demonstrated in several char-
acteristic examples. The results obtained by the higher order
MoM have been validated against the analytical solutions
and the numerical results obtained by low-order MoM tech-
niques from literature. The flexibility of the new technique
has allowed for a very effective modeling of a dihedral corner
reflector, a metallic spherical scatterer, a dielectric spher-
ical scatterer, and a circular cylinder of finite length with
attached wire monopoles by means of only a few large flat
and curved quadrilateral boundary elements and a minimal
number of unknowns. All the examples have shown excellent
flexibility and efficiency of the new technique at modeling
of both current variation and curvature. The examples have
demonstrated advantages of large-domain models using curved
quadrilaterals of high geometrical orders with basis functions
of high current-approximation orders over commonly used
small-domain models and existing low-order techniques from
literature (the reduction in the number of unknowns is by an
order of magnitude when compared to low-order solutions),
but also over almost small-domain models that represent lower
order versions of the proposed large-domain, high-order (more
precisely, low-to-high order) technique. Finally, it has been
demonstrated that both components of the double higher order
modeling, i.e., higher order geometrical modeling and higher
order current modeling, are essential for accurate and efficient
MoM-SIE analysis of general antenna (scattering) structures.
REFERENCES
[1] R. F. Harrington, “Field computation by moment methods,” in IEEE
PRESS Series on Electromagnetic Waves Piscataway, NJ, 1993.
[2] S. M. Rao, C. C. Cha, R. L. Cravey, and D. L. Wilkes, “Electromagnetic
scattering from arbitrary shaped conducting bodies coated with lossy
materials of arbitrary thickness,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol.
39, pp. 627–631, May 1991.
[3] M. Analoui, M. Kagawa, and Y. Kagawa, “Electromagnetic scattering
from conductor-coated material bodies,” Int. J. Numerical Modeling:
Electronic Networks, Devices and Fields, vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 287–299,
Dec. 1991.
[4] S. M. Rao, T. K. Sarkar, P. Midya, and A. R. Djordjevic, “Electromag-
netic radiation and scattering from finite conducting and dielectric struc-
tures: surface/surface formulation,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat.,
vol. 39, pp. 1034–1037, July 1991.
[5] J. M. Song and W. C. Chew, “Moment method solutions using para-
metric geometry,” J. Electromagn. Waves and Applicat., vol. 9, no. 1/2,
pp. 71–83, Jan.–Feb. 1995.
[6] R. D. Graglia, D. R. Wilton, and A. F. Peterson, “Higher order inter-
polatory vector bases for computational electromagnetics,” IEEE Trans.
Antennas Propagat., vol. 45, pp. 329–342, Mar. 1997.
[7] G. Kang, J. Song, W. C. Chew, K. C. Donepudi, and J. M. Jin, “A novel
grid-robust higher order vector basis function for the method of mo-
ments,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 49, pp. 908–915, June
2001.
[8] S. Y. Chen, W. C. Chew, J. M. Song, and J. S. Zhao, “Analysis of low fre-
quency scattering from penetrable scatterers,” IEEE Trans. Geoscience
Remote Sensing, vol. 39, pp. 726–735, Apr. 2001.
[9] B. M. Notaroš, B. D. Popović, J. Peeters Weem, R. A. Brown, and Z.
Popović, “Efficient large-domain MoM solutions to electrically large
practical EM problems,” IEEE Trans. Microwave Theory Tech., vol. 49,
pp. 151–159, Jan. 2001.
[10] B. M. Notaroš and B. D. Popović, “General entire-domain method for
analysis of dielectric scatterers,” in Proc. Inst. Elect. Eng.—Microwaves,
Antennas and Propagation, vol. 143, Dec. 1996, pp. 498–504.
[11] , “General entire-domain Galerkin method for analysis of wire
antennas in the presence of dielectric bodies,” in Proc. Inst. Elect.
Eng.—Microwaves, Antennas and Propagation, vol. 145, Feb. 1998,
pp. 13–18.
[12] , “Large-domain integral-equation method for analysis of general
3D electromagnetic structures,” Proc. Inst. Elect. Eng.—Microwaves,
Antennas and Propagation, vol. 145, no. 6, pp. 491–495, Dec. 1998.
[13] P. De Doncker, “A potential integral equations method for electromag-
netic scattering by penetrable bodies,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat.,
vol. 49, pp. 1037–1042, July 2001.
[14] K. Sertel and J. L. Volakis, “Method of moments solution of volume
integral equations using parametric geometry modeling,” Radio Sci., vol.
37, no. 1, pp. 10–17, Jan.–Feb. 2002.
[15] R. D. Graglia, “The use of parametric elements in the moment method
solution of static and dynamic volume integral equations,” IEEE Trans.
Antennas Propagat., vol. AP-36, pp. 636–646, May 1988.
[16] J. S. Savage and A. F. Peterson, “Higher-order vector finite elements
for tetrahedral cells,” IEEE Trans. Microwave Theory Tech., vol. 44, pp.
874–879, June 1996.
[17] L. S. Andersen and J. L. Volakis, “Development and application of a
novel class of hierarchical tangential vector finite elements for electro-
magnetics,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 47, pp. 112–120, Jan.
1999.
[18] J. P. Webb, “Hierarchical vector basis functions of arbitrary order for
triangular and tetrahedral finite elements,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Prop-
agat., vol. 47, pp. 1244–1253, Aug. 1999.
[19] J. Liu and J.-M. Jin, “A novel hybridization of higher order finite
element and boundary integral methods for electromagnetic scattering
and radiation problems,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 49, pp.
1794–1806, Dec. 2001.
[20] M. M. Ilić and B. M. Notaroš, “Higher order hierarchical curved hexahe-
dral vector finite elements for electromagnetic modeling,” IEEE Trans.
Microwave Theory Techniques, vol. 51, pp. 1026–1033, Mar. 2003.
[21] M. Djordjević and B. M. Notaroš, “Higher-order moment-method mod-
eling of curved metallic antennas and scatterers,” in Proc. IEEE An-
tennas and Propagation Society Int. Symp. Dig., vol. 4, Columbus, OH,
June 22–27, 2003, pp. 94–97.
[22] P. P. Silvester and R. L. Ferrari, Finite Elements for Electrical Engi-
neers. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1996.
[23] M. Salazar-Palma, T. P. Srkar, L. E. Garcia-Castillo, T. Roy, and A.
Djordjević, Iterative and Self-Adaptive Finite Elements in Electromag-
netic Modeling. Boston, MA: Artech House, 1998.
[24] R. D. Graglia, P. L. E. Uslenghi, R. Vitiello, and U. D’Elia, “Electro-
magnetic scattering for oblique incidence on impedance bodies of revo-
lution,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 43, pp. 11–26, Jan. 1995.
[25] J. C. Nedelec, “Mixed finite elements in R3,” Numerische Mathematik,
vol. 35, pp. 315–341, 1980.
[26] M. Djordjević and B. M. Notaroš, “Three types of higher-order MoM
basis functions automatically satisfying current continuity conditions,”
in Proc. IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society Int. Symp. Digest, San
Antonio, TX, June 16–21, 2002, pp. 610–613.
[27] , “Higher-order hierarchical basis functions with improved orthog-
onality properties for moment-method modeling of metallic and dielec-
tric microwave structures,” Microwave Opt. Technol. Lett., vol. 37, no.
2, pp. 83–88, Apr. 2003.
[28] B. M. Notaroš and B. D. Popović, “Optimized entire-domain moment-
method analysis of 3D dielectric scatterers,” Int. J. Numerical Model-
ling: Electronic Networks, Devices and Fields, vol. 10, pp. 177–192,
May–June 1997.
[29] , “Generalized excitations and loads for electromagnetic analysis
with boundary elements,” Int. J. Engineering Analysis With Boundary
Elements, ELSEVIER: Special Issue on Electromagnetics, vol. 27, no.
4, pp. 333–343, Apr. 2003.
[30] T. Griesser, C. A. Balanis, and L. Kefeng, “RCS analysis and reduc-
tion for lossy dihedral corner reflectors,” Proc. IEEE, vol. 77, no. 5, pp.
806–814, May 1989.
[31] S. M. Rao, D. R. Wilton, and A. W. Glisson, “Electromagnetic scattering
by surfaces of arbitrary shape,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol.
AP-30, pp. 409–418, May 1982.
[32] F. X. Canning, “Protecting EFIE-based scattering computations from
effects of interior resonances,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol.
39, pp. 1545–1552, Nov. 1991.
[33] R. E. Hodges and Y. Rahmat-Samii, “An iterative current-based hybrid
method for complex structures,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol.
45, pp. 265–276, Feb. 1997.
DJORDJEVIĆ AND NOTAROŠ: DOUBLE HIGHER ORDER MoM FOR SIE MODELING
Miroslav Djordjević (S’00–M’04) was born
in Ćuprija, Serbia and Montenegro (former Yu-
goslavia), in 1973. He received the Dipl.Ing. (B.S.)
degree from the University of Belgrade, Belgrade,
Serbia and Montenegro, in 1998, the M.S. degree
from the University of California, Los Angeles
(UCLA), in 2000, and the Ph.D. degree from the
University of Massachusetts (UMass) Dartmouth, in
2004.
From 1998 to 2000, he was a Graduate Student Re-
searcher at the Antenna Research and Measurement
(ARAM) Laboratory, UCLA. Since 2000 to 2003, he was a Research Assistant
at UMass where he is currently a Postdoctoral Associate. His research interests
are in higher order modeling, hybrid methods, and analysis of vehicle mounted
antennas.
2129
Branislav M. Notaroš (M’00–SM’03) was born
in Zrenjanin, Yugoslavia, in 1965. He received the
Dipl.Ing. (B.Sc.), M.Sc., and Ph.D. degrees in elec-
trical engineering from the University of Belgrade,
Belgrade, Yugoslavia, in 1988, 1992, and 1995,
respectively.
He is currently an Assistant Professor of electrical
and computer engineering with the University of
Massachusetts Dartmouth. From 1996 to 1998, he
was an Assistant Professor with the Department
of Electrical Engineering, University of Belgrade.
He spent the 1998 to 1999 academic year as a Visiting Research Associate
with the University of Colorado at Boulder. His teaching activities are in the
area of theoretical and applied electromagnetics. He is the Co-Director of the
Telecommunications Laboratory, Advanced Technology and Manufacturing
Center, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. He has authored or coauthored
15 journal papers, 40 conference papers, a book chapter, five university
textbooks and workbooks, and a conceptual assessment tool for electromag-
netics education. His research interests are predominantly in computational
electromagnetics and antenna design.
Dr. Notaroš was the recipient of the 1999 Institution of Electrical Engineers
(IEE) Marconi Premium.
2130 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
Loop-Tree Implementation of the Adaptive Integral
Method (AIM) for Numerically-Stable, Broadband,
Fast Electromagnetic Modeling
Vladimir I. Okhmatovski, Member, IEEE, Jason D. Morsey, Member, IEEE, and Andreas C. Cangellaris, Fellow, IEEE
Abstract—The adaptive integral method (AIM) is implemented
in conjunction with the loop-tree (LT) decomposition of the elec-
tric current density in the method of moments approximation of
the electric field integral equation. The representation of the un-
known currents in terms of its solenoidal and irrotational compo-
nents allows for accurate, broadband electromagnetic (EM) simu-
lation without low-frequency numerical instability problems, while
scaling of computational complexity and memory storage with the
size of the problem of the are of the same order as in the conven-
tional AIM algorithm. The proposed algorithm is built as an ex-
tension to the conventional AIM formulation that utilizes roof-top
expansion functions, thus providing direct and easy way for the de-
velopment of the new stable formulation when the roof-top based
AIM is available. A new preconditioning strategy utilizing near in-
teractions in the system which are typically available in the imple-
mentation of fast solvers is proposed and tested. The discussed pre-
conditioner can be used with both roof-top and LT formulations of
AIM and other fast algorithms. The resulting AIM implementation
is validated through its application to the broadband, EM analysis
of large microstrip antennas and planar interconnect structures.
Index Terms—Fast algorithms, full-wave electromagnetic (EM)
CAD, loop-tree (LT) decomposition, low frequency, method of mo-
ments (MoM).
I. INTRODUCTION
I T is a matter of common experience in the electromagnetic
(EM) modeling community that the conventional integral
equation based method of moments (MoM) exhibits two major
shortcomings when used for broadband EM analysis of electri-
cally large and/or geometrically complex structures. The first
shortcoming has to do with its numerical solution time and
memory requirements, both growing at least as a square of the
number of unknowns involved in the MoM approximation of
the EM boundary value problem. State-of-the-art applications
of relevance to integrated microwave/RF, and mixed-signal
electronic devices and systems, call for EM models where the
Manuscript received June 20, 2003. This work was supported in part by the
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) NeoCAD program
under Grant N66001-01-1-8921 and in part by the Semiconductor Research
Corporation.
V. I. Okhmatovski is with Cadence Design Systems, Incorporated, Tempe,
AZ 85282 USA (e-mail: okhmatov@cadence.com).
J. D. Morsey was with the Center for Computational Electromagnetics, De-
partment of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Illinois at Ur-
bana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801 USA. He is now with the IBM T. J. Watson
Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY 10598 USA.
A. C. Cangellaris is with the Center for Computational Electromagnetics, De-
partment of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Illinois at Ur-
bana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801 USA.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2004.832326
0018-926X/04$20.00 © 2004 IEEE
number of unknowns is in the order of tens and even hun-
dreds of thousands. This makes the direct implementation of
MoM-approximations of EM integral equations computation-
ally prohibitive and thus impractical.
The second shortcoming of the MoM approximation of EM
integral equations is the so-called low frequency breakdown
[1], [2] that occurs when the harmonic field wavelength be-
comes substantially larger than the characteristic size of the
MoM grid. In the application of MoM-based solvers for the
narrow band analysis of traditional EM devices of resonant
lengths (e.g., antennas, waveguides, and various types of
RF/microwave passive components) this problem of geometry
over-sampling tends to be the exception rather than the rule.
However, over the last decade, the advent of miniaturization
and high-density integration of electronic devices has led to
new classes of RF/microwave passive components and as-
sociated integrated waveguides and packaging structures of
increasing geometric complexity, primarily due to the presence
of numerous minute features, the accurate modeling of which
results in the aforementioned geometric over-sampling in the
development of the MoM discrete model. Even in the absence
of minute features, the aggressive push toward the integration
of mixed-signal (e.g., high-speed digital and RF/microwave)
functional blocks, calls for broadband EM modeling (from dc
to multi-GHz frequencies) in support of computer-aided design
of electromagnetically compatible, EMI-immune devices [3],
[4]. While it is applications of this type that this paper is
concerned with, it is worth mentioning that another important
class of applications where low-frequency breakdown of MoM
solvers is encountered is the kilohertz-range remote sensing of
the buried objects [5], [6].
There are two major classes of methods that are capable of
tackling effectively the computational complexity and large
memory requirements of MoM approximations to EM integral
equations. The first class includes the fast multipole method
(FMM) [7] and its multilevel modifications (MLFMM) [8].
The second class includes all the acceleration schemes that
take advantage of the convolution nature of the EM field in-
tegral equation to expedite its calculation through the use of
fast Fourier transforms (FFT) algorithms [9]–[14]. For quasi-
planar geometries both the FMM and FFT-based algorithms
reduce the required CPU time in the iterative solution of the
MoM system from the aforementioned complexity
to complexity. Also within the framework of
fast algorithms the memory consumption of MoM is
substantially reduced and scales proportionally to the problem
OKHMATOVSKI et al.: LT IMPLEMENTATION OF AIM FOR FEM MODELING
size . Even though the FMM and FFT acceleration schemes
lead to similar improvements in computational efficiency, the
FFT-based schemes are much more simple to implement and
more flexible in usage of various types of Green’s functions
accounting for the surrounding medium.
With regards to the theme of this paper, it is important to point
out that, irrespective of the fast solution methodology employed,
the problem of low-frequency breakdown remains and has to be
addressed in the context of the specific fast solution scheme.
Thus, if a robust and broadband EM simulator is to be devel-
oped, it is necessary to introduce appropriate modifications in
both the development of the MoM approximation and the ac-
celeration schemes to avoid the numerical instability at low fre-
quencies. For the FMM class of fast solvers such a modification
was presented in [16], [17]. As discussed in [18], the fact that in
the regular FMM the threshold distance separating the near and
far interactions in the system and/or the order of the multipole
expansion are related to the wavelength makes necessary the
reformulation of the entire FMM scheme in order to ensure nu-
merical stability at low frequencies. For the class of FFT-based
fast solvers, the separation into the near and far interactions is
either not required at all (in the case when the MoM mesh is
bound to the FFT grid [13]) or the threshold distance separating
far and near interactions of the algorithm is not related to the
wavelength (this is the case for the adaptive versions of such
solvers where the MoM and FFT grids are independent [10],
[12]).
In view of this property of the FFT-based fast solvers it was
proposed in [15] that the problem of low-frequency breakdown
may be circumvented through the use of a higher-order, lo-
cally corrected Nyström method [19], combined with a nonuni-
form grid FFT scheme [20]. To understand how the Nyström
scheme stabilizes the solution of the electric field integral equa-
tion (EFIE) at low frequencies one must recall that the nature of
low-frequency breakdown is purely numerical [1]. It is caused
by the loss due to round-off error of the small term
compared to much larger term in the scattered
field representation
(1)
when . Since higher-order methods evaluate both of
these terms with much higher accuracy, low-frequency numer-
ical instability occurs at much lower frequencies compared to
the conventional MoM with Rao–Wilton–Glisson (RWG) ex-
pansion functions [21].
In this paper, an alternative implementation of the adaptive
integral method (AIM) [also referred to as the precorrected
FFT algorithm] is proposed for overcoming the low-frequency
breakdown. First, within the framework of the MoM approx-
imation of the EFIE using roof-top expansion functions, the
loop-tree (LT) decomposition of the unknown current is in-
troduced as prescribed in [1], [2]. This change of expansion
functions from roof-tops to loops and branches of the tree al-
lows for the explicit separation of the irrotational and solenoidal
components of the current. Subsequently, the AIM solution
process is adjusted to accommodate the new representations
of the discretized current densities. As a result, the overall
2131
solution complexity and memory usage
of the conventional AIM are preserved, while the numerical
stability of the solution is maintained down to very low fre-
quencies.
The paper is organized as follows. In Section II, MoM ap-
proximation in the standard and mixed-potential forms is out-
lined, with emphasis on conversion from roof-top into the LT
basis. In Section III, the proposed alternative AIM process is
presented in standard and mixed potential forms, highlighting
the differences and similarities between the new and the con-
ventional formulations. In the following, the proposed imple-
mentation will be referred to as AIM-LT. Section IV discusses
a new preconditioning strategy utilizing near interactions in the
system. The numerical studies of Section V are used to demon-
strate the validity of the AIM-LT methodology. Finally, Section
VI concludes the paper with a brief summary of the method and
a few remarks about its attributes.
II. LOOP-TREE DECOMPOSITION OF THE MoM WITH
ROOF-TOP BASIS
The EFIE statement of the problem is usually obtained
through the application of Green’s theorem to the distinct vol-
umes of the structure. Assuming perfect electrically conducting
(PEC) surfaces, the EFIE forces the tangential electric field,
produced by the current flowing on PEC surface of the
circuit , to cancel the applied tangential electric field on
the same surface . This results in standard [22]
(2)
or mixed potential formulation [12], [23] of EFIE
In (2), is the unit normal vector to ; and and are the po-
sition vectors to the observation and source points, respectively.
Expanding the unknown current over a set of roof-top ex-
pansion functions with triangular [21] or rectangular support
[22]
(3)
and testing the scattered field with the same basis functions
, the integral equation (2) is reduced to a set of linear al-
gebraic equations
(4)
In (4), and contain, respectively, the coefficients of expan-
sion (3) and the discrete form of the excitation. The impedance
2132 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004

matrix elements and excitation vector elements are In practice submatrices , and are
represented by the following inner products evaluated based on the matrices and resulting from the
roof-top formulation of MoM. For this purpose basis conversion
matrices and are introduced as follow:s

(12)
(5)
where is the sparse transformation matrix from the
where and the Hilbert space inner loop-based expansion functions to roof-tops, is the sparse
product is defined as transformation matrices from the branch-based ex-
pansion functions to the roof-tops, and the symbol denotes
(6) matrix transposition [1], [2]. The total number of loops and
branches in the tree, , is equal to the number of the
In the form (4), the primary cause of the low-frequency break- roof-top expansion functions. Since the tree represents an undi-
down of the MoM approximation is easily recognized. As rected graph defined on the original MoM roof-top grid, the th
, the first term in (4) drops below the numerical error level row of the matrix contains only one nonzero element equal to
of the second term due to the finite accuracy of computations. unity in the th column corresponding to the th roof-top taken
In order to avoid this problem, the representation of unknown as the th branch in the tree. Each loop presents a directed graph
current in terms of loop currents (rotational component) on the roof-top mesh and the th row of matrix contains
and tree-branches currents (irrotational component) is in- nonzero values in the columns corresponding to the roof-tops
troduced composing the th loop. The sign of these elements is positive if
the corresponding roof-top function is collinear with the orien-
tation of the loop, and negative if it has the opposite direction.
The absolute value of the nonzero elements in is equal to the
inverse of the corresponding roof-top function width in order
(7) to satisfy the condition of continuous current flux through any
cross section of the loop. Using (12) we can represent matrix
The current flux through any cross section of the loop remains in terms of the roof-top based impedance matrices
constant forcing the following conditions to be satisfied and as

(8)
(13)
where is a potential in the range of operator on the surface
. Application of the Galerkin process with loops and the tree where the sparse matrices and
branches as expansion and testing functions yields an alterna-
tive form of the MoM matrix that is free of the low-frequency (14)
breakdown problem

are the conversion matrices from the LT basis to the roof-top

(9) basis. The zero in the matrix signifies the loop properties (8).
As a result, the following formulas for the submatrices in (11)
which in abbreviated form can be written as can be obtained in terms of and

(10)

The matrix elements in (9) are as follows:

(15)

Thus, the matrix equation (9) can be interpreted as the original

MoM matrix (4) with its inductive and capacitive parts
preconditioned to the left and to the right with matrices and
, respectively, in order to improve spectral properties of the
roof-top based impedance matrix at low fre-
(11) quencies and/or for electrically oversampled structures.

In the process of evaluation of the matrix elements in (9) con-

III. LOOP-TREE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE AIM ALGORITHM
ditions (8) were taken into consideration. Also it was assumed
that the media and the PEC object are such that the transfer of In the iterative solution of (9) a repetitive computation of the
the divergence operator to the current is allowed [23]. matrix-vector product is required and can be acceler-
OKHMATOVSKI et al.: LT IMPLEMENTATION OF AIM FOR FEM MODELING 2133

placed by a set dipoles, as described by the following for-

mulas

(18)

where for each basis function only of the dipoles have

Fig. 1. Illustration of a pair of closely interacting loops and roof-top function
projection on the FFT grid.
nonzero amplitudes, with being the total number of FFT grid
points. The projection of the rectangular shaped roof-top func-
tions on the FFT grid for the case of two-dimensional (2-D)
structure is illustrated in Fig. 1. Various criteria can be devised
for the evaluation of the dipole weights and , the most eco-
nomical among them being the so-called multipole reproduc-
tion criteria discussed in [10]. Substitution of the dipole repre-
sentations (18) for the basis and testing functions into the inner
product formulae for the impedance matrix elements (5) yields
the following expressions for the elements

ated by means of the AIM algorithm. Namely, the matrix-vector

product is decomposed into near and far interactions in the fol-
lowing manner
(19)
(16)
In (19) multidimensional matrices are used. In order to distin-
guish two groups of dimensions in them, both boldface typing
A. Near Interactions and square brackets are utilized. The boldface characters imply
The matrix of near interactions is sparse and the com- the spatial vector and dyadic structure of the quantities while
plexity of its product with is . In order to elaborate on the square brackets emphasize their discrete nature due to the
the definition of closely interacting loops let us consider loops projection on the FFT grid. In expanded form, for the case of a
and shown in Fig. 1. The loop being a concatenation 2-D object located in -plane, (19) becomes
of roof-top functions , is considered closely inter-
acting with the loop composed of the roof-tops ,
if there exists at least one pair of roof-top functions
and , such that the distance between and
is smaller than a certain preset threshold. The same rule is
applied when it is to be decided whether or not a tree branch in-
teracts closely with a given loop. Alternatively, if the matrices of
near interactions and defined in the roof-top basis where
are available from the conventional implementation of AIM, a
different definition of the matrix of near interactions is al-
(20)
lowed
(17) In (20), and are the dimensions of the FFT grid along
and , respectively, while and are the corresponding
Clearly, the more spatially localized the loops are the sparser the grid steps. Substitution of formula (19) into (15) leads to the
matrices and become. Whether the definition following expressions for the blocks of the impedance matrix
or is adopted the matrix of near interactions is computed in LT basis
once and stored, the storage requirement being of order
due to its sparsity. The part of the matrix responsible for the
far interactions is neither computed directly nor stored.
Instead the matrix-vector product is computed on the
fly using FFT’s as described next.

B. Far Interactions
First, all the basis roof-top functions involved in the orig-
inal MoM discretization of the object are projected onto the FFT
(21)
grid enclosing the object in the same manner as done in the con-
ventional AIM [10]. If mixed-potential formulation is used, then where subscript FFT is used to indicate that the matrices are
charge duplets are also projected on the same FFT computed using projections of the basis and testing functions
grid. Projection means that each basis function and is re- on the FFT grid.
2134 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004

From (21) it is apparent that matrix products and
stand for the projections of the testing and basis loops
on the FFT grid. Similarly, the products and
characterize the projection of the testing and basis trees on the
FFT grid. Also it is important to observe that these products are
nothing else but the linear combinations of the projections from
the individual basis/testing functions composing them. Thus, in
a way analogous to the conventional AIM, the matrix-vector
product can be computed with flops
using FFT due to the Toeplitz structure of the discretized dyadic
Green’s functions. The part of the matrix-vector multiply asso-
ciated with inductive interactions in the system is evaluated as
follows:
Since the branch-based expansion functions are nothing else but
selected roof-top expansion functions, the precorrection proce-
dure for the interactions between branch-based testing and ex-
pansion functions is identical to that in the conventional AIM. At
the same time, extraction of the near interactions corresponding
to closely located loops and branches allows for two alternative
approaches as has been discussed in the Subsection A. In the
first approach, one may extract contributions of the closely in-
teracting loops and branches by removing entire elements from
the matrix pertinent to them. Alternatively, one has
the option of extracting only the contributions to due
to the closely interacting roof-tops that contribute to the forma-
tion of the pertinent loops or branches. Let us refer to these con-
tributions as

(26)

Clearly, whichever of the two approaches, extraction of

or from in (25), is used the same
precorrection method must be applied when the elements of
the matrix are evaluated in (16). From the point of
(22) computational performance the two precorrection strategies are
equivalent. However, the second approach, where is
The part corresponding to the capacitive coupling in the system evaluated, may be easier to implement when the conventional
can be evaluated in two different ways depending on whether AIM algorithm is already in place. This is due to the fact that,
the standard or mixed potential form of EFIE is considered if the near interactions for roof-top functions are available,
there is no need for the computation of any additional elements
of matrices and in order to construct
and . Irrespective of which approach is adopted, the
matrix of near interactions is computed only once and
then stored; thus, both the computational complexity associated
(23) with its construction and the memory requirements for its
storage scale as .
In (22) and (23), the operators and denote
forward and backward discrete FFT, respectively. IV. PRECONDITIONER BASED ON NEAR INTERACTIONS
Clearly, if the AIM in the roof-top basis has been imple-
The matrix contains information about the strongest
mented and the fast computational kernel for evaluation of the
interactions in the impedance matrix ; hence, its inverse
products and is available, the matrix-vector can serve as an effective preconditioner in such
product can be easily computed as commonly used iterative solvers as the conjugate gradient (CG)
method [24] or the generalized minimal residual (GMRES)
(24) algorithm [25]. Even though is sparse [Fig. 2(a)], its
direct inversion exhibits computational complexity and
which is equivalent to formulas (22) and (23). memory requirement since is in general
a full matrix. The practiced solution to this problem is the
C. Precorrection class of so-called incomplete factorization methods [26]. The
The dipole representation (18) for basis and testing functions basic idea behind these methods is to discard the elements
provides accurate approximation of the impedance matrix ele- having values below a certain threshold in the process of the
ments only when the th and th elements are at a suffi- LU factorization, thus obtaining a sparse approximation to
ciently large distance. Consequently, all elements of the originally full L and U matrices. Although these methods
can lead to reduction of both memory storage and CPU time
containing contributions from that do not satisfy this complexity to , our numerical experiments with their
requirement must be removed from the matrix-vector product application to problems involving planar structures found them
in order to obtain accurate approximation of the de- unable to provide acceptable iteration counts in certain cases.
sired product in (16) To remedy the situation an alternative preconditioning
strategy is introduced. The key idea of this alternative approach
is to achieve sparsity of through a reindexation of the
(25) unknowns (i.e., the coefficients in the loop- and branch-based
OKHMATOVSKI et al.: LT IMPLEMENTATION OF AIM FOR FEM MODELING 2135

considering the distance between two interacting elements as an

additional parameter for reordering. To band the sparse matrix
the process starts with an arbitrary element labeled R1.
The testing function associated with it has expansion func-
tions closely interacting with it, including the self-term. These
expansion functions are then reindexed and assigned indexes
from 1 to in the order of increasing center-to-center dis-
tance from the testing function. Clearly, expansion function 2,
the closest to R1 is indexed as R2. Given its close proximity to
R1, most of its near interactions have been assigned a new index
already. Those few interaction that have not been reindexed are
reindexed next, starting with and in order of increasing
distance from R2. This procedure continues until all elements
have been reindexed and the banded matrix has been generated.
The new preconditioner is sparse within the bandwidth, as
depicted in Fig. 2(b). From the description of the reindexing al-
gorithm it can be deduced that for geometries with continuous
surfaces, such as a sphere or a square plate, the bandwidth
is expected to grow with the size of the problem as .
However, for the types of geometries encountered in planar in-
tegrated circuits (see, for example, Fig. 5), the bandwidth
does not change with the number of unknowns provided that
the radius of the sphere that defines the range of near interac-
tions is kept smaller than the pitch between the lines. This point
will become clear in Section V through the numerical examples
used to investigate the performance of the proposed fast solver.
Another observation worth making is that although the
preconditioner is sparse within the bandwidth, the and
matrices are in general full within the same bandwidth. Since
memory usage is controlled by the bandwidth, one can fill
in the bandwidth of the preconditioner prior to the LU fac-
torization. The storage requirements of the LU factorization
remain unchanged; however, the quality of the preconditioner
is improved significantly.
Finally, it is stressed that the proposed preconditioner can be
Fig. 2. Matrix of close interactions Z (a) Reindexed matrix z , (b) L applied with both the LT and roof-top basis functions. Once the
and U matrices of z , and (c). near interactions and center-to-center distances between expan-
sion functions have been defined, the sorting algorithm remains
expansion functions) that would lead to a new matrix essentially the same irrespective of the choice of the expan-
with its elements clustered near the diagonal. Hence, after sion functions. An exception is the case when large loops, re-
reindexing, the new matrix has a banded structure, as ferred to as super loops for the purposes of this manuscript, are
depicted in Fig. 2(b), and contains all the nonzero elements of present in the LT implementation [1]. Such super loops contain
the matrix . Subsequently, taking advantage of the banded more near interactions since they cover a larger area of the an-
structure of , its exact LU-factorization can be performed. alyzed structure. Even though every effort should be made to
This LU factorization is done only once and is of complexity contain the size of the loops during the loop generation process,
, where is the bandwidth of . The factors super loops are expected to occur, especially in conjunction
and of are also banded with the same bandwidth with structures that include conducting portions forming closed
as that of [Fig. 2(c)]. Thus, storage of the banded and loops (e.g., shorted sections of coplanar waveguides). When
matrices of requires memory. The backward such super-loops are naturally present, the near interactions be-
substitution process, yielding the desired product of matrix tween these super loops and any elements except for other super-
with the vector at each iteration, is of loops must be ignored, in order to prevent the formation of an
complexity . excessively oversized preconditioner.
Clearly, performance of the preconditioner is strongly depen-
dent on how the bandwidth changes with the problem size
. In order to explore further this dependence of on size V. NUMERICAL RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
it is necessary elaborate on the details of the reindexing proce-
dure used. The algorithm discussed next is very similar to the re- The fast solution methodology developed in the previous
verse Cuthill–McKee ordering [27], [28] which is enhanced by chapters is suitable for the integral equation-based EM
2136 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004

Fig. 3. Input reflection coefficient of the 2 2 2 microstrip patch array computed with regular AIM, and AIM in LT basis.

modeling of both 3-D and 2.5D structures. However, the primary

objective of our research has been the development of a fast and
robust solver for the broadband EM analysis of dense, complex
predominantly planar structures used in RF/microwave printed
circuits, planar antenna arrays, and the high-density intercon-
nect circuits used at all levels of packaging of high-speed/high-
frequency mixed-signal integrated systems. The examples pre-
sented next involve representative members of the aforemen-
tioned categories of structures.

A. Corporate-Fed Microstrip Antenna Array

In the first example, four different corporate-fed microstrip
antenna arrays are considered. The matrix of patch antennas
constituting these arrays had dimensions 2 2, 2 4, 4 4,
and 8 4. The corresponding sizes of the MoM approxima-
tions were , and , respectively.
The geometry and dimensions of the 2 2 antenna array are
shown in Fig. 3. The 8 4 array and the current distribution,
, at 20 GHz are depicted in Fig. 4. The air/dielectric
interface was taken to be mm above the ground plane.
The current distribution depicted in Fig. 4 is calculated for the
case of a substrate with permittivity , whereas for
the remaining numerical results generated for the purposes of
demonstrating the performance of the proposed fast solver the
surrounding medium of antennas was assumed to be air.
The 2 2 array was modeled using the original AIM with
roof-top expansion functions, and the proposed LT formulation
of AIM both implemented in the standard EFIE form (2). The
magnitude of the input reflection coefficient was computed
using standing wave characterization and is plotted versus fre-
quency in Fig. 3. It can be seen that at higher frequencies the
Fig. 4. Geometry of 8 2 4 array and current distribution log(jJ j
(r ) ) at 20
GHz.
methods are in very good agreement. However, at lower fre-
quencies, the standard AIM exhibits numerical instability, while
its LT version remains robust and produces accurate results.
The parameters of the AIM implementation where chosen as
follows. For the projection of each roof-top function on the FFT
grid sixteen dipoles were used, as prescribed by for-
mula (18). The area of near interactions for each basis/testing
roof-top function, which establishes the threshold between near
and far interactions, was defined in terms of the FFT grid steps
and remained the same for all frequencies. For the specific ex-
ample considered here, two functions were assumed closely in-
teracting if any two dipoles from their projections were sepa-
rated by less than 11 points in either or directions.
OKHMATOVSKI et al.: LT IMPLEMENTATION OF AIM FOR FEM MODELING
TABLE I
CPU TIME AND MEMORY REQUIREMENTS ON A 1.4 GHz PENTIUM4
FOR CORPORATE-FED ARRAYS AT 20 GHz
Fig. 5. Geometry of the 16-wire microstrip interconnect structure. The circuit
is printed on lossless grounded dielectric substrate of permittivity  = 4 and
thickness d = 0:15 mm.
Table I summarizes all information necessary for quantifying
computational complexity of the proposed fast solver. The
discussed AIM-LT implementation utilizing LT basis functions
exhibits the same computational complexity and
memory requirements as the conventional AIM imple-
mented with roof-top functions. The low iteration count was
made possible through the use of the preconditioner discussed
in Section IV. The penalty paid for the effectiveness of the
preconditioner is the memory storage requirement
and the complexity of its LU factorization. The latter
can definitely become a show-stopper in the use of such a pre-
conditioner when is in the order of hundreds of thousands.
Therefore, it is important that the numerous possibilities that
exist for the construction of more efficient preconditioners, in
the sense that they provide for lower computational complexity
without jeopardizing the efficiency of the iterative solver, are
thoroughly investigated. The choice made here reflects the situ-
ation where it was preferable to trade-off up front CPU time for
2137
the LU factorization of the preconditioner for the benefit of the
small number of iterations in the solution. For example, such
a choice will be most appropriate when a multiport structure
with a large number of ports (hence, multiple right-hand side
vectors) is being modeled.
B. Multiconductor Interconnect
The second example considered is a multiconductor intercon-
nect of enough nonuniformity along the direction of signal prop-
agation to require full-wave EM modeling for the quantification
of its transmission and signal interference (crosstalk) proper-
ties. For high-speed digital signal transmission as well as for
interference analysis pertinent to mixed-signal systems, the EM
properties of such interconnects must be computed from dc to
multi-GHz frequencies. Thus, in addition to the large compu-
tational complexity of such structures, the need for broadband
EM analysis provides a significant challenge for conventional
full-wave integral equation solvers aimed for primarily narrow
band frequency modeling of microwave and RF waveguides and
passive components.
The top view of the geometry of a generic 16-line microstrip
interconnect is depicted in Fig. 5. The sixteen wires are orga-
nized into eight differential lines. It is stressed that the fine dis-
cretization along the cross-section of the wires is needed for the
accurate prediction of both the speed of signal transmission and
the EM coupling between adjacent lines. For the purposes of
this analysis the wires were assumed to be of zero thickness and
perfectly conducting.
In order to provide a reference solution, a portion of this inter-
connect structure was analyzed using the EM field solver from
Sonnet [29]. The structure analyzed in Sonnet consisted only of
the differential line that is depicted in Fig. 5 as having terminals
1 through 4, and the two adjacent differential lines. Analysis of a
truncated portion of the structure in Sonnet was necessitated by
the significant complexity of the 16-wire structure, the detailed
modeling of which makes the use of this direct EM solver very
time consuming. Magnitudes of some of the calculated -pa-
rameters are presented in Fig. 6. Good agreement of the results is
observed over the entire bandwidth of analysis. The discrepan-
cies between -parameters at higher frequencies, as well as for
those frequencies and ports for which coupling becomes week,
are attributed to the difference of the geometries analyzed by
the two methods, namely, the entire 16-wire structure using the
proposed method and the 8-wire portion of it using Sonnet. It is
important to mention that no de-embedding of the port discon-
tinuities was done in the generation of the presented -param-
eters [30].
In order to demonstrate the robustness of proposed algorithm
the operating frequency of analysis was taken down to 0.001 Hz.
The admittance matrix element versus frequency is plotted
in Fig. 7 in the range from 0.001 Hz to 8 GHz. It can be seen
that while the Sonnet EM solver experiences the low-frequency
breakdown the LT implementation of the AIM algorithm pro-
vides accurate results in the range of frequencies stretching from
dc to microwaves.
The numerical statistics of computations for the interconnect
structure of Fig. 5 is summarized in Table II. In order to demon-
strate how the proposed algorithm scales with the size of the
2138
Fig. 6. Magnitude of some of Y -parameters for 16-wire interconnect.
TABLE II
CPU TIME AND MEMORY ON 1.4 GHz PENTIUM4 FOR FOUR-, EIGHT-,
AND 16-WIRE INTERCONNECTS AT 10 GHz
structure, portions of the structure including four, eight and 16
wires were considered separately. Also, the numerical solution
was carried out using two different preconditioners. For the first
preconditioner only the matrix elements corresponding to in-
teractions between testing/expansion functions separated by a
distance of 0.15 mm or less were included. This means that the
matrix elements of the basis and testing functions (loops and
branches) located on different wires were not utilized in the pre-
conditioner. We refer to this preconditioner as P1 in Table II.
For the second preconditioner, referred to as P2, the radius of
near interactions was extended so that the coupling between ex-
pansion and testing functions located on adjacent wires was in-
cluded. In this case the penalty for the improved quality of pre-
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
conditioner and the faster convergence of the iterative solution
was the substantial increase in memory usage. The number of
iterations taken by the GMRES algorithm [25] to converge to
outer residual error is plotted in Fig. 8 for the cases when
the matrix equation was preconditioned with P1 and P2. Fig. 8
demonstrates that while at low frequencies the choice of pre-
conditioner is irrelevant, the iteration count may become exces-
sively large at higher frequencies if the coupling between the
neighboring lines is not included in the preconditioner. It is im-
portant to point out that the total CPU time of the algorithm,
presented in the last row of Table II, was calculated as the sum
of the time required by the iterative solver and the time spent for
the LU-factorization. Other computations associated with tasks
such as the evaluation of the Green’s function and the computa-
tion of the matrix elements for the near interactions , were
not included in the complexity evaluation. This is due to the
subjective nature of the time estimates for these computations
in view of the wide variety of methods that can be used for per-
forming these calculations.
VI. CONCLUSION
This paper discusses a new fast algorithm for the iterative
solution of MoM approximations of EM field integral equa-
tions pertinent to the analysis of primarily planar and/or layered
passive structures. The methodology is based on an alterna-
tive implementation of the AIM (pre-corrected-FFT algorithm),
where the LT decomposition of unknown current is introduced
to enhance the numerical stability of the iterative solution down
to very low frequencies. Both mixed-potential and standard
OKHMATOVSKI et al.: LT IMPLEMENTATION OF AIM FOR FEM MODELING 2139

Fig. 7. Magnitude of some of the Y -parameters for 16-wire interconnect at very low frequencies.

Fig. 8. Iteration count of GMRES solver versus frequency for 16-line interconnect depicted in Fig. 5.

formulations of the EFIE can be accommodated within the
framework of the proposed method. For microstrip structures
(2.5D geometries) the implementation of AIM utilizing LT
basis and testing functions exhibits complexity
and requires memory, while for 3-D boundary element
structures the CPU time and memory scale as
and , respectively. In order to expedite the conver-
gence of the iterative solver, a new preconditioning strategy that
utilizes near-field interactions of the MoM impedance matrix
organized in the LT basis was proposed and its efficiency
evaluated. Validation of the proposed fast solver was provided
through its application to the numerical analysis of microstrip
antenna arrays and multiconductor interconnect structures.
REFERENCES
[1] W. Wu, A. W. Glisson, and D. Kajfez, “A comparison of two low-fre-
quency formulations for the electric field integral equation,” in Proc.
10th Annu. Review of Progress in Applied Computational Electromag-
netics, vol. 2, Monterey, CA, Mar. 1994, pp. 484–491.
2140 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
[2] M. Burton and S. Kashyap, “A study of a recent, moment-method al-
gorithm that is accurate to very low frequencies,” Appl. Computational
Electromagn. Soc. J., vol. 10, no. 3, pp. 58–68, Nov. 1995.
[3] B. Young, Digital Signal Integrity. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001.
[4] R. R. Tummala, Fundamentals of Microsystems Packaging. Engle-
wood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 2001.
[5] T. J. Cui and W. C. Chew et al., “Fast forward and inverse methods
for buried objects,” in Fast and Efficient Algorithms in Computational
Electromagnetics, W. C. Chew et al., Eds. Boston, MA: Artech House,
2001, pp. 347–424.
[6] S. Chen and W. C. Chew, “Low-frequency scattering from penetrable
bodies,” in Fast and Efficient Algorithms in Computational Electro-
magnetics, W. C. Chew, Ed. Boston, MA: Artech House, 2001, pp.
425–460.
[7] R. Coifman, V. Rokhlin, and S. Wandzura, “The fast multipole method
for the wave equation: A pedestrian prescription,” IEEE Antennas Prop-
agat. Mag., vol. 35, pp. 7–12, June 1993.
[8] J. M. Song, C. C. Lu, and W. C. Chew, “MLFMA for electromagnetic
scattering from large complex objects,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Prop-
agat., vol. 45, pp. 1488–1493, Oct. 1997.
[9] J. R. Phillips and J. White, “A precorrected-FFT method for capacitance
extraction of complicated 3-D structures,” in Proc. Int. Conf. Computer-
Aided Design, Santa Clara, CA, Nov. 1994.
[10] E. Bleszynski, M. Bleszynski, and T. Jaroszewicz, “AIM: Adaptive in-
tegral method for solving large-scale electromagnetic scattering and ra-
diation problems,” Radio Science, vol. 31, pp. 1255–1251, Sept.–Oct.
1996.
[11] J. R. Phillips and J. K. White, “A precorrected-FFT method for electro-
static analysis of complicated 3-D structures,” IEEE Trans. Computer-
Aided Design, vol. 16, pp. 1059–1072, Oct. 1997.
[12] F. Ling and J.-M. Jin et al., “Full-wave analysis of multilayer microstrip
problems,” in Fast and Efficient Algorithms in Computational Electro-
magnetics, W. C. Chew et al., Eds. Boston, MA: Artech House, 2001,
pp. 729–772.
[13] M. F. Catedra, R. P. Torres, J. Basterrechea, and E. Gago, The CG-FFT
Method—Application of Signal Processing Techniques to Electromag-
netics. Norwood, MA: Artech House, 1995.
[14] N. N. Bojarski, “k -Space Formulation of the Electromagnetic Scattering
Problem,” Air Force Avionics Lab., Tech. Report, AFAL-TR-71-75,
Mar. 1971.
[15] S. Gedney, A. Zhu, W.-H. Tang, and P. Petre, “High-order pre-corrected
FFT solution for electromagnetic scattering,” in Proc. IEEE Antennas
and Propagation Int. Symp. Digest, vol. 3, San Antonio, TX, June 2002,
pp. 566–569.
[16] J. Zhao and W. C. Chew et al., “Multilevel fast multipole algorithm at
very low frequencies,” in Fast and Efficient Algorithms in Computational
Electromagnetics, W. C. Chew et al., Eds. Boston, MA: Artech House,
2001, pp. 151–202.
[17] , “Integral equation solution of Maxwell’s equations from zero fre-
quency to microwave frequencies,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat.,
vol. 48, pp. 1635–1645, Oct. 2000.
[18] S. Ohnuki and W. C. Chew, “Numerical accuracy of multipole expan-
sion for 2-D MLFMA,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 51, pp.
1883–1890, Aug. 2003.
[19] H. Contopanagos, B. Dembart, M. Epton, J. J. Ottusch, V. Rokhlin,
J. L. Visher, and S. M. Wandzura, “Well-conditioned boundary inte-
gral equations for three-dimensional electromagnetic scattering,” IEEE
Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 50, pp. 1824–1830, Dec. 2002.
[20] G. X. Fan and Q. H. Liu, “The CGFFT method with a discontinuous FFT
algorithm,” Microwave Opt. Technol. Lett., vol. 29, no. 1, pp. 47–49,
2001.
[21] S. S. M. Rao, D. R. Wilton, and A. W. Glisson, “Electromagnetic scat-
tering by surfaces of arbitrary shapes,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat.,
vol. 30, pp. 409–418, May 1982.
[22] G. V. Eleftheriades and R. Mosig, “On the network characterization of
planar passive circuits using the method of moments,” IEEE Trans. Mi-
crowave Theory Tech., vol. 44, pp. 438–445, Mar. 1996.
[23] K. A. Michalski and D. Zheng, “Electromagnetic scattering and radi-
ation by surfaces of arbitrary shape in layered media, part I: Theory,”
IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 38, pp. 335–344, Mar. 1990.
[24] C. H. Smith, A. F. Peterson, and R. Mitra, “The biconjugate gradient
method for electromagnetic scattering,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Prop-
agat., vol. 38, pp. 938–940, June 1990.
[25] V. Fraysse, L. Giraud, and S. Gratton. A Set of GMRES Routines for
Real and Complex Arithmetics. [Online]. Available: www.cerfacs.fr
[26] O. Axelsson, Iterative Solution Methods. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge
Univ. Press, 1994.
[27] S. Pissanetsky, Sparse Matrix Technology, London, U.K.: Academic
Press, 1984.
[28] A. Georgem and J. W.-H. Liu, Computer Solution of Large Positive Def-
inite Systems, London, U.K.: Prentice-Hall, 1981.
[29] The Sonnet User’s Manual, Apr. 1999.
[30] V. I. Okhmatovski, J. Morsey, and A. C. Cangellaris, “On de-embedding
of port discontinuities in full-wave CAD models of multiport circuits,”
IEEE Trans. Microwave Theory Tech., vol. 51, Dec. 2003. (in print).
Vladimir I. Okhmatovski (M’99) was born in Moscow, Russia, in 1974. He
received the M.S. (with distinction) and Candidate of Science (Ph.D.) degrees
from the Moscow Power Engineering Institute, Moscow, Russia, in 1996 and
1997, respectively.
In 1997, he joined the Radio Engineering Department, Moscow Power Engi-
neering Institute, as an Assistant Professor. From 1998 to 1999, he was a Post-
doctoral Fellow in the Microwave Laboratory, National Technical University
of Athens, Greece. From 1999 to 2003, he was a Postdoctoral Research Asso-
ciate with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is currently with the Department of CIC
Advanced R&D, Cadence Design Systems, Tempe, AZ. He has authored and
coauthored over 30 papers in professional journals and conference proceedings.
His research interests include modeling of high-speed interconnects, fast algo-
rithms in computational electromagnetics, geometrical and physical theories of
diffraction and conformal antennas and arrays.
Dr. Okhmatovski was the recipient of a 1995 scholarship of the Government
of the Russian Federation, a 1996 Presidential Scholarship of the Russian Fed-
eration, and a 1997–2000 scholarship of the Russian Academy of Science. In
1996, he received Second Prize for the Best Young Scientist Report presented at
the VI International Conference on Mathematical Methods in Electromagnetic
Theory (MMET’96). He was also the recipient of the Outstanding Technical
Paper Award at the 3rd Electronics Packaging Technology Conference (EPTC
2000).
Jason D. Morsey (S’01–M’03) received the B.S. (cum laude) and M.S. degrees
in electrical engineering from Clemson University, Clemson, SC, in 1998 and
2000, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree from the University of Illinois at Ur-
bana-Champaign, in 2003.
He is currently with the IBM T. J. Watson Research Center, NY. His research
interests include electromagnetic modeling of high-speed interconnects at all
levels of integration and their signal integrity analysis.
Andreas C. Cangellaris (M’86–SM’97–F’00) received the M.S. and Ph.D. de-
grees in electrical and computer engineering from the University of California,
Berkeley, in 1983 and 1985, respectively.
From 1985 to 1987, he was a Senior Research Engineer in the Electronics
Department, General Motors Research Laboratories, Warren, MI. From 1987 to
1992, he was an Assistant Professor on the faculty of Electrical and Computer
Engineering at the University of Arizona, Tuscon, and then an Associate
Professor from 1992 to 1997. He is currently a Professor of Electrical and
Computer Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
(UIUC). Over the past 15 years, he has supervised the development of nu-
merous electromagnetic modeling methodologies and computer-aided design
tools for high-speed/high-frequency signal integrity-driven applications, which
have been transferred successfully to industry. He has coauthored more than
150 refereed papers and three book chapters on topics related to computational
electromagnetics and interconnects and package modeling and simulation. His
research work has been in the area of applied and computational electromag-
netics with emphasis on their application to electrical modeling and simulation
of RF/microwave components and systems, high-speed digital interconnects at
the board, package, and chip level, as well as the modeling and simulation of
electromagnetic compatibility and electromagnetic interference.
Prof. Cangellaris is an active Member of the IEEE Microwave Theory and
Techniques Society, the IEEE Components Packaging and Manufacturing Tech-
nology Society, the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society, and the IEEE Mag-
netics Society, serving as a Member of technical program committees for major
conferences and symposia sponsored by these societies. He has served as As-
sociate Editor for the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION,
and is currently serving as Associate Editor of the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON
ADVANCED PACKAGING and the IEEE Press Series on Electromagnetic Fields
and Waves. He is the co-founder of the IEEE Topical Meeting on Electrical Per-
formance of Electronic Packaging.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
A Single-Level Low Rank IE-QR Algorithm for PEC
Scattering Problems Using EFIE Formulation
Seung Mo Seo, Student Member, IEEE, and Jin-Fa Lee, Senior Member, IEEE
Abstract—This paper presents a single-level matrix compression
algorithm, termed IE-QR, based on a low-rank approximation to
speed up the electric field integral equation (EFIE) formulation.
It is shown, with the number of groups chosen to be proportional
to 1 2 , where is the number of unknowns, the memory and
CPU time for the resulting algorithm are both ( 1 5 ). The
unique features of the algorithm are: a. The IE-QR algorithm is
based on the near-rank-deficiency property for well-separated
groups. This near-rank-deficiency assumption holds true for
many integral equation methods such as Laplacian, radiation,
and scattering problems in electromagnetics (EM). The same
algorithm can be adapted to other applications outside EM with
few or no modifications; and, b. The rank estimation is achieved by
a dual-rank process, which ranks the transmitting and receiving
groups, respectively. Thus, the IE-QR algorithm can achieve
matrix compression without assembling the entire system matrix.
Also, a “geometric-neighboring” preconditioner is presented in
this paper. This “geometric-neighboring” preconditioner when
used in conjunction with GMRES is proven to be both efficient
and effective for solving the compressed matrix equations.
Index Terms—Electromagnetic (EM) scattering, low-rank QR
factorization, method of moments (MoM).
I. INTRODUCTION
M ETHOD of moments (MoM) using the electric field in-
tegral equation (EFIE) formulation has been a very pop-
ular choice for solving electromagnetic scattering problems by
perfect electric conducting (PEC) objects. However, it is well
known that the traditional MoM suffers from the storage of
a dense impedance matrix and computational complexity for
large-scale problems. However, significant progress has been
made in using the fast multipole method (FMM) [1] to over-
come these difficulties. The single-level FMM combined with
the iterative techniques has reduced the numerical complexity
to to solve dense integral equation matrices that arise
from the Helmholtz equation. One major drawback of this ap-
proach is its dependence on the integral equation kernel. An-
other approach is the so called ( ) algorithm presented in
[2] and [3], which are based on low-rank representation of ma-
trix blocks. The basic approach [2] is based on the FMM
idea without the closed-form formula. In [2], the matrix com-
pression is employed with the explicit formulation of the matrix
blocks, which then results in an undesirable computa-
tional complexity. Thus, the basic algorithm has been fine tuned
in [3] through partial assembling of the matrix blocks. However,
Manuscript received March 17, 2003; revised September 16, 2003.
The authors are with the ElectroScience Laboratory, Department of Electrical
and Computer Engineering, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43212-
1191 USA (e-mail: seo.38@osu.edu).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2004.832367
0018-926X/04$20.00 © 2004 IEEE
2141
the approach suggested in [3] was based on a statically-deter-
mined map which was used to assemble a reduced impedance
matrix through interpolation. The exact procedure of the inter-
polation scheme adapted is not at all clear. In the present ap-
proach proposed here in this paper, we have made two distinct
differences: 1) Our QR decomposition procedure is based on a
dual-rank process which “ranks” both the transmitter and the re-
ceivers and 2) the convergence of the QR process is determined
by both the orthogonal projection as well as the estimate error
matrix norm smaller than the specified tolerance.
This paper presents a low-rank IE-QR algorithm for ef-
ficiently compress the MoM matrix to reduce the memory
requirement, matrix filling time, and the time of the iterative so-
lution to . The single-level low-rank IE-QR algorithm
is based on the rank deficiency feature of the integral equation
for well-separated groups of basis functions. The algorithm
forms a low-rank QR factorization of a matrix block, nonself
interaction and nontouching groups, with only a portion of it
being formed. Each group has a bounding box from binary
partition. The touching groups mean that the bounding boxes of
two groups are overlapped. As a matter of fact, the total number
of entries being computed for a matrix block, assuming the
matrix dimension , is , where is the numer-
ically determined rank of the matrix block. The entire process
can be viewed as the classical rank-revealing QR factorization
using modified Gram-Schmidt (MGS) with partial pivoting.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows: Section II gives
a description of EFIE formulation for scattering problems; The
single-level low-rank IE-QR algorithm is given in Section III;
Section IV then details the “geometric-neighboring” precondi-
tioner; and one open cone plate example is shown in Section V
to validate and demonstrate the performance of the current ap-
proach. Moreover, we investigate the performance of the single-
level low-rank IE-QR algorithm; and finally, in Section VI, we
provide a brief summary.
II. EFIE FORMULATION FOR SCATTERING PROBLEMS
In this paper, we employ an integral equation for the surface
current induced on a perfect conducting scatterer [4]. Applica-
tion of the Galerkin method to the electric field integral equation
results in
(1)
2142 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004

where is the problem domain or the scatterer, is the free For the detail of the MGS process, see [9].
space wavenumber, is the distance between observation and Definition 2: (Orthogonal Component): Given an or-
source points, and is the characteristic wave impedance in thonormal matrix , and a column
free space. In the current paper, we have employed surface div- vector , we define by
conformal vector basis functions for the surface current, namely
the Rao–Wilton–Glisson (RWG) basis functions. (5)

It is clear that .
III. SINGLE-LEVEL LOW-RANK IE-QR ALGORITHM
Definition 3: We say that a matrix is an approx-
The single-level low-rank IE-QR algorithm is based on the imate of if
rank deficiency feature of the integral equation for well-sep-
arated groups of basis functions. The algorithm factorizes the
local impedance matrix due to the group and into (6)
and matrices without a priori knowledge of ,
where and are the number of receiving and transmitting and we write .
basis functions, respectively, and is the rank of interaction Definition 4: (Column Index Selection): Given a rect-
angular matrix , and assuming
( ) exists, we define
.. (2) as the minimum index , , such that
.
(7)
Here, is the column vector due to the th basis function in
Definition 5: (Row Index Selection): Given a rectan-
the transmitting group (transmitter) and is the row vector
due to the th basis function in the receiving group (receiver). ..
gular matrix and its row partition . , we define
The information of the global matrix is stored in the ma-
trices and where ; , and the
self-impedance matrices , , which are com- according to
puted directly from the integral equation formulation, where
is the number of groups of basis functions. Also, the geometrical
touching groups, in which the rank deficient aspect cannot be (8)
preserved, are directly computed. The computing IE-QR of the Definition 6: (Approximate Norm): Given a rect-
touching groups has expensive computational complexity com- angular matrix , and a series of indexes , we
pared with the direct computation. define an approximate norm of by
The single-level low-rank IE-QR algorithm is used to gen-
erate orthogonal columns of that approximately span the
column space of the original matrix and the columns of (9)
that are the expansion coefficients of the corresponding
columns of with respect to the column vectors in .
The rest columns of are obtained by solving the B. A Single-Level Low-Rank IE-QR Algorithm With Matrix
equations extracted from (2). The important advantage of the Block Partially Formed
single-level low-rank IE-QR algorithm is that it does not require The following is a straightforward theorem, so we just simply
a priori knowledge of . Storing and using and state it.
instead of helps both to save the required memory for Theorem 1: Given a matrix and its column partition
each group interaction and to reduce the numerical complexity , the matrix product
of both the matrix assembly and matrix-vector multiplication in with (10), shown at the bottom of the next page, is an
the iterative solver. The detail of the algorithm can be shown approximate of , assuming is nonsingular.
below. That is . Moreover, note that the
error for the approximate is
A. Definitions and Notations Needed for the IE-QR Algorithm
Definition 1: (MGS): Given linearly independent column
vectors, , we denote the orthonormal matrix
.. .. .. .. .. ..
which is obtained by these . . . . . .
vectors through the MGS process. Namely
(3)
.. .. ..
and . . .

(4) (11)
SEO AND LEE: SINGLE-LEVEL LOW RANK IE-QR ALGORITHM FOR PEC SCATTERING 2143

Now we are ready to state our IE-QR algorithm with the ma-
trix blocks partially formed. Suppose at the th step, we have
explicitly formed a approximate of the permuted
matrix, namely

.. ..
. .

(12)
.. .. .. .. .. ..
. . . . . .
Fig. 1. Geometry of the open cone scatterer, with the height of 20 cm and the
base diameter of 20 cm. (a) Surface triangulation and (b) mesh partitioning.
In (12), the entries marked by are available, i.e., have
been computed, whereas the entries are not. Moreover, an IV. GEOMETRIC-NEIGHBORING PRECONDITIONER
orthonormal matrix , with dimensions ,
In this section, we consider the efficient solution of dense
has been constructed through previous steps. Also, in
linear system by preconditioned iterative
(12), and are row and column permutation matrices,
methods, particularly GMRES method. An insightful discus-
respectively. The detail of these permutation matrices will be
sion of three types of preconditioners, the operator splitting
described in the following algorithm.
preconditioner (OSP), the least squares approximate inverse
Algorithm: IE-QR Algorithm with Matrix Block Partially
preconditioner (LSAI), and the diagonal block approximate
Formed
inverse preconditioner (DBAI) [5], for dense matrices arising
Step 1) Let , we compute from the application of BIE is provided. Our approach contains
. Then the permutation matrix is an the idea of the mesh neighbor (MN) preconditioner in [6]
identity with and columns interchanges. and DBAI. The “mesh-neighboring” preconditioner proposed
Step 2) Update to in the current paper, is based upon a two-step process [7].
In the first step, we extract from the full impedance matrix,
, a sparse version, , which includes the near
.. .. range interactions as well as a heuristic bias toward geometrical
. . singularities. Once the sparse matrix, , is obtained, the final
preconditioner, , will be formed through an incomplete
(13) factorization with a heuristic dropping strategy [8]. The detail
.. .. .. .. .. ..
. . . . . . of the preconditioner can be found in [7].

V. NUMERICAL RESULTS
Let , then compute To demonstrate the efficient and validate the current single-
, , and . level IE-QR approach, we have conducted studies on one nu-
Update from to . merical example. In the example, we employed constant (as con-
Step 3) Compute , and the row stant as we possibly can) mesh density while increase the oper-
permutation matrix is a identity with ating frequency.
and rows interchanged. Update to
. A. An Open Cone Plate
Step 4) If , where is a prescribed tolerance, An open cone PEC scatterer is shown as inset in Fig. 1, whose
then compute according to (10). Find in- height and diameter of the bottom are 20 cm. From Fig. 1(b), we
dexes, , and compute clearly establish the open cone PEC scatterer is uniformly par-
. If , stop the titioned using a simple mesh-partitioning algorithm. The parti-
procedure. tioned groups are well-separated for the single-level low-rank
Otherwise, continue the IE-QR process. IE-QR algorithm. The rank map for the open cone mesh at

(10)
2144 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004

Fig. 2. Rank map of the open cone example at 5 GHz (N = 5;280).

5 GHz is shown in Fig. 2. The number of unknowns is 5820 and

the maximum and minimum sizes of groups are 171 and 73, re-
spectively. The black colored boxes represent the dense matrices
(full MoM matrix assembling), which are for self-groups and
touching (or overlapping) groups. The maximum and minimum
ranks of all the coupling matrices of nonoverlapping groups are
19 and 7, respectively. Therefore, the use of a low-rank repre-
sentation results in significant CPU and memory reductions.
The radiation patterns computed by the single-level low-rank
IE-QR algorithm are plotted in Fig. 3 along with the results from
full EFIE code. The 41 % of memory compared to full EFIE
code is used. The approximation in the single-level low-rank
IE-QR process, using a tolerance of 0.01, does not affect the
solution quality, as evidenced in Fig. 3. The radiation patterns
computed by the single-level IE-QR algorithm at 8 GHz are
shown in Fig. 4. We see our results agree well with the results
of full EFIE matrix.
Fig. 3. Monostatic RCS patterns of the open cone example at 5 GHz.
B. Performance of the Single-Level IE-QR Algorithm
To study the memory and CPU time complexities of the The memory consumption and CPU time of the IE-QR process
single-level low-rank IE-QR algorithm, we increase the oper- are shown in Figs. 5 and 6, respectively, and they both exhibit
ating frequencies and subsequently enlarge the problem size. an complexity for small to moderate electrical size
SEO AND LEE: SINGLE-LEVEL LOW RANK IE-QR ALGORITHM FOR PEC SCATTERING 2145

TABLE I
PERFORMANCE OF SINGLE-LEVEL LOW-RANK IE-QR ALGORITHM WITH THE
OPEN CONE PLATE (tolerance = 10 )

TABLE II
PERFORMANCE OF SINGLE-LEVEL LOW-RANK IE-QR ALGORITHM WITH THE
OPEN CONE PLATE (tolerance = 10 )

Fig. 4. Monostatic RCS patterns of the open cone example at 8 GHz.

problems. Finally, in Tables I and II, we summarize the compu-

tational details of the application of the proposed single-level
IE-QR algorithm to the open cone example with the tolerance
of and , respectively. The computations were done
on Pentium II 400 MHz.

Fig. 5. Plot of the memory consumption for the open cone example. Note that VI. SUMMARY
ON
the reference is the ( ) line.
This paper presents the novel single-level low-rank IE-QR al-
gorithm. The algorithm proves memory consumption and CPU
time are reduced significantly.

REFERENCES
[1] R. Coifman, V. Rokhlin, and S. Wandzura, “The fast multipole method
for the wave equation: A Pedestrian prescription,” IEEE Trans. Antennas
Propagat. Mag., vol. 35, pp. 7–12, June 1993.
[2] S. Kapur and J. Zhao, “A fast method of moments solver for efficient
parameter extraction of MCMs,” in Proc. 34th Design Automation Conf.,
vol. 39, June 1997, pp. 141–146.
[3] S. Kapur and D. E. Long, “IES : A fast integral equation solver for
efficient 3-dimensional extraction,” in Proc. 37th Int. Conf. Computer
Aided Design, Nov. 1997.
[4] S. M. Rao, D. R. Wilton, and A. W. Glisson, “Electromagnetic scattering
by surfaces of arbitrary shape,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol.
AP-30, pp. 409–418, May 1982.
[5] K. Chen, “An analysis of sparse approximate inverse preconditioners for
boundary integral equations,” SIAM J. Matrix Anal. Appl., vol. 22, pp.
1058–1078, 2001.
[6] S. Vavasis, “Preconditioning for boundary integral equations,” SIAM J.
Matrix Anal. Appl., vol. 13, pp. 905–925, 1992.
[7] J. F. Lee, R. Lee, and R. Burkholder, “Loop star basis functions and a
Fig. 6. Plot of the CPU time for the open cone example. Note that the reference robust preconditioner for EFIE scattering problems,” IEEE Trans. An-
ON
is the ( ) line. tennas Propagat., vol. 51, pp. 1855–1863, Aug. 2003.
2146 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
[8] I. Gustafson, “Modified incomplete Choleski (MIC) methods,” in
Preconditioning Methods: Analysis and Applications, D. J. Evans,
Ed. New York: Gordon and Breach, 1983, pp. 265–293.
[9] G. H. Golub and C. F. Van Loan, Matrix Computations. Baltimore and
London: The Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1996, pp. 223–236.
Seung Mo Seo (S’00) was born in Seoul, Korea.
He received the B.S. degree in electrical engineering
from Hong-Ik University, Seoul, in 1998 and the
M.S. degree from The Ohio State University,
Columbus, in 2001, where he is currently working
toward the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering.
From 1999 to the present, he has been a Graduate
Research Associate with the ElectroScience Labora-
tory, Department of Electrical and Computer Engi-
neering, The Ohio State University, where he focused
on development of fast integral equation methods.
Jin-Fa Lee (SM’99) received the B.S. degree from National Taiwan University,
Taiwan, R.O.C., in 1982 and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Carnegie-Mellon
University, Pittsburg, PA, in 1986 and 1989, respectively, all in electrical engi-
neering.
From 1988 to 1990, he was with ANSOFT Corporation, where he developed
several CAD/CAE finite element programs for modeling three-dimensional
microwave and millimeter-wave circuits. His Ph.D studies resulted in the first
commercial three-dimensional FEM package for modeling RF/Microwave
components, HFSS. From 1990 to 1991, he was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. From 1991 to 2000, he was with
the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Worcester Polytechnic
Institute, Worcester, MA. Currently, he is an Associate Professor in the Electro-
Science Laboratory, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, The
Ohio State University, Columbus. His current research interests are analyzes
of numerical methods, fast finite element methods, integral equation methods,
hybrid methods, three-dimensional mesh generation, domain decomposition
methods, and mortar finite elements.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
Accelerated Gradient Based Optimization Using
Adjoint Sensitivities
Natalia K. Nikolova, Member, IEEE, Reza Safian, Ezzeldin A. Soliman, Associate Member, IEEE,
Mohamed H. Bakr, Member, IEEE, and John W. Bandler, Fellow, IEEE
Abstract—An electromagnetic feasible adjoint sensitivity tech-
nique (EM-FAST) has been proposed recently for use with fre-
quency-domain solvers . It makes the implementation of the ad-
joint variable approach to design sensitivity analysis straightfor-
ward while preserving the accuracy at a level comparable to that of
the exact sensitivities. The overhead computations associated with
the estimation of the sensitivities in addition to the system analysis
are due largely to the calculation of the derivatives of the system
matrix. Here, we describe the integration of the EM-FAST with
two methods for accelerated estimation of these derivatives: the
boundary-layer concept and the Broyden update. We show that the
Broyden update approach (Broyden-FAST) leads to an algorithm
whose efficiency is problem independent and allows the computa-
tion of the response and its gradient through a single system anal-
ysis with practically no overhead. Both approaches are illustrated
through the design of simple antennas using method of moments
solvers.
Index Terms—Adjoint sensitivities, antenna design, Broyden up-
date, design methodology, method of moments (MoM), optimiza-
tion, sensitivity.
I. INTRODUCTION
T RADITIONAL full-wave electromagnetic (EM) solvers
do not compute the gradient of the response (e.g., -pa-
rameters, input impedance or antenna gain) with respect to
the design parameters, which relate to the geometry and the
materials of the structure. Commercial high-frequency CAD
software typically resorts to finite-difference approximations
of the response sensitivities, which are numerically inefficient
but simple to implement with existing EM solvers. To compute
the response and its sensitivities, such an approach requires
a minimum of full-wave analyses, being the number
of the design parameters. This approach is also known as the
perturbation approximate sensitivity technique (PAST) [1].
Higher-order approximations may also be used at the expense
of an increased number of simulations. They are feasible when
Manuscript received December 12, 2002; revised September 30, 2003.
This work was supported in part by the Natural Sciences and Engineering
Research Council of Canada under Grants OGP0227660-03, OGP0007239,
OGP0249780-02, STR234854-00, through the Micronet Network of Centres
of Excellence and Bandler Corporation.
N. K. Nikolova, R. Safian, E. A. Soliman, and M. H. Bakr are with the Depart-
ment of Electrical and Computer Engineering, McMaster University, Hamilton,
ON L8S 4K1, Canada.
J. W. Bandler is with with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engi-
neering, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON L8S 4K1, Canada and also with
Bandler Corporation, Dundas, ON L9H 5E7, Canada.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2004.832313
0018-926X/04$20.00 © 2004 IEEE
2147
sufficient database for the system response in the design param-
eter space becomes available. Such response data, for example,
would gradually accumulate during optimization.
It is possible to derive exact sensitivity expressions for
the state variables of a system by directly differentiating its
equations with respect to the desired design parameters. For
example, in [2], a mixed potential integral equation is developed
for the current density derivatives with the method of moments
(MoM) applied to planar multilayer structures. This equation,
when solved together with the original electric field integral
equation, yields both the currents and their derivatives with
respect to the design parameters. Such an approach—generally
referred to as sensitivity analysis via direct differentiation—can
be applied to both steady-state [3], [4] and dynamic [5] systems.
For each design parameter, an additional linear system analysis
is required to obtain the respective response derivative. Each
of these analyses is characterized by the same system matrix,
which is also identical with the original system matrix.
A more efficient design sensitivity analysis is provided by the
adjoint variable method [3]–[7]. It reduces the computational
overhead of the sensitivity computation to just one additional
linear system analysis where the system matrix is the transpose
of that of the original problem. Thus, its computational overhead
is times smaller than that of the direct differentiation approach
and is practically independent of the number of design param-
eters . Adjoint-based design sensitivity analysis of microwave
structures has been first formulated in terms of circuit concepts
rather than field concepts, and it is referred to as the adjoint net-
work method [7]–[12].
To obtain exact sensitivities, both the direct differentiation
and the adjoint-variable techniques require the analytical deriva-
tives of the system matrix with respect to the design parameters.
This constitutes a major difficulty in applications with full-wave
EM solvers for research or commercial design software. Re-
cently, adjoint variable approaches were used with the finite-el-
ement method (FEM); see, for example, [13]–[15]. The FEM is
well suited for exact sensitivity calculations because of the ana-
lytical relation between the coefficients of the FEM matrix and
the coordinates of the vertices of the finite element grid. This
analytical relation, however, is not trivial. Its implementation in
the computation of the derivatives of the FEM system matrix
with respect to any geometrical or material design parameter
is in practice difficult and, to our knowledge, has not been ex-
ploited yet in commercial high-frequency CAD software.
A similar difficulty exists with the exact sensitivities for the
MoM. The different varieties of MoM techniques rely on spe-
cific Green’s functions, as well as different basis and weighting
2148 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
functions. The dependence of the system matrix coefficients on
possible geometry perturbations is involved and case specific
[2], [16].
In summary, exact sensitivities appear to be often impractical
in full-wave EM analysis for two reasons: (1) the analytical pre-
processing is involved and solver specific; (2) the implementa-
tion requires thorough reworking of the analysis engine. The
second requirement is especially unattractive in the develop-
ment of commercial software.
Recently, a feasible adjoint-sensitivity technique (FAST)
for applications with full-wave EM solvers (EM-FAST) has
been proposed [17]. It uses finite differences to approximate
the derivatives of the system matrix. Its implementation in a
versatile CAD environment is straightforward since it requires
minor additions to existing frequency-domain computational
algorithms. Its accuracy is comparable to that of the analytical
exact sensitivities. Its overhead is mostly due to the finite-differ-
ence computation of the derivatives of the system matrix, and it
is equivalent to that of the exact sensitivity calculations. Here,
we propose the use of two techniques—the boundary-layer
concept and the Broyden update—to enhance the speed of the
EM-FAST, which is crucial in gradient-based optimization.
There is a certain loss of accuracy; however, the approximated
sensitivities are sufficiently accurate to efficiently guide the op-
timization toward the optimal design. In applications requiring
higher accuracy of the response gradient such as tolerance or
yield analysis, the original EM-FAST may be preferable.
We start with a brief outline of the EM-FAST [17] and its
computational requirements. We then discuss ways to accelerate
its performance through the boundary layer concept (BLC) and
the Broyden update. The resulting algorithms offer significant
CPU time reduction in comparison with the original EM-FAST
on the order of the number of design parameters . The savings
in comparison with the traditional finite-difference gradient ap-
proximation applied directly to the set of responses (e.g., PAST)
are drastic, especially in the case of multiple design variables.
II. FEASIBLE ADJOINT SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS
A. Definitions and Notations in Adjoint Sensitivity Analysis
Consider the system of complex-valued equations arising
form the discretization of a linear EM problem
(1)
where, is the vector of design parameters.
These parameters typically have real values related to the ge-
ometry and the materials of the structure. is
the state variable vector, e.g., complex-valued current distribu-
tion in the MoM; is the excitation vector; is the system
matrix whose complex coefficients depend on the geometry and
materials.
The objective of sensitivity analysis is to determine the gra-
dient of a properly defined response function at the
current solution of (1) with respect to the design parameters
(2)
We assume that the response is a scalar function, which is dif-
ferentiable in and . We define the gradient operator as a row
operator
(3)
When the gradient operator acts on a vector, e.g., , the result
is a matrix
.. .. (4)
. .
The optimization problem is formulated as
(5)
where is the objective function to be minimized, and is the
vector of optimal design parameters. Gradient-based optimizers
require both the response of the current design and its sensi-
tivity (3) in order to predict the next design iterate.
The sensitivities of the objective function are obtained as [18]
(6)
where is the solution of the complex adjoint problem
(7)
in which the adjoint excitation is defined by
..
. (8)
Here, and denote the real and imaginary parts, respectively,
of a complex variable. The gradient reflects the explicit
dependence of on . The matrix would typically be an-
alytically available. In fact, the excitation is often insensitive to
changes in the design parameters, i.e., . For example,
in a microstrip circuit, the excitation is defined at ports located
at feed lines. If the design parameter variations affect neither the
dielectric constant nor the height of the substrate, nor the width
of the feed line, the excitation remains unchanged.
In is a constant vector representing the solution at
the current design, i.e., (6) can be written explicitly as
(9)
The sensitivity expression (6) is a generalization of the well-
known, linear, real-system sensitivity formula [3], [17].
As evident from (6) and (7), the adjoint approach provides the
gradient of the response with respect to all design parameters
with just one additional system analysis (7) whose system ma-
trix is simply related to that of the original problem (1). When
factorization of is used to solve (1), the factors of
NIKOLOVA et al.: ACCELERATED GRADIENT BASED OPTIMIZATION USING ADJOINT SENSITIVITIES
are easily obtained by rearranging the factors of . Thus, the
additional system analysis (7) is practically avoided, the over-
head being due only to the forward-backward substitutions. In
the case of iterative solvers—often used when is large and/or
sparse—a complete additional system analysis seems impera-
tive.
B. The Feasible Technique
The matrices , which we refer to as
derivative matrices, may be analytically available, as is the case
with the FEM. Then the sensitivities obtained with (9) are exact.
The calculation of an analytically available matrix at
the current design is computationally equivalent to a -matrix
fill; therefore, at each design iteration, the equivalent of
matrix fills is needed. Thus, the advantage of analytically avail-
able derivative matrices is in the accuracy of the derivative esti-
mation rather than in its computational efficiency. When the
factors of the system matrix are available from the analysis of
(1), the computation of the derivative matrices determines the
overhead associated with the sensitivity analysis since it is far
more computationally demanding than the forward-backward
substitutions when solving the adjoint problem (7). When the
system equations of (1) and (7) are solved iteratively, the ad-
ditional (adjoint) system analysis determines the computational
overhead. Even in this case, the reduction of the time to estimate
the derivative matrices is desirable.
In full-wave EM analysis usually the derivative matrices
, are not analytically available or they are
too complicated to obtain for the purposes of general and versa-
tile design software. Then, we can resort to the finite-difference
approximation [17], which requires
additional -matrix fills if forward (or backward) finite
differences are used. The associated computational overhead is
equivalent to that of the exact sensitivity estimation discussed
above. The important advantage here is that the implementa-
tion with existing software is simple. The technique does not
require any analytical preprocessing, which often restricts the
versatility of the algorithm.
We have investigated the accuracy of the sensitivity estima-
tion with the feasible adjoint technique [17] and we have found
that it is excellent for relative perturbations between
0.5% and 2%. The relative error in comparison with the exact
sensitivities is well below 1% for a broad range of values of the
design parameters, close to or far from the nulls of the sensi-
tivity curves.
A detailed comparison between the computational require-
ments of the EM-FAST and the commonly used finite differ-
ences applied directly to the response is made in [17]. Here, we
only note that the EM-FAST reduces the number of required
full-wave analyses by a factor of being the number of
design parameters. However, there are overhead computations
associated with the additional matrix fills in order to compute
. In certain cases, e.g., electrically small
problems, the MoM matrix fill may account for a significant por-
tion of the CPU time required by the overall analysis (matrix
fill plus linear system solution). Such an overhead should not
be overlooked in a sequence of repetitive analyses performed
during optimization.
2149
III. ACCELERATED OPTIMIZATION WITH APPROXIMATED
ADJOINT SENSITIVITIES
There are two techniques which can lead to faster calculation
of the derivative matrices. The first one is the boundary-layer
concept (BLC) first proposed by Amari [19] in the sensitivity
analysis with the direct differentiation method. The accelera-
tion offered by the BLC depends on the relation between the re-
spective design parameter and the geometry of the structure as
we explain below. Its computational requirements are dependent
on the number of design parameters . It requires modifications
of existing EM analysis software, which relate to meshing and
matrix building subroutines. Its advantage is that it yields sen-
sitivity estimates of very good accuracy.
The second approach uses Broyden’s update to iteratively
compute approximate derivative matrices. This approach
reduces the overhead drastically since its computational re-
quirements—negligible compared to a matrix fill—practically
do not depend on . The Broyden-update approach does not
require any modifications of the EM analysis algorithms.
A. BLC With the EM-FAST
The BLC can be applied with solvers which allow nonuni-
form discretization and/or unstructured grids, e.g., the FEM
and the MoM. The idea is to perturb a certain geometrical
parameter (the design parameter ) of a structure by respective
deformations of as few grid elements as possible. This makes
most of the -matrix coefficients insensitive to the perturba-
tion. Consequently, the matrix derivative is mostly
sparse and only few nonzero coefficients need to be calculated.
This is in contrast with the conventional EM-FAST where full
remeshing is applied to the perturbed structure, which results
in a full matrix.
We present two examples, which illustrate the BLC. Through
them, we investigate the accuracy of the modified EM-FAST
algorithm which exploits the BLC.
1) A Dipole of Finite Thickness: We analyze the sensitivity
of the input impedance of a dipole with respect to the nor-
malized length of the dipole . The dipole is dis-
cretized into segments whose normalized length is uniform and
equal to [see Fig. 1(a)]. Here, is the number
of segments. In this example, . This example is suit-
able for design sensitivity tests because the input impedance
of a dipole is highly sensitive to its length, especially close to
resonance. The thickness of the dipole is represented by the
radius of its cross-section, which is constant and set to
. The derivatives and are calcu-
lated, where and . We use the sym-
metry of the structure and analyze half of it. The analysis algo-
rithm is based on Pocklington’s equation, which is discretized
using pulse basis functions and a point-matching technique [20].
Magnetic frill excitation is applied.
Fig. 1(b) shows the perturbed geometry corresponding to a
change of length at the th design iteration where only
the boundary-layer (edge) segments are changed accordingly.
The resulting derivative matrix has only one row and
one column of nonzero elements. Fig. 1(c) shows the same pa-
rameter perturbation this time realized with the conventional
2150 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004

Fig. 2. Derivative of the input resistance of the dipole with respect to its
normalized length.

Fig. 1. Perturbing the length of the dipole at the k th iteration with and without
a boundary layer.

EM-FAST approach. Since the centers of all segments in the

perturbed structure change their mutual positions, the
matrix is dense.
The input impedance sensitivities are calculated in four dif-
ferent ways. First, the forward finite differences are applied di-
rectly to the response

(10)
Fig. 3. Derivative of the input reactance of the dipole with respect to its
normalized length.
For each , the MoM solver is invoked twice to perform the
analysis at , and at , where . size introduced by the edge-only perturbation. We expect such
The sensitivity of is evaluated in the range from 0.3 to deterioration to be less when higher-order basis and test func-
1.2 (see Figs. 2 and 3). tions are used such as triangular functions for wire antennas or
Second, the input impedance sensitivity is computed with the rooftops for planar structures.
conventional EM-FAST [17]. The derivative matrix We now proceed with the optimization of the dipole for an
is dense and its coefficients are calculated using forward fi- input impedance of . The objective function is de-
nite differences applied to each matrix element fined as
. This requires numerical integrations. The incre-
ment is again set at . The derivative (11)
matrix is then used in (9) to compute and .
The resulting sensitivity curves are used as a reference as they We allow two geometrical parameters to vary: the normalized
are the closest to the exact sensitivities [17]. dipole length and the normalized dipole diameter .
The third and the fourth derivative estimations use the ad- The vector of design parameters is thus . The
joint technique with the BLC. The matrix is very following constraints are imposed:
sparse and its computation is fast as it involves only numer- (12)
ical integrations. The perturbations are set so that the length of
the edge elements is increased by since this problem is known to be nonunique. The BLC is used
and for the to compute the matrix derivative . Notice, however,
third and the fourth analysis, respectively. Some accuracy is sac- that it cannot be exploited in the case of the design parameter
rificed as is clear from Figs. 2 and 3; however, it is sufficient for because a change in the antenna diameter affects all -matrix
the purposes of gradient-based optimization. The slight deteri- coefficients. The matrix is computed with the con-
oration in accuracy is due to the nonuniformity of the segment ventional EM-FAST technique, which requires a full matrix fill.
NIKOLOVA et al.: ACCELERATED GRADIENT BASED OPTIMIZATION USING ADJOINT SENSITIVITIES 2151

TABLE I
OPTIMIZATION OF THE INPUT IMPEDANCE OF THE DIPOLE

Fig. 5. BLC and the perturbed mesh related to the design parameter x .

Fig. 6. Progress of R = <Z of the patch antenna during the optimization.

TABLE II
DESIGN PARAMETERS OF THE PATCH AT EACH ITERATION
Fig. 4. Geometry of the microstrip-fed patch antenna.

A similar situation would arise in the design of another wire an-

tenna, a Yagi–Uda array. While the BLC is very useful when
a design parameter represents the length of a wire, it can offer
little or no computational savings if the design parameter is a The BLC is applied as illustrated in Fig. 5. The calculation
separation distance between wires. Its efficiency is case specific. of the derivative matrices and is sig-
The initial design is where the ob- nificantly faster than one matrix fill. A matrix fill is equiva-
jective function is . After seven iterations, an lent to integrations, where and show
optimal solution is found at with the number of discrete steps along the length and the width of
, which corresponds to an input impedance of the patch, respectively. On the other hand, the estimations of
. The progress of the optimization is and with the BLC are equivalent to
summarized in Table I. The gradient-based optimization routine and numerical integrations, respec-
of MATLAB1 fmincon is used. tively.
2) A Microstrip-Fed Patch Antenna: The EM-FAST is also The progress of the objective function is shown in Fig. 6 in
integrated with an in-house MoM solver, which performs anal- terms of . The changes of the design parameters with each
ysis of layered structures. The analysis technique is based on design iteration are listed in Table II.
the electric field integral equation. Here, we show an application
with the BLC to the optimization of a microstrip-fed rectangular B. The Broyden-Update Approach to Matrix Derivative
patch antenna. The length and the width of the patch are Estimation
optimized for a maximum real input impedance. The objective
function to be minimized is defined as The Broyden update is a classical rank-one formula proposed
by Broyden [21] for the approximation of the Jacobian
(13) of a vector function . If the approximated Jacobian
is denoted as at the th iteration, Broyden’s formula is
The geometry is shown in Fig. 4. The patch is printed on a written as
substrate of relative dielectric constant and height
mm. The initial design is given by mm
and mm. The operating frequency is set at 2 GHz.
1MATLAB is a registered trademark of The MathWorks, Natick, MA.
(14)
2152 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
Fig. 7. Geometry of the Yagi–Uda array.
TABLE III
OPTIMIZATION OF THE INPUT IMPEDANCE OF THE YAGI–UDA ARRAY WITH BROYDEN-FAST
where is the increment vector in the design
parameter space. It has elements corresponding to the incre-
ment of each design parameter. Broyden’s update has been used
in a number of applications such as gradient-based optimization
where analytical sensitivities are not available [22], the aggres-
sive space mapping technique [23], etc.
We apply Broyden’s update to estimate iteratively the deriva-
tive matrices , which are subsequently
used in the sensitivity expression (9). We refer to this modified
adjoint-based technique as Broyden-FAST. In the implementa-
tion of (14), every complex-valued matrix coefficient
is a nonlinear function of the design parame-
ters. We define as a vector which consists of the real and imag-
inary parts of all elements of the matrix, and as a matrix
which consists of their derivatives. To construct the vector , we
stack all the columns of in a vector followed by the vector
formed by all columns of . Thus, when is an ma-
trix, is a vector with elements. A row of the matrix
contains the derivatives of the respective element of the vector
with respect to all design parameters. Therefore,
is a matrix.
The approximate derivative matrices generated by the
Broyden formula are typically less accurate [22] than those
obtained by perturbations in the EM-FAST. Our experience
shows that as the optimization proceeds, the response sensitivity
estimates produced by Broyden-FAST converge toward the
exact sensitivities. As a precaution, in the case of a diverging
objective function, the algorithm defaults to the conventional
EM-FAST technique.
The advantage of the Broyden update is that it is problem-in-
dependent and does not require any modifications of the analysis
algorithm. Moreover, its computational requirements are negli-
gible in comparison with the EM-FAST. The response and its
gradient are obtained by a single system analysis with practi-
cally no overhead regardless of the number of design parame-
ters .
The potential of the Broyden update is demonstrated by two
examples: the optimization of a Yagi–Uda array and the opti-
mization of a microstrip-fed patch antenna.
1) Optimization of a Yagi–Uda Array: An initial design of
the six-element Yagi–Uda antenna is given in Fig. 7. All dimen-
sions are normalized with respect to the free-space wavelength
. We vary the normalized lengths of the reflector and the driven
element, and , as well as the normalized
separation distances and . Thus, the
vector of design parameters is . The ob-
jective function is set as in (11) with . The progress of
the optimization is summarized in Table III where the changes
of the design parameters, the input impedance and the objective
function are recorded at each iteration. An optimal solution is
reached in nine iterations.
At the th design iteration, we update the four derivative
matrices , with Broyden’s formula and
use them to compute the response sensitivities according to
(9). The response sensitivities are then used by the optimiza-
tion algorithm (fmincon) to produce the next design iterate.
The Broyden-FAST sensitivities are then compared with the
sensitivities calculated off-line where the derivative matrices
NIKOLOVA et al.: ACCELERATED GRADIENT BASED OPTIMIZATION USING ADJOINT SENSITIVITIES 2153

Fig. 10. Sensitivity of the objective function with respect to the separation s
Fig. 8. Sensitivity of the objective function with respect to the length of the during the optimization of Z of the Yagi–Uda antenna.
reflector during the optimization of Z of the Yagi–Uda antenna.

Fig. 11. Sensitivity of the objective function with respect to the separation s
during the optimization of Z of the Yagi–Uda antenna.
Fig. 9. Sensitivity of the objective function with respect to the length of the
driven element l during the optimization of Z of the Yagi–Uda antenna.

are obtained by the finite-difference approach of our original

technique, the EM-FAST [17]. The sensitivity curves are
plotted in Figs. 8–11. At the first iteration only, we compute the
derivative matrices using our original approach with forward
finite differences and 1% perturbation over the initial design
parameters and assign those to . That is why, at the first
iteration, the Broyden-FAST sensitivities and the EM-FAST
sensitivities are identical. For all subsequent design iterations,
Broyden-FAST uses (14). It is evident that our approach based
on the Broyden update produces sufficiently accurate sensi-
tivity results that converge toward the exact sensitivities as the
optimization progresses.
To quantify the accuracy of the derivative matrices produced
by the Broyden update in the FAST, we compute their global
Fig. 12. Global error in the Z -matrix derivative estimates of Broyden-FAST
relative errors in norm and EM-FAST.

Here, the exact derivative is computed using an analytical for-

mula valid for this specific MoM solver [24]. Note that the error
estimate (15) operates on complex matrix elements. The errors
(15) associated with the normalized separation distances and
2154
Fig. 13. Sensitivities of the objective function in the optimization of the Yagi–Uda antenna using the direct Broyden update: comparison with reference sensitivities
computed with the EM-FAST.
are plotted in Fig. 12. For comparison, we also plot the global
errors of the matrix derivatives of the forward finite differencing
in the original FAST computed for the same design iterates.
As expected, the original FAST is robust while the accuracy of
the Broyden estimates may vary throughout the optimization.
These variations lead to the small (but observable) differences
between the EM-FAST response derivatives and the respective
Broyden-FAST estimates (see Figs. 10 and 11). Notice that close
to the optimum solution where the optimizer takes very small
steps (see Table III), the Broyden update may not perform very
well for all design parameters, e.g., , due to the nearly iden-
tical -matrices of the consecutive design iterates; see (14). If
necessary, this can be avoided by defaulting to EM-FAST when
sufficiently small value of the objective function is achieved.
The improved accuracy of the sensitivity estimates may thus im-
prove the convergence of the optimization at its final stages. The
hybrid approaches, however, are not a subject of our current dis-
cussion.
The Broyden update, of course, can be applied directly to
the objective function . However, the objective function usu-
ally exhibits strongly nonlinear behavior and sharp sensitivities
with respect to the designable parameters. At the same time, the
Broyden formula is based on a local linear approximation of the
function and thus it performs better with only mildly nonlinear
functions. The -matrix elements, on the other hand, are smooth
functions of the shape or material parameters. In fact, the ma-
jority of the MoM matrix elements are almost insensitive to
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
shape perturbations except for the diagonal (self-impedance) el-
ements due to the intrinsic dependence on the distance between
observation and integration points. Thus, when the Broyden up-
date is applied at the level of the system matrix, better conver-
gence of the sensitivity estimates and of the overall optimization
process is expected.
In support of this observation, we repeat the Yagi–Uda
antenna design, this time using Broyden’s update directly at the
level of the objective function in order to estimate its derivatives
(direct Broyden approach). We keep the optimization set-up
identical to that before: (1) the initial design is as shown in
Fig. 7; (2) the objective function is defined as in (11) with
; (3) the same optimization function fmincon of
MATLAB is used; (4) the stop criteria
and are the same; and (5) the value of
the response sensitivity at the first iteration is supplied by the
EM-FAST estimate. The direct-Broyden derivatives are used
by the optimizer to determine the subsequent design iterates.
We also compute the objective function derivatives with the
EM-FAST technique off-line in order to supply reference values
for comparison.
The direct-Broyden and the reference sensitivity curves are
plotted in Fig. 13 for all four designable parameters. The
progress of the optimization is summarized in Table IV. It is
evident that the direct-Broyden derivatives do not converge
well toward the reference values, and the objective function
converges to a different (worse) solution than that of the
NIKOLOVA et al.: ACCELERATED GRADIENT BASED OPTIMIZATION USING ADJOINT SENSITIVITIES 2155

TABLE IV
OPTIMIZATION OF THE INPUT IMPEDANCE OF THE YAGI–UDA ARRAY WITH DIRECT BROYDEN UPDATE OF THE OBJECTIVE FUNCTION

Fig. 14. Progress of the objective function during the optimization of the microstrip-fed patch antenna.

Broyden-FAST optimization. This is due mostly to three inter-
related factors: (1) the objective function is very sensitive to the
designable parameters (especially and ); (2) the Broyden
sensitivity estimation can not track well such a rapidly changing
function; (3) the incorrect sensitivity information misleads the
optimizer. Possible solutions to the problems encountered with
the direct Broyden sensitivity analysis are provided by the trust
region optimization approaches. This topic, however, is outside
of the scope of our work. With this example, we only illustrate
the improved convergence of both the sensitivity analysis and
the optimization when the Broyden update is applied at the level
of the system matrix.
2) Optimization of a Microstrip-Fed Patch Antenna: We
now apply the Broyden-FAST to the optimization of the patch
antenna in Fig. 4. The length and the width of the patch
are optimized for a minimum magnitude of the reflection
coefficient. Thus, the objective function to be minimized is
(16)
Here, is the input impedance of the antenna, and is the
characteristic impedance of the feeding microstrip line, which
approximately equals 50 in this example. The operating fre-
quency is 2 GHz. The initial values of the designable parame-
ters are mm and mm. The patch is meshed
with rectangular segments. The number of segments along the
length and the width of the patch are 11 and 17, respectively.
One segment is used along the width of the feeding microstrip
line. The optimization is carried out using the fmincon function
of MATLAB.
We compute the sensitivities of the objective function with
three methods: 1) the direct-Broyden update; 2) the traditional
EM-FAST which employs finite differences to approximate the
derivative matrices (without a boundary layer); and 3) the pro-
posed Broyden-FAST which employs the Broyden update at the
level of the system matrix. This time, we run three optimiza-
tions, each being driven by the respective sensitivity analysis
technique. The three objective functions are plotted in Fig. 14
versus the optimization iteration number. The design parameters
versus the iteration number are plotted in Fig. 15. It is clear from
both figures that the direct-Broyden method fails in meeting the
optimum design while the other two methods, EM-FAST and
Broyden-FAST, are capable of achieving the optimum design.
The obtained optimal patch dimensions are mm
and mm.
2156 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
Fig. 15. Progress of the design parameters during the optimization of the microstrip-fed patch antenna.
The reason that Broyden-FAST succeeded where the direct-
Broyden approach failed is similar to the reason outlined in
the previous example with the Yagi–Uda antenna. The direct-
Broyden approach is incapable to represent properly the fast
variations in the sensitivities especially close to an optimal so-
lution, which is associated with a resonance. On the other hand,
Broyden-FAST deals with the sensitivities of the -matrix ele-
ments, which are slowly varying functions unaffected by reso-
nance.
IV. CONCLUSION
We propose a novel technique for accelerated gradient based
optimization. It integrates the recently developed feasible
adjoint sensitivity technique for full-wave EM analysis [17]
with methods for accelerated estimation of the derivatives
of the system matrix. We consider two such methods: the
boundary-layer concept and the Broyden update, and investi-
gate their accuracy and versatility. We show that the Broyden
update of the matrix derivatives is efficient, problem-inde-
pendent and sufficiently accurate for the purpose of gradient
based optimization. When integrated with our feasible ad-
joint sensitivity technique, it allows the computation of the
system response and its gradient in the design parameter space
through a single system analysis. The overhead associated
with the gradient estimation is negligible in comparison with
the computational requirements of the full-wave analysis.
Our Broyden-FAST technique combines the efficiency of the
adjoint-variable sensitivity analysis with the simplicity of the
Broyden update. Its implementation is straightforward and does
not require any analytical preprocessing.
REFERENCES
[1] J. W. Bandler, Q.-J. Zhang, J. Song, and R. M. Biernacki, “FAST gra-
dient based yield optimization of nonlinear circuits,” IEEE Trans. Mi-
crowave Theory Tech., vol. 38, pp. 1701–1710, Nov. 1990.
[2] J. Ureel and D. De Zutter, “A new method for obtaining the shape sen-
sitivities of planar microstrip structures by a full-wave analysis,” IEEE
Trans. Microwave Theory Tech., vol. 44, pp. 249–260, Feb. 1996.
[3] E. J. Haug, K. K. Choi, and V. Komkov, Design Sensitivity Analysis of
Structural Systems. Orlando, FL: Academic, 1986.
[4] A. D. Belegundu and T. R. Chandrupatla, Optimization Concepts and
Applications in Engineering. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall,
1999.
[5] R. Tomoviæ, Sensitivity Analysis of Dynamic Systems. New York: Mc-
Graw-Hill, 1963.
[6] J. W. Bandler, “Computer-aided circuit optimization,” in Modern Filter
Theory and Design, G. C. Temes and S. K. Mitra, Eds. New York:
Wiley, 1973, ch. 6.
[7] K. C. Gupta, R. Garg, and R. Chadha, Computer-Aided Design of Mi-
crowave Circuits. Dedham, MA: Artech, 1981.
[8] J. W. Bandler and R. E. Seviora, “Current trends in network opti-
mization,” IEEE Trans. Microwave Theory Tech., vol. MTT-18, pp.
1159–1170, Dec. 1970.
[9] , “Wave sensitivities of networks,” IEEE Trans. Microwave Theory
Tech., vol. MTT-20, pp. 138–147, Feb. 1972.
[10] G. Iuculano, V. A. Monaco, and P. Tiberio, “Network sensitivities in
terms of scattering parameters,” Electron. Lett., vol. 7, pp. 53–55, Jan.
1971.
[11] J. W. Bandler, Q. J. Zhang, and R. M. Biernacki, “A unified theory for
frequency-domain simulation and sensitivity analysis of linear and non-
linear circuits,” IEEE Trans. Microwave Theory Tech., vol. AP-36, pp.
1661–1669, Dec. 1988.
[12] F. Alessandri, M. Mongiardo, and R. Sorrentino, “New efficient full
wave optimization of microwave circuits by the adjoint network
method,” IEEE Microwave and Guided Wave Letters, vol. 3, pp.
414–416, Nov. 1993.
[13] H. Akel and J. P. Webb, “Design sensitivities for scattering-matrix cal-
culation with tetrahedral edge elements,” IEEE Trans. Magn., vol. 36,
pp. 1043–1046, July 2000.
[14] H.-B. Lee and T. Itoh, “A systematic optimum design of waveguide-to-
microstrip transition,” IEEE Trans. Microwave Theory Tech., vol. 45, pp.
803–809, May 1997.
[15] J. P. Webb, “Design sensitivity of frequency response in 3-D finite-ele-
ment analysis of microwave devices,” IEEE Trans. Magnetics, vol. 38,
pp. 1109–1112, Mar. 2002.
[16] J. Ureel and D. De Zutter, “Shape sensitivities of capacitances of planar
conducting surfaces using the method of moments,” IEEE Trans. Mi-
crowave Theory Tech., vol. 44, pp. 198–207, Feb. 1996.
[17] N. K. Georgieva, S. Glavic, M. H. Bakr, and J. W. Bandler, “Feasible
adjoint sensitivity technique for EM design optimization,” IEEE Trans.
Microwave Theory Tech., vol. 50, pp. 51–2758, Dec. 2002.
[18] N. K. Nikolova, J. W. Bandler, and M. H. Bakr, “Adjoint techniques
for sensitivity analysis in high-frequency structure CAD,” IEEE Trans.
Microwave Theory Tech., Special Issue on Electromagnetics-Based Op-
timization of Microwave Components and Circuits,, to be published.
[19] S. Amari, “Numerical cost of gradient computation within the method of
moments and its reduction by means of a novel boundary-layer concept,”
in Proc. IEEE MTT-S Int. Symp. Dig., vol. 3, 2001, pp. 1945–1948.
NIKOLOVA et al.: ACCELERATED GRADIENT BASED OPTIMIZATION USING ADJOINT SENSITIVITIES
[20] C. A. Balanis, Antenna Theory, 2nd ed. New York: Wiley, 1997.
[21] C. G. Broyden, “A class of methods for solving nonlinear simultaneous
equations,” Mathematics of Computation, vol. 19, pp. 577–593, 1965.
[22] J. W. Bandler, S. H. Chen, S. Daijavad, and K. Madsen, “Efficient op-
timization with integrated gradient approximations,” IEEE Trans. Mi-
crowave Theory Tech., vol. 36, pp. 444–455, Feb. 1988.
[23] J. W. Bandler, R. M. Biernacki, S. H. Chen, R. H. Hemmers, and
K. Madsen, “Electromagnetic optimization exploiting aggressive
space mapping,” IEEE Trans. Microwave Theory Tech., vol. 43, pp.
2874–2882, Dec. 1995.
[24] S. Glavic, “Electromagnetic Design Sensitivity Analysis of High-Fre-
quency Structures,” M.A.Sc. thesis, McMaster University, May 2002.
Natalia K. Nikolova (formerly Georgieva)
(S’93–M’97) received the Dipl.Eng. degree in
radioelectronics from the Technical University of
Varna, Bulgaria, in 1989 and the Ph.D. degree
in electrical engineering from the University of
Electro-Communications, Tokyo, Japan, in 1997.
From 1998 to 1999, she held a Postdoctoral Fellow-
ship of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research
Council of Canada (NSERC), during which time she
was initially with the Microwave and Electromagnetics
Laboratory, DalTech, Dalhousie University, Halifax,
Canada. For approximately one year, she was with the Simulation Optimization
Systems Research Laboratory, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada. In
July 1999, she joined the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
McMaster University, where she is currently an Associate Professor. Her research
interests include theoretical and computational electromagnetism, high-frequency
analysis techniques, as well as CAD methods for high-frequency structures and
antennas.
Dr. Nikolova currently holds a University Faculty Award of NSERC, which she
received in 2000.
Reza Safian received the B.Sc. degree from the
Isfahan University of Technology (IUT), Isfahan, Iran,
in 1999 and the M.A.Sc. degree from McMaster Uni-
versity, Hamilton, Canada, in 2003, both in electrical
engineering. He is currently working toward the Ph.D.
degree at the University of Toronto, Toronto, ON,
Canada.
During 1999 to 2002, he was a Research Engineer
in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Research
Center (ECERC), IUT. From 2002 to 2003, he was a
Research Assistant at McMaster University working
with the Computational Electromagnetics Laboratory and the Simulation Opti-
mization Systems Research Laboratory. His research interests include theory of
electromagnetism and computational electromagnetics.
Ezzeldin A. Soliman (S’97–A’99) was born in Cairo,
Egypt, on May 18, 1970. He received the B.Sc. de-
gree (distinction with honors) in electronics and com-
munications engineering and the M.Sc. degree in en-
gineering physics, both from Cairo University, Giza,
Egypt, in June 1992 and Nov. 1995, respectively, and
the Ph.D. degree (summa cum laude) in electrical en-
gineering from the University of Leuven, Leuven, Bel-
gium, in February 2000.
From 1992 to 1996, he was a Research and a
Teaching Assistant with the Department of Engi-
neering Physics, Faculty of Engineering, Cairo University. From 1996 to 2000,
he has been a Research Assistant at both Interuniversity MicroElectronics
Center (IMEC), Leuven, Belgium, and the Department of Electrical Engineering,
University of Leuven. From April 2002 to July 2002, he was a Visiting Pro-
fessor at IMEC. From October 2002 to September 2003, he was on a Visiting
Researcher in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, McMaster
University, Hamilton, ON, Canada. He is currently an Assistant Professor with
the Department of Engineering Physics, Faculty of Engineering, Cairo University.
His research interests include computational electromagnetics, development and
characterization of planar antennas in the multilayer thin film technology, neural
network modeling of electromagnetic problems, and the EM-based optimization
techniques.
2157
Mohamed H. Bakr (S’98–M’00) received the B.Sc.
degree in electronics and communications engineering
(distinction with honors) and the Master’s degree in
engineering mathematics from Cairo University, Giza,
Egypt, in 1992 and 1996, respectively, and the Ph.D.
degree from the Department of Electrical and Computer
Engineering, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON,
Canada, in September 2000.
In 1997, he was a Student Intern with Optimization
Systems Associates (OSA), Inc. From 1998 to 2000, he
worked as a Research Assistant with the Simulation Op-
timization Systems (SOS) Research Laboratory, McMaster University. In November
2000, he joined the Computational Electromagnetics Research Laboratory (CERL),
University of Victoria, Victoria, Canada as an NSERC Postdoctoral Fellow. He is
currently an Assistant Professor with the Department of Electrical and Computer En-
gineering, McMaster University. His research areas of interest include optimization
methods, computer-aided design and modeling of microwave circuits, neural network
applications, smart analysis of microwave circuits and efficient optimization using
time/frequency domain methods.
John W. Bandler (S’66–M’66–SM’74–F’78) was born
in Jerusalem, on November 9, 1941. He studied at the Im-
perial College of Science and Technology, London, U.K.,
from 1960 to 1966, and received the B.Sc.(Eng.), Ph.D.,
and D.Sc.(Eng.) degrees from the University of London,
London, U.K., in 1963, 1967, and 1976, respectively.
In 1966, he joined Mullard Research Laboratories,
Redhill, Surrey, U.K. From 1967 to 1969, he was a
Postdoctorate Fellow and Sessional Lecturer at the
University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada. He joined
McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada, in 1969,
where he has served as Chairman of the Department of Electrical Engineering and
Dean of the Faculty of Engineering, and is currently Professor Emeritus in the
Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, directing research in the Simula-
tion Optimization Systems Research Laboratory. He was President of Optimization
Systems Associates Inc. (OSA), which he founded in 1983, until November 20,
1997, the date of acquisition of OSA by Hewlett-Packard Company (HP). OSA
implemented a first-generation yield-driven microwave CAD capability for Raytheon
in 1985, followed by further innovations in linear and nonlinear microwave CAD
technology for the Raytheon/Texas Instruments Joint Venture MIMIC Program.
OSA introduced the CAE systems RoMPE in 1988, HarPE in 1989, OSA90 and
OSA90/hope in 1991, Empipe in 1992, Empipe3D and EmpipeExpress in 1996.
OSA created the product empath in 1996 which was marketed by Sonnet Software,
Inc., USA. Dr. Bandler is President of Bandler Corporation, which he founded in
1997. He has published more than 350 papers from 1965 to 2003. He contributed
to Modern Filter Theory and Design (Surrey, U.K.: Wiley-Interscience, 1973) and
to Analog Methods for Computer-aided Analysis and Diagnosis Germany: Marcel
Dekker, Inc., 1988). Four of his papers have been reprinted in Computer-Aided
Filter Design (New York: IEEE Press, 1973), one in each of Microwave Integrated
Circuits (Norwood, MA: Artech House, 1975), Low-Noise Microwave Transistors
and Amplifiers (New York: IEEE Press, 1981), Microwave Integrated Circuits, (Nor-
wood, MA: Artech House, 1985, 2nd ed.), Statistical Design of Integrated Circuits
(New York: IEEE Press, 1987)and Analog Fault Diagnosis (New York: IEEE Press,
1987). He joined the Editorial Boards of the International Journal of Numerical
Modeling in 1987, the International Journal of Microwave and Millimeterwave
Computer-Aided Engineering in 1989, and Optimization and Engineering in 1998.
He was Guest Editor of International Journal of Microwave and Millimeter-Wave
Computer-Aided Engineering, Special Issue on Optimization-Oriented Microwave
CAD (1997). He was Guest Coeditor Optimization and Engineering Special Issue
on Surrogate Modeling and Space Mapping for Engineering Optimization (2001).
Dr. Bandler is a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering, the Royal
Society of Canada, the Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE), London, U.K.,
anf the Engineering Institute of Canada. He is a Member of the Association of
Professional Engineers of the Province of Ontario (Canada), the MIT Electro-
magnetics Academy, and the Micronet Network of Centres of Excellence. He
received the Automatic Radio Frequency Techniques Group (ARFTG) Automated
Measurements Career Award in 1994. He was an Associate Editor of the IEEE
TRANSACTIONS ON MICROWAVE THEORY AND TECHNIQUES (1969–1974), and has
continued serving as a member of the Editorial Board. He was Guest Editor of
the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MICROWAVE THEORY AND TECHNIQUES Special Issue
on computer-oriented microwave practices (1974) and Guest Coeditor of the of
the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MICROWAVE THEORY AND TECHNIQUES Special Issue
on Process-Oriented Microwave CAD and Modeling (1992), and Guest Editor,
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MICROWAVE THEORY AND TECHNIQUES, Special Issue on
Automated Circuit Design Using Electromagnetic Simulators (1997). He is Guest
Coeditor, IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MICROWAVE THEORY AND TECHNIQUES, Special
Issue on Electromagnetics-Based Optimization of Microwave Components and
Circuits (2004). He has served as Chair of the MTT-1 Technical Committee on
Computer-Aided Design.
2158 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
A Theoretical Study of the Stability Criteria for
Hybridized FDTD Algorithms for Multiscale
Analysis
M. Marrone, Student Member, IEEE, and R. Mittra, Life Fellow, IEEE
Abstract—In this paper, we propose two new hybrid, two-dimen-
sional, generalized finite-difference time-domain algorithms—for-
mulated by using the cell method—and designed to analyze objects
with fine details, without using very small time steps dictated by the
Courant condition. A detailed analysis of the stability of the pro-
posed algorithms is presented, with special attention devoted to the
phenomenon of late time instabilities. Finally, some rules are pro-
vided that would ensure the stability of the proposed algorithms.
Index Terms—Cell method (CM), generalized finite-difference
time-domain (FDTD) method, hybrid algorithms, stability, sub-
gridding.
I. INTRODUCTION
W HEN analyzing complex and multiscale structures using
the time domain methods, it often becomes necessary
to combine two algorithms, e.g., the finite-difference time-do-
main (FDTD) and finite-element time-domain (FETD), to im-
prove the accuracy of the solution without placing an inordi-
nately heavy burden on the CPU. For instance, it is often desir-
able to use the FDTD on a coarse, structured Cartesian mesh in
the bulk of the region, and to employ either a FDTD subgrid-
ding scheme in a smaller region containing objects with fine
features [1], [2], or to use the FETD on an unstructured mesh
to further improve the modeling accuracy in this region [3].
Other alternative approaches that are still under investigation are
the hybrid alternating direction implicit (ADI)-FDTD schemes
on subgridding [4] and the ADI-Multiresolution time domain
(MRTD) methods [5]. These methods circumvent the problem
of having to use a very small time step throughout the compu-
tational domain to satisfy the Courant condition [6], which is
associated with the smallest length of the mesh edges in the en-
tire computational domain. But they do introduce the burden of
temporal and spatial interpolations, and the distinct possibility
of instabilities introduced by the spurious reflections at the in-
terface of the two domains with dissimilar meshes. What is even
more disconcerting is that, although the two algorithms applied
in the different domains may be independently stable (in the ab-
sence of the other domain), the combination may still be un-
stable and produce the so-called late time instabilities. It has
been demonstrated that this kind of instabilities related to spa-
tial interpolation schemes, such as those employed in the sub-
Manuscript received May 15, 2003; revised September 30, 2003.
The authors are with the Electromagnetic Communication Laboratory,
Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802 USA (e-mail:
mum17@psu.edu; mittra@engr.psu.edu).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2004.832332
0018-926X/04$20.00 © 2004 IEEE
gridding schemes, are due to a lack of symmetry in some dis-
crete operators, and are not dependent on the Courant condition
[7], [8]. In this paper we propose two new hybrid generalized
FDTD algorithms where each of them is a combination of two
algorithms that work on different grids—a coarse mesh FDTD
in one domain, and either a fine mesh or a triangular one in the
other—and with different time stepping schemes. To investigate
their stability, we will need to account for the instabilities that
may arise from the spatial as well as temporal interpolations.
The two hybrid algorithms will be developed by using the re-
cently-introduced cell method (CM) [[10]–[13]] that enables us
to address both the problems of instability and connectivity be-
tween the different algorithms.
This paper is organized as follows. Section II presents the
CM and Section III lays the foundations of the main algorithm
for the analysis of the wave propagation in two dimen-
sional (2-D) cases on a coarse mesh FDTD. Section IV presents
two new algorithms, suitable for either a fine or an unstructured
mesh, which are later combined with the algorithm in Section III
to set up two hybrid algorithms, whose stability analyzes are
presented in Section V, followed by a brief conclusion given in
Section VI.
II. THE CM
A study of the mathematical structure common to many phys-
ical theories [9] provides a discrete mathematical framework
for the electromagnetic field theory, which can be utilized to
develop a numerical method for solving electromagnetic static
and dynamic problems on unstructured grids. This approach is
referred to as the CM, which employs the global (integral) vari-
ables instead of the local ones. To define the global variables,
and to avoid any sign ambiguities in their values, we need to
associate them in a physically coherent way, with certain ori-
ented space and time elements [9], [10]. Specifically, we need
two types of oriented space elements: 1) inner-oriented space el-
ements (points , lines , surfaces , volumes ) and 2) com-
plementary outer-oriented space elements (points , lines ,
surfaces , volumes ). In addition, we need two types of ori-
ented time elements: i) inner oriented time elements (instants
, intervals ) and ii) complementary outer oriented time ele-
ments (instants , intervals ). The principal global variables of
electromagnetics are as follows:
• Electric voltage impulse ;
• Magnetic flux ;
• Magnetic voltage impulse ;
MARRONE AND MITTRA: THEORETICAL STUDY OF STABILITY CRITERIA FOR HYBRIDIZED FDTD ALGORITHMS
Fig. 1. Primal and dual space cell complexes and the global variables
associated with their primal and dual cells.
• Electric flux ; are involved.
• Electric charge content ; • Field equations (topological equations). These equations
• Electric current flow . link the global variables associated with space (time) cells
The above are associated, respectively, with the oriented space
and time elements appearing inside the square brackets. A suit-
able geometrical structure that supports the global variables in
CM is comprised of two staggered and oriented space cell com-
plexes. A space complex, which is synonymous with the 3-D
grid, is a structured collection of space elements (cells), such
as nodes, edges, faces and volumes. In particular, we need two
oriented space cell complexes: 1) a primal complex, made up
of inner-oriented space elements, supporting the global vari-
ables associated with the above elements and 2) a complemen-
tary dual complex, comprising of outer-oriented space elements,
supporting the global variables associated with the outer-ori-
ented space elements.
Moreover, to avoid instability problems, we need to establish
a relationship of duality between the two complexes. Specifi-
cally, we need as many primal nodes as dual volumes ; and
the same is true for the primal edges and the dual faces ,
the primal faces and the dual edges , the primal volumes
and the dual nodes . In Fig. 1 we show an example of primal
and dual cubical space cell complexes, and the association of
the global variables with the space cells. The time structure uti-
lized in the CM also involves two staggered and oriented time
cell complexes, viz., a primal complex, comprised of inner-ori-
ented time elements, and a dual complex made up of outer-ori-
ented time elements. Moreover, in common with the space struc-
ture, the two time complexes must be related by duality, i.e., we
need an equal number of primal instants and dual intervals ;
the same is true for the primal intervals and the dual instants
. For the sake of brevity, and taking into account the duality
between the primal and the dual time cell complexes, we will
use the following notation: primal instants , primal intervals
, dual instants and dual intervals . In Fig. 2 we
show an example of primal and dual time cell complexes with
the common choice of the primal and dual intervals equal to the
time step , and the association of the global
variables with the time cells.
In the CM, the electromagnetic laws can be formulated in an
algebraic form on the cell complexes, in terms of the global vari-
ables. In particular, these laws can be divided into the following
2159
Fig. 2. Primal and dual time cell complexes and the global variables associated
with their primal and dual cells.
two categories, depending upon the type of global variables that
belonging to the same type of complex (either the primal
cell complex or the dual one). The field equations can be
enforced on the cell complexes in an exact discrete form by
using appropriate incidence matrices. Let denote
the incidence matrices between the oriented primal ele-
ments, such as edges and nodes, faces and edges, volumes
and faces, respectively, and let
represent the corresponding incidence matrices be-
tween the oriented dual elements, such as edges and nodes,
faces and edges, volumes and faces, respectively [7], [9],
[12], [13]. The above may be viewed as discrete counter-
parts of the differential operators gradient, curl and di-
vergence. Thus, the field equations can be expressed in a
Yee-like form [15] as follows:
— Faraday-Neumann law
(1)
which relates the global variables on the primal com-
plex;
— Magnetic Gauss law
(2)
which relates the global variables on the primal com-
plex;
— Ampère-Maxwell law
(3)
which relates the global variables on the dual complex;
— Electric Gauss law
(4)
which relates the global variables on the dual complex
where are arrays
of scalars, the superscript indicates the association with
either a primal time instant or a dual time interval, while
the superscript indicates the association with either
a primal time interval or a dual time instant.
• Space-time constitutive relations. These relations link
the global variables associated with space and time cells
belonging to different types of cell complexes. The electric
2160 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
space-time constitutive relation links the variables and
, whereas the magnetic space-time constitutive relation
provides a link between the variables and . These rela-
tions employ the material parameters and can be enforced
on the cell complexes only in an approximate and discrete
form by using suitable algebraic relationships. Next, by
introducing the following intermediate variables:
— electric voltage ; updating scheme to be stable. These features can be
— magnetic voltage ; obtained via the symmetrized microcell interpolation
— electric current ; scheme (SMIS) [14], which also ensures that the con-
that are global variables in space, but local variables in
time, we can formulate the space-time constitutive rela-
tions by combining two simpler relations. For example,
to calculate the electric voltage impulse from the elec-
tric flux , we can first calculate the electric voltage
from the electric flux , by using the constitutive relation
, and we can then calculate the electric voltage
impulse from the electric voltage , by a time integral
relation . The time integration relations and the
constitutive relations we need are given below:
— Time integration relationships: These relationships
can be extracted in an algebraic form from the fol-
lowing time integral relationships:
In practice, we utilize the following two sets of time
integration relations. The first set is
(5)
and it leads to the leap-frog time-stepping scheme em-
ployed in conventional FDTD [15], [6]. The second set
is
(6)
and leads to the Newmark time-stepping scheme em-
ployed in FETD [16], which is an implicit scheme.
— Constitutive relations: These relations approximate
the following local constitutive relationships in an al-
gebraic form:
Depending on the type of algorithms, we can utilize
either one of the following two algebraic constitutive
relations:
(7)
or the:
(8)
where the matrices are referred to
as constitutive matrices. These matrices can be gen-
erated explicitly from the knowledge of the geomet-
rical features of the cell complexes, and the features of
the materials inside the computational domain. As we
will see in Section IV, the constitutive matrices must be
symmetric and positive definite in order for the time
stitutive matrices are physically consistent.
III. GENERALIZED FDTD 2-D- EXPLICIT ALGORITHM
FORMULATED BY THE CM
The formulation of the generalized FDTD algorithm on two
staggered cell complexes follows from the combination of the
algebraic electromagnetic laws of the CM. In particular, we
focus here only on the 2-D wave propagation, because the
2-D wave propagation leads to similar theoretical results.
Since the fields do not vary along the z-axis we can use a 2-D
cell complex obtained from a projection of a 3-D cell complex
onto the xy-plane (Fig. 3).
The resulting 2-D cell complex is characterized by primal
nodes ; edges ; faces ; and dual nodes ; edges and faces
. On this 2-D cell complex, the associations of the physical
variables to the space elements are related to those in the 3-D
case as follows:
• electric voltage ;
• electric flux ;
• magnetic voltage ;
• magnetic flux ;
• electric current ;
and we need to modify the field equations slightly from the 3-D
case. In particular, for the FDTD algorithms that we need to set
up, we are interested only in the Faraday–Neumann and Am-
père–Maxwell laws. For the 2-D case, we can use the time
integration relation in (5), to reduce these modified equations to
(9)
We point out that we have translated the quantities in the above
equations by half a time-step, without loss of generality, in order
to simplify the analytical formalism of the stability criterion to
be discussed in Section V. Finally, by combining the field equa-
tions given in (9) with the constitutive relations, we can derive
an explicit time stepping algorithm (see Fig. 4), governing the
2-D wave propagation, which reads
(10)
In general, the incidence matrices that multiply the array vec-
tors and in (10) must be adjoint one to the other, and the
constitutive matrices must be symmetric and positive definite,
otherwise late time instabilities may arise. Moreover, a general-
ized Courant condition must still be satisfied to avoid instabil-
ities [7]. If the cell complexes we use are Cartesian orthogonal
MARRONE AND MITTRA: THEORETICAL STUDY OF STABILITY CRITERIA FOR HYBRIDIZED FDTD ALGORITHMS 2161

Fig. 3. Associations of the physical variables with the elements of a 2-D cell complexes for the study of TM waves propagation.

Fig. 4. Graphical visualization of the CM-FDTD algorithm with the leap-frog time stepping.

grids, as shown in Fig. 3, the algorithm in (10) becomes iden-
tical to the classical FDTD algorithm, once we replace the elec-
tric and magnetic voltages with the electric and magnetic field
components. In this case, the conditions sufficient for avoiding
late time instabilities are satisfied automatically; hence, just as
in the case of the conventional FDTD, the algorithm in (10) is
stable if the time step satisfies the following Courant condi-
tion [6]
(11)
where and are the grid step sizes and is the speed of
light. Since (10) can be utilized on arbitrary 2-D primal and dual
cell complexes, we can derive a generalized FDTD algorithm for
such grids, and we will refer to it as the CM-FDTD algorithm.
IV. HYBRID ALGORITHMS
When analyzing fine details in a small region via the FDTD
method, it is often convenient to use subgridding in that region.
Although this technique improves the accuracy of the results, it
places a heavy burden on the CPU, since it requires the use of a
very small time step throughout the computational domain to
satisfy the Courant condition (11), which is associated with the
smallest length of the mesh edges in the entire computational
domain. It is possible to overcome this problem by combining
two algorithms into a hybrid one, where we employ the FDTD
algorithm in the main part of the computational domain ,
and an alternate one in a smaller region , which either uses
the subgridding (Fig. 5) or an unstructured mesh (Fig. 6). The
alternate algorithms should be chosen such that their stability
characteristics are not so tied to the smallest length of the grid
in the region as those ones of the FDTD algorithm.
The use of a complementary grid that is dual to the primal
grid throughout the entire computational domain, as for instance
in the cases shown in Figs. 5 and 6, allows us to maintain the
self-adjointeness between the matrices that multiply the array
vectors V and F in (10). This approach is general and it is dif-
ferent from that in [8] where one must replace the matrices
and (or and in the 3-D cases) with some extended
discrete operators constructed via the use of some particular in-
terpolation schemes.
2162
Fig. 5. Example of two subdomains. The domain
: square grid, the domain
: square grid with subgridding.
Fig. 6. Example of two subdomains. The domain
: square grid, the domain
: square grid with a triangular grid.
To set up the hybrid algorithms for analyzing the wave
propagation in a 2-D domain , we consider splitting it into two
subdomains and , where we have a coarse mesh in the re-
gion and a fine one in . When we discretize using the
primal and dual cell complexes, partitioning it into two subdo-
mains creates a decomposition of the primal nodes set into two
sets, viz., and . The primal edge set is also divided into
two sets, namely and , where all the edges in connect
only nodes belonging to the set . Thus, in the subdomain
we have the primal nodes and the primal edges whereas
in there are the primal nodes and the primal edges
with their associated dual elements.
In addition, a decomposition of the set of the primal nodes
as well as the edges into two introduces a partitioning of the
original incidence matrices and the constitutive matrices into
four blocks. These blocks are suitable not only for the derivation
of the algorithms, but also for connecting them in a compact
form that enables us to study the stability of the resulting hybrid
algorithms more conveniently. In particular, for the incidence
matrix , we have the following partition:
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
where is the incidence matrix related to the primal cell
complex in ; is the incidence matrix related to the primal
cell complex in ; and, is the incidence matrix related to
the part of the primal cell complex in connected to the primal
cell complex in . Moreover, we assume that the common zone
between the two cell complexes in and in , is connected
via rectangular surfaces (see Figs. 5 and 6) in order for two of the
four blocks to be zero in the partitioned form of the constitutive
matrices in (8). For instance
(12)
(13)
Finally, in practice, the only variables we are interested in calcu-
lating are the electric and the magnetic voltages associated with
the elements of the two subdomains and . Specifically,
they are
• electric voltages ;
• magnetic voltages .
A. Algorithm for the Subdomain
In the subdomain we have a coarse Cartesian orthogonal
mesh, and we can use the CM-FDTD algorithm given in (10).
In this region, the blocks of the incidence matrix and of the
constitutive matrices (12), (13) can be reduced to yield:
•
• .
For the stability analysis, discussed in Section V, it is convenient
to rewrite the CM-FDTD algorithm as a two-step one as follows:
(14)
B. Algorithms for the Subdomain
In contrast to the subdomain contains objects with fine
features that we want to model either by using a subgridding
scheme (see Fig. 5), or with an unstructured mesh (Fig. 6). In
order to analyze the wave propagation in this region, we
propose two different algorithms for which the maximum al-
lowable time step is not dependent on the smallest length of the
mesh edges in the same manner as it is in the FDTD algorithm.
The first algorithm, which we will refer to as CM-NEW, is an
implicit algorithm, whereas the second one, which we will name
the CM-TS-FDTD algorithm, is explicit in nature.
1) CM-NEW Algorithm: The CM-NEW algorithm is ob-
tained in a way that is similar to the CM-FDTD algorithm, but
it employs a Newmark time integration scheme. Specifically, it
utilizes the time-stepping (6)
•
•
MARRONE AND MITTRA: THEORETICAL STUDY OF STABILITY CRITERIA FOR HYBRIDIZED FDTD ALGORITHMS 2163

Fig. 7. Graphical visualization of the hybrid algorithm CM-FDTD (domain

) and CM-NEW (domain
).

Fig. 8. Graphical visualization of the hybrid algorithm CM-FDTD (domain

) and CM-TS-FDTD (domain
).

The above can be rewritten as the following two-step implicit •

algorithm:

C. The Hybrid Algorithms

The hybrid algorithms are derived by combining the
CM-FDTD algorithm with either the CM-NEW or the
CM-TS-FDTD. The are graphically represented in Figs. 7
and 8, respectively.

(15) V. STABILITY ANALYSIS

2) CM-TS-FDTD Algorithm: The CM-TS-FDTD algorithm In order to study the stability of the hybrid algorithms, it is
is a type of CM-FDTD algorithm with a leap-frog time-stepping convenient to restate them, without loss of generality, in terms of
scheme, with a time subgridding (TS) of the new variables and , which are related to the variables
• and as follows:
•
(16)
•
• where the matrices and are real symmetric and
positive definite, provided that the matrix is symmetric and
• positive definite. Moreover, let us define the following matrices,
2164 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004

that are useful for rewriting the hybrid algorithms in terms of the
new variables and

(17)

Fig. 9. Examples of domains

. (a) Case SUB, (b) Case TRI-05.

where .
If the constitutive matrices are symmetric and positive definite,
A. Stability Analysis of the Hybrid Algorithm Set by CM-FDTD then the are symmetric, and is symmetric positive def-
(Domain ) and CM-NEW (Domain ) inite. Then there exists the matrix
To simplify the derivation of the stability criterion, we begin
by assuming that there are no input sources. Then, by using (14),
(15), (16), and (17), we can rewrite the hybrid time-stepping
algorithm as follows: such that the matrix , given by

is symmetric. Therefore, the first condition for the stability of

the hybrid algorithm is that the constitutive matrices be sym-
(18) metric and positive definite. Because the complexity of the com-
bined algorithm, it is not possible to derive an explicit Courant
The system of equations in (18) has the following form: criterion, such as (11), which is employed in the FDTD algo-
rithm to satisfy the second condition (20) for the stability. For
(19) instance, for the domains in Fig. 9, where the grid step sizes of
the FDTD grid in the domain are m, it fol-
lows from (10) that – s. For these domains, we
where
have calculated with varying from 0 to 2.5e–9 s and
steps of 0.05e–9 s, and have verified that (20) is satisfied when
– s. Moreover, the absence of instabilities has been
confirmed by means of time domain simulations, on the same
and
domains, run with a – s, for 100 000 time steps.
This leads us to conclude that this algorithm does not suffer for
late time instabilities, provided that the constitutive matrices are
symmetric and positive definite, and the Courant condition re-
duce in practice to (10) regardless of the type of grid utilized
in the domain (either the subgridding or the triangular grid),
Using the basic notions of discrete system theory (see Ap- due to the implicit nature of the CM-NEW algorithm.
pendix), it can be shown that the system in (19) is stable if two
of the following conditions are satisfied. The first condition B. Stability Analysis of the Hybrid Algorithm Set by CM-FDTD
requires that the matrix be symmetric, or that there exists a (Domain ) and CM-TS-FDTD (Domain )
nonsingular matrix such that
Using (16), and (17), we can rewrite the CM-TS-FDTD algo-
rithm, in the absence of input sources, as shown in (21) at the
bottom of the next page. From (14), (16), and (17), and defining

where is a symmetric matrix. One can show that late time

instabilities would occur if the latter condition is not satisfied,
and some of the eigenvalues of are complex [7]. The
second condition, a generalized Courant criterion, demands that we can write the hybrid algorithm as
the maximum eigenvalue in modulus max of must sat-
isfy the bound given by
(22)
(20)
MARRONE AND MITTRA: THEORETICAL STUDY OF STABILITY CRITERIA FOR HYBRIDIZED FDTD ALGORITHMS
The system in (22) has the same form as that in (19), provided
we define to be
and
If the constitutive matrices are symmetric and positive definite,
then is symmetric, and if
(23)
then is symmetric and positive definite. In this case
are symmetric; hence, the matrix
is such that the matrix
is also symmetric. Unfortunately, it is not possible to find a more
practical criterion than the one given in (23), one which is valid
irrespective of the type of grid used in the domain .
Let us consider the following three cases: 1) the subdomain
has a subgridding [case SUB, Fig. 9(a)]; 2) a triangular grid
with a refinement factor of 0.5 [case TRI-05, Fig. 9(b)]; and 3)
a triangular grid with refinement factor of 0.33 (case TRI-033).
For each of these cases the , which is the upper bound
that avoids late time instabilities, is presented in Table I. From
this Table we see that the depends on the refinement of
the grid (cases TRI-05 and TRI-033). In summary, the stability
conditions of the hybrid algorithm (22) are that the constitu-
tive matrices be symmetric and positive definite, and that the
time-step has an upper bound given by (23). Turning now to the
additional condition for the stability, viz., (20), it is not possible
to find a criterion that is both practical and general. However,
for the three cases analyzed above, we have calculated the
max, with varying from 0 to 2.5e–9 s, and steps of 0.05e–9 s,
to find the maximum sufficient to meet (20). The results are
2165
TABLE I
TABLE II
presented in Table I. As we can see from this Table, with the
exception of the triangular grid with a refinement factor of 0.33,
the is equal or close to the , which ensures the
stability of the FDTD on the subdomain .
Unfortunately, as we see from the Tables I and II, for each
case the that avoids the late time instabilities is approx-
imatively one half of the corresponding to the Courant
limit. However, since (23) represents a sufficiency condition, it
does not necessarly follow that the late time instabilities would
occur if we use a time step such that .
As a matter of fact, in the time domain simulations run for each
case with there were no late time instabilities even
after 100 000 time steps. This leads us to conclude that this algo-
rithm is stable, provided that the constitutive matrices are sym-
metric and positive definite, and the time step either satisfies
or, as in the cases analyzed
here, satisfies the criterion in (23). For the examples provided
herein, allowed was always less than ; however,
the algorithm is still less expensive then the one without the time
subgridding, so long as .
VI. CONCLUSION
In this paper, we have proposed two new hybrid 2-D time do-
main algorithms, implemented by the CM, in order to analyze
fine details without placing a heavy constraint on the maximum
time step imposed by the stability criterion. Additionally, the
matrix notation of the CM has enabled us to carry out the sta-
bility analysis of the hybrid algorithms, and to derive two condi-
tions that guarantee stable numerical solutions. Finally, the the-
oretically derived stability criteria have been tested via a nu-
merical study. Although the analysis presented in this paper has
only addressed the 2-D case, it can be readily extended to 3-D
geometries, and the authors are currently in the process of pur-
suing this effort.
(21)
2166 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004

APPENDIX REFERENCES
We wish to demonstrate that the discrete system [1] M. W. Chevalier, R. J. Luebbers, and V. P. Cable, “FDTD local grid
with material traverse,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 45, pp.
411–421, Mar. 1997.
(24) [2] M. Okoniewski, E. Okoniewska, and M. A. Stuchly, “Three dimensional
subgridding algorithm for FDTD,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat.,
vol. 45, pp. 422–429, Mar. 1997.
is stable if the matrix is symmetric, or there is a nonsingular [3] M. Feliziani and F. Maradei, “Mixed finite-difference/whitney-elements
matrix such that time domain (FD/WE-TD) method,” IEEE Trans. Magn., vol. 34, pp.
3222–3227, Mar. 1998.
[4] B. Z. Wang, Y. Wang, W. Yu, and R. Mittra, “A hybrid 2-D ADI-FDTD
subgridding scheme for modeling on-chip interconnects,” IEEE Trans.
Adv. Packaging, vol. 24, pp. 528–533, Nov. 2001.
[5] Z. Chen and J. Zhang, “An unconditionally stable 3-D ADI-MRTD
where is symmetric matrix, and if the maximum eigenvalue method free of the CFL stability condition,” IEEE Microwave Wireless
in modulus of satisfies the bound Comp. Lett., vol. 11, pp. 349–351, Aug. 2001.
[6] A. Taflove and S. C. Hagness, Computational Electrodynamics: The Fi-
nite-Difference Time-Domain Method. Norwood, MA: Artech House,
(25) 2000.
[7] T. Weiland and R. Schuhmann, “Space and time stability of discrete time
domain algorithms,” in Proc. 4th Int. Workshop on Computational Elec-
The matrix can always be transferred into the Jordan canon- tromagnetics in the Time Domain, Nottingham, U.K., July 17–19, 2001,
ical form through a nonsingular matrix as follows: pp. 155–161.
[8] O. Podĕbrand, M. Clemens, and T. Weiland, “New flexible subgridding
scheme for the finite integration technique,” IEEE Trans. Magn., vol. 39,
pp. 1662–1665, May 2003.
[9] E. Tonti, On the Formal Structure of Physical Theories, Italian National
Research Council, 1975. preprint.
and, since is symmetric or it has the same eigenvalues as [10] , “Finite formulation of the electromagnetic field,” IEEE Trans.
those of a symmetric matrix, then is a diagonal matrix. By Magn., vol. 38, pp. 333–336, Mar. 2002.
defining the new variable we can transform the [11] M. Marrone, A. M. F. Frasson, and H. E. Hernández-Figueroa, “A novel
numerical approach for electromagnetic scattering: The cell method,” in
system (24) into a new one which reads Proc. IEEE AP-S URSI, vol. 1, San Antonio, TX, June 16–21, 2002, pp.
160–163.
(26) [12] M. Marrone, V. F. Rodríguez-Esquerre, and H. E. Hernández-Figueroa,
“Novel numerical method for the analysis of 2D photonic crystals: The
cell method,” Opt. Express, vol. 10, no. 22, pp. 1299–1304, Nov. 2002.
The solution of the above equation is stable if and only if (24) [13] M. Marrone, R. Mittra, and W. Yu, “A novel approach to deriving a stable
hybridized FDTD algorithm using the cell method,” in Proc. IEEE AP-S
is stable and if each of the following one component systems
URSI, Columbus, OH, June 22–27, 2003.
[14] M. Marrone, “A novel technique to build constitutive matrices for gen-
eralized FDTD algorithms,” in Proc. IEEE AP-S URSI, Columbus, OH,
June 22–27, 2003.
[15] K. S. Yee, “Numerical solution of initial boundary value problems in-
are stable. The root conditions given in [18] states that in general volving Maxwell’s equations in isotropic media,” IEEE Trans. Antennas
the discrete system, Propagat., vol. 14, pp. 302–307, Mar. 1966.
[16] S. D. Gedney and U. Navsariwala, “An unconditionally stable finite el-
ement time-domain solution of the vector wave equation,” IEEE Trans.
(27) Microwave Guided Wave Lett., vol. 5, pp. 332–334, Oct. 1995.
[17] G. H. Golub and C. F. Van Loan, Matrix Computations. Baltimore,
MD: The Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1996.
with , is stable, regardless of the nature of the input [18] P. Henrici, Error Propagation for Difference Methods. New York:
source, if the roots of the polynomial equation Wiley, 1963.

(28)

Massimiliano Marrone (S’02) received the Laurea

satisfy . Using basic algebraic tools, we can demonstrate degree (summa cum laude) in electrical engineering
that the roots of the polynomial equation in (27) are , and the Ph.D. degree in information technology from
if the University of Trieste, Italy, in 1999 and 2003,
respectively.
From July 2001 to January 2002, he was a Visiting
(29) Scholar at the Microwaves and Optics Department,
Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP),
Sao Paulo, Brazil. From June 2002 to December
Since the eigenvalues of the matrix are all real, the 2002, he was a Visiting scholar at the Electromag-
netic Communication Laboratory, Pennsylvania
system (24) is stable if either , or, in general, the State University, University Park, where he is currently a Postdoctoral Re-
maximum eigenvalue in modulus of is such that searcher. His research interests include numerical techniques for modeling
electromagnetic fields in complex enviroments (FDTD, FEM, finite volumes),
network theory, and foundations of electromagnetics.
Dr. Marrone is a Member of the International Compumag Society (ICS).
MARRONE AND MITTRA: THEORETICAL STUDY OF STABILITY CRITERIA FOR HYBRIDIZED FDTD ALGORITHMS 2167

Raj Mittra (S’54–M’57–SM’69–F’71–LF’96) is a

Professor in the Electrical Engineering Department,
Pennsylvania State University, University Park. He is
also Director of the Electromagnetic Communication
Laboratory, which is affiliated with the Communica-
tion and Space Sciences Laboratory of the Electrical
Engineering Department. Prior to joining Penn State,
he was a Professor in the Electrical and Computer
Engineering Department, University of Illinois, Ur-
bana-Champaign. He was a Visiting Professor at Ox-
ford University, Oxford, U.K., and the Technical Uni-
versity of Denmark, Lyngby, Denmark. He is President of RM Associates, a
consulting organization that provides services to industrial and governmental
organizations. He has published more than 600 technical papers and more than
30 books or book chapters on various topics related to electromagnetics, an-
tennas, microwaves, and electronic packaging. He has received three patents on
communication antennas. Currently, he is the North American Editor of AEÜ.
He has advised more than 80 Ph.D. students and about an equal number of M.S.
students, and has mentored approximately 50 postdoctoral research associates
and visiting scholars in the EMC Laboratory. His professional interests include
the areas of communication antenna design, RF circuits, computational elec-
tromagnetics, electromagnetic modeling and simulation of electronic packages,
EMC analysis, radar scattering, frequency-selective surfaces, microwave and
millimeter-wave integrated circuits, and satellite antennas.
Prof. Mittra received the Guggenheim Fellowship Award in 1965, the IEEE
Centennial Medal in 1984, and the IEEE Millennium Medal in 2000. He is a past
President of AP-S and was Editor of the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS
AND PROPAGATION.
2168 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
Communications______________________________________________________________________
Full-Wave Analysis of a Waveguide Printed Slot
Giorgio Montisci and Giuseppe Mazzarella
Abstract—In this paper, we propose a new waveguide slot array configu-
ration, in which the slots are printed on a copper-clad substrate. This con-
figuration can be obtained using a printed slot and therefore allows both a
simpler realization of a slot array and permits its reuse when the pattern
requirement changes. An innovative and highly effective method of mo-
ments procedure has been devised. It employs a spectral domain approach
for the computation of the internal Green function. Our code has been vali-
dated against a commercial finite element method code, and the agreement
is highly satisfactory. The code has then been used to obtain the scattering
and radiating properties of the proposed printed slot. Such a slot behaves
as a shunt admittance, so Elliott’s method can be used to design an array
of printed slots.
Index Terms—Method of moments (MoM), slot antennas, waveguide ar-
rays.
I. INTRODUCTION
Waveguide slot arrays have a number of advantages over other mi-
crowave antenna systems. Among the others they have a very large
efficiency, due to the use of closed guiding structures for feeding, and
a considerable mechanical strength. On the other hand, they have no
flexibility since, once an array is realized, its electromagnetic behavior
cannot be changed. If the antenna requirements change, the array itself
must be changed. Moreover the array realization requires, mainly in
the K-band, expensive procedures, such as electroerosion.
In order to get a structure mechanically flexible and easier to realize,
but with all the other advantages of a waveguide slot array, it is pos-
sible to replace the upper waveguide wall with a copper-clad laminate,
with a single metal layer. The slots are etched on this metal layer using
one of the standard technologies for printed antennas. The electromag-
netic behavior of the array then depends only on this slotted copper-clad
laminate, which can be easily replaced at only a small fraction of the
total array cost. Moreover such an array can be realized in an easier
way and with the same, or even higher, accuracy than usual waveguide
slot arrays. The copper layer can be placed below or above the dielec-
tric laminate, and a metallic frame is required to sustain the laminate
(see Fig. 1). If the copper layer is below the laminate, this frame will
cause almost unpredictable diffraction effects (due to both space and
surface waves). Therefore we propose here to insert the dielectric in-
side the waveguide. In this way the slots radiate in an open half-space,
exactly as in a standard array. Of course, the power handling capability
is smaller than in a standard array, but this can be a problem only in
some applications. The proposed structure (see Fig. 1) consists of a
metallic “comb-like” structure, formed by the bottom and sidewalls of
the waveguides, covered with the copper-clad laminate.
A standard slot array can be accurately designed using Elliott’s pro-
cedure [1]. This procedure can be directly applied to the structure pro-
posed here, as soon as the self-admittance of a single slot is known,
since the mutual coupling is exactly equal to the standard case one. At
a first glance, another difference appears, namely the internal coupling
Manuscript received May 13, 2003; revised September 29, 2003.
The authors are with the Dipartimento di Ingegneria Elettrica ed Elettronica,
Università di Cagliari, 09123 Cagliari, Italy (e-mail: giorgiom@diee.unica.it).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2004.832333
0018-926X/04$20.00 © 2004 IEEE
Fig. 1. Alternate phase feeding for the proposed slot array.
between waveguides. This coupling has been evaluated with HFSS
using two slots, each in one of two adjacent waveguides with a common
internal dielectric layer: we consider a principal waveguide, which is
fed with an incident TE10 mode and a parasite one. External boundary
conditions have been chosen so that only internal coupling is involved
in the analysis. We found that the voltage excitation of the slot in the
parasite guide is about 030 dB with respect to that of the slot in the
principal waveguide. Therefore this small coupling does not affect the
array behavior and can be neglected expecially if the waveguides are
fed with alternating phases [2]. This case has been analyzed, too, and
the waveguide field distribution and the slots excitation are the same as
in the case of two isolated waveguide.
To evaluate the slot self-admittance, we present here a specialized
and very effective full-wave analysis, based on the method of moments
(MoM) [3] which allows also to take exactly into account the thickness
of the metallic plate in which the slots are cut. An accurate and effective
procedure has been realized using entire domain basis functions [4].
The key point in every MoM procedure for waveguide slots is the
evaluation of the waveguide magnetic field inside the equivalent mag-
netic currents. As it is well known [5] the relevant Green function is
singular and this can lead to numerical instabilities and poor conver-
gence, both in the space domain (expressing the Green function as a
modal series) and in the spectral domain. Since the F potential [6] is
less singular in a magnetic current the elements of the MoM matrix
have been expressed in terms of F . Previous papers on slots in inhomo-
geneous waveguide [7] employ a modal series for the Green function.
In this paper a spectral domain approach has been used since it is of far
simple use in presence of an air-dielectric boundary.
Our MoM code has been validated using a commercial finite element
method (FEM) code (Ansoft HFSS). The agreement is highly satisfac-
tory, though our tailored code is significantly more effective than HFSS,
which is a general-purpose commercial software and is not optimized
for the proposed structure.
II. PROBLEM FORMULATION
Using the alternate phase feeding [2] for the array, we can assume
that short circuits exist at the upper corners of two adjacent waveguides
(see Fig. 1). Therefore, the slot self-admittance is not affected by the
adjacent waveguides, and, in order to evaluate it, we can consider a
longitudinal slot in an isolated waveguide (Fig. 2). Let t be the dielectric
substrate thickness and "r its permittivity. The fundamental mode of
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004 2169

the z -directed magnetic currents are used as unknowns, and each cur-
rent (M i ; M e ) is expressed as truncated sinusoidal series with respect
to z
N N
p
M = ap sin ( z + L) iz = ap mp (z ):
p=1 2L n=1
(2)

In (2) the apex  can assume the values i; e.

Expansions (2) are then substituted into (1) and the resulting equa-
tions are scalar multiplied by mq and integrated over the apertures of
the slots. Only a few terms in (2) are needed, at least for resonant or al-
most-resonant slots, so that the resulting linear system in the unknowns
aip ; aep is small and quite well conditioned.
Both the internal and external magnetic fields in (1) are expressed
using the potential F

H
1 rr 1 F
= j!"F + j! (3)

so the MoM matrix element is

Apq = j!" F p 1mq ds 0 2

1 (r 1 F p ) (r 1 mq ) dS
Slot k0 slot
(4)
wherein F p is the potential produced by mp .
The external and slot region integrals are computed respectively using
a standard plane-wave spectrum representation of the external field and
the admittance matrix formalism, much as done in [6]. It is worth noting
that mp are the modes of the slot region (considered as a waveguide) and
therefore the admittance matrix allows to include exactly the wall thick-
ness effect. The internal terms in (4) have been computed in the spec-
Fig. 2. Geometry of the Slot. (a) Front view and (b) top view. tral domain expressing both the potentials and the currents as a Fourier
transform respect to the waveguide axis coordinate and as a (truncated)
Fourier series respect to the transverse direction. In this latter case, the
this waveguide impinges upon the slot and is scattered and radiated by expansion is actually an eigenmodes one.
the slot itself. Due to the waveguide inhomogeneity the z -directed magnetic cur-
In order to compute this interaction, and obtain the slot equivalent rent M~ produces both F~y and F~z components
circuit, both slot apertures (6i ; 6e ) are replaced by equivalent surface 1
~ z (w) = ~ zn (w) cos nx
magnetic currents, backed by perfect electric conductors. According M M (5)
to the equivalence theorem, these currents M i ; M e , are proportional n=0 a
to the tangential electric field on the apertures, and are therefore un- 1 nx
knowns. In order to compute them, we enforce, at all interfaces 6i ; 6e , F~y (x; y; w) = F~yn (y; w) sin
n=0 a
the continuity of the tangential magnetic field
1 nx
F~z (x; y; w) = F~zn (y; w) cos (6)
2 2
in H w [M i ] + in H inc where n=0 a
= in H s [M i ; M e ] on 6i
2 1 +1 F (x; y; z) exp(jwz) dz
2 2
i n H s [M i ; M e ] = i n H e [M e ] on 6e F~ (x; y; w) =
(1) 2 01 (7)

wherein H w ; H s ; H e are the waveguide region, slot region and ex- and likely for M~ . The use of expansions with different parity for F~y
ternal region magnetic field, H inc is the incident magnetic field of the and F~z is dictated by the boundary conditions on the lateral walls of
fundamental mode and in the normal to each surface. As usual for the waveguide.
radiating slots [8], we assume that the slots radiate into a half-space Since the effect of the unknowns magnetic currents has been in-
bounded by an infinite, perfectly conducting, ground plane. All the in- cluded in the continuity condition of the electric field at the source
location, then we can compute the potential F by solving two equal
homogeneous Helmholtz equations, one for F~y and the other for F~z ,
volved regions are regular and need not to be discretized in a MoM
procedure, since their Green function is known in (a simple) closed
form. which become:
@ F~n
In (1) we have also included explicitly the currents that produce each
@y2
+ 20nF~n = 0 0  y  d
field. Since each magnetic field is an integral operator acting on its
@ F~n
+ 2nF~n = 0 d  y  b
source, (1) is already cast as a set of coupled integral equations. The
actual form of these operators is of course required, and their computa- @y2
tion will be discussed later in this section. The resulting integral equa- wherein
tions are then solved by the MoM, to obtain the unknown currents. To n 2
do this, all unknowns are expressed as a linear combination of the same 20n = k02 0 w2 0
a
basis functions. Usually the slots are narrow enough to neglect the lon-
2 2 2 n 2
gitudinal component of the electric field on them [9]. Therefore only n = "r k0 0 w 0 : (8)
a
2170 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004

Fig. 3. Comparison between our MoM analysis procedure and Ansoft HFSS Fig. 4. Resonant length of the slot as a function of the slot offset
(t = 0:3 mm, " = 2:2; slot length = 13:2 mm, slot width = 1 mm, (frequency = 9:7 GHz, t = 0:3 mm, slot width = 1 mm).
slot oset = 4 mm).

The general solution for (8) is

F~n = A0n cos(0n y) + B0n cos(0n y) 0  y  d
F~n = An cos(n (b 0 y))
+ Bn cos(n (b 0 y)) d  y  b (9)
wherein the coefficients A0n ; B0n ; An , and Bn are computed as a
function of the unknowns magnetic currents, by enforcing the conti-
nuity and boundary conditions.
The MoM matrix elements are then computed in the spectral domain
using the Parseval identity in all the internal terms of (4). The integra-
tion has been performed on the real axis, following the suggestions of
[10].

III. RESULTS
The presented procedure has been applied to a number of different
cases. We discuss here only a typical set of results, using a WR90 wave- Fig. 5. Normalized slot admittance at resonance as a function of the slot offset
guide (A = 22:86 mm, B = 10:16 mm) partially filled with a dielec- (t = 0:3 mm, " = 2:2; slot length = 13:2 mm, slot width = 1 mm).
tric slab. The ground plane thickness is equal to 50 m and the losses
have been neglected. Actually, this is correct at the chosen X-band fre-
quency but could be questionable, at least for the dielectric losses, at
higher frequencies. In any case such losses can be taken into account, if
required, by using a complex permittivity in the Green function and in
the pole computation. Our pole-search procedure can be directly gen-
eralized to look for complex poles.
The results of our code have been validated through a comparison
with the results of a commercial FEM code (HFSS 6.0). As it is well
known a longitudinal slot in an empty waveguide behaves as a shunt
admittance and this behavior is retained also for a dielectric-backed
printed slot since our simulations show that the magnitude of j1+S11 0
S12 j is very small [9]. Therefore only the normalized slot admittance
has been considered for the comparison. The agreement between our
code and the commercial FEM one is very good (see Fig. 3). It is worth
noting that our code is about one order of magnitude faster than Ansoft
HFSS and requires at least two orders of magnitude less memory than
HFSS.
Fig. 6. Normalized slot admittance at resonance as a function of " (t = 0:3
In Fig. 4 the normalized resonant length of the slot has been shown, mm, Oset = 4:0 mm, slot length = 13:2 mm, slot width = 1 mm).
as a function of the slot offset, for different values of the substrate di-
electric constant at the design frequency of 9.7 GHz. Finally in Fig. 5–7
the normalized slot admittance is reported respectively as a function of In all the simulations we used seven expansion functions for each slot
the slot offset, the substrate dielectric constant and the dielectric sub- [N = 7 in (2)], since we found that this choice is enough to achieve a
strate thickness. good convergence.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
Fig. 7. Normalized slot admittance at resonance as a function of the dielectric
substrate thickness t (Oset = 4:0 mm, " = 2:2; slot length = 13:2 mm,
slot width = 1 mm).
IV. CONCLUSION
A full-wave MoM procedure for printed waveguide slots has been pre-
sented and validated against a commercial FEM code. From it both the
tangential electric field and the scattering data of a printed slot can be ob-
tained. From the latter we derive that a waveguide printed slot behaves
as a shunt element, as a standard waveguide longitudinal slot does. The
MoM procedure has been devised in order to exploit the simple geometric
form of a slot to realize an accurate and very effective code. As a result,
an accurate electromagnetic characterization of this structure can be ob-
tained, with the scattering data recast in a form suitable to be used in slot
array design procedures based on Elliot’s method. This allows to design
slot arrays with the slots printed on the aperture plane, with the same ac-
curacy of a standard waveguide slot array.
As a consequence, the new slot configuration proposed here can be
effectively used to allow an easier, less expensive array realization,
which permits a simple reuse of the array itself when the pattern re-
quirements changes.
REFERENCES
[1] R. S. Elliott, “An improved design procedure for small arrays of shunt
slots,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. AP-31, pp. 48–53, 1983.
[2] Y. Kimura, T. Hirano, J. Hirokawa, and M. Ando, “Chokes for alter-
nating-phase fed single-layer slotted waveguide arrays,” Proc. IEEE Int.
Antennas Propagat. Symp. Dig., vol. 38, pp. 82–85, July 2000.
[3] R. F. Harrington, Field Computation by Moment Methods. New York:
IEEE Press, 1993.
[4] R. W. Lyon and A. J. Sangster, “Efficient moment method analysis of ra-
diating slots in a thick-walled rectangular waveguide,” Proc. Inst. Elect.
Eng., pt. H, vol. 128, no. 4, Aug. 1981.
[5] R. E. Collin, Field Theory of Guided Waves. New York, NY: IEEE
Press, 1990.
[6] G. Mazzarella and G. Montisci, “A rigorous analysis of dielectric-cov-
ered narrow longitudinal shunt slots with finite wall thickness,” Electro-
magn., vol. 19, pp. 407–418, 1999.
[7] J. Joubert and D. A. McNamara, “Analysis of radiating slots in a rect-
angular waveguide loaded with a dielectric slab,” IEEE Trans. Antennas
Propagat., vol. 41, Sept. 1993.
[8] S. R. Rengarajan, “Compound radiating slot in a broad wall of a rect-
angular waveguide,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. AP-37, pp.
1116–1124, 1989.
[9] T. Vu Khac and C. T. Carson, “Impedance properties of longitudinal
slot antenna in the broad face of rectangular waveguide,” IEEE Trans.
Antennas Propagat., vol. AP-21, pp. 708–710, 1973.
[10] J. R. Mosig, R. C. Hall, and F. E. Gardiol, Handbook of Microstrip An-
tennas, J. R. James and P. S. Hall, Eds, London, U.K.: Peregrinus, 1993.
0018-926X/04$20.00 © 2004 IEEE
2171
Dual Polarized Wide-Band Aperture Stacked Patch
Antennas
K. Ghorbani and R. B. Waterhouse
Abstract—A wide-band, dual polarized printed antenna is designed and
developed in this paper. The antenna is based upon an aperture stacked
patch layout and incorporates a simple dual-layered feeding technique to
achieve dual-polarized radiation. The printed antenna has a measured 10
dB return loss bandwidth of 52% and an isolation between the excitation
ports of greater than 39 dB over this frequency range. The gain of the an-
tenna is 7 4 dBi 0 4 dB and the typical issues associated with incor-
porating an aperture excited solution are resolved by using a cross-shaped
reflector patch to ensure the front-to-back ratio is greater than 20 dB.
Index Terms—Aperature antennas, microstrip antennas, polarization.
I. INTRODUCTION
As mobile communication services become more sophisticated, the
need for larger spectral bandwidth for delivery of these provisions is
apparent. It was because of this trend the International Telecommunica-
tions Union recommended that for IMT-2000 several frequency bands
be utilized over almost a 50% range centered near 2 GHz [1]. Thus, base
station antennas must be able to operate efficiently over ever increasing
frequency ranges than were originally required. Also, to further en-
hance the link performance between the base station and wireless user,
diversity techniques have been proposed and subsequently used at the
base station. Polarization diversity is a useful technique to reduce the
detrimental effects of multipath fading and is a common procedure uti-
lized at base stations of most mobile communication systems.
Printed antennas have many salient features that have made them pri-
mary candidates for cellular base stations including their inherent ease
of mass construction and their conformal nature. However, in their orig-
inal form and subsequent bandwidth enhancement procedures, such as
stacking patches [2], or for the case of an aperture excited patch, using
a large slot [3] it is difficult to achieve the previously mentioned band-
width and therefore difficult to provide a single element solution. A
single element solution allows for simple, low cost arrays to be de-
veloped to provide the necessary sectoral radiation patterns typically
required at a base station terminal.
Over past few years there have been several reported printed an-
tennas that can achieve 50% bandwidth: Aperture stacked patches
(ASPs) [4], Quasi Yagi–Uda printed antennas [5] and Suspended
patches with three-dimensional feeds [6], to name a few. Each of these
printed antennas has their relative figures of merit and can readily
satisfy the necessary bandwidth requirements for IMT-2000. However,
of these solutions, the easiest to achieve good quality dual polarization
is the aperture-stacked patch, due to the inherent polarization purity
of a thin slot excited patch antenna. There have been several dual
polarized slot coupled patch antennas investigated recently [7]–[11],
however the antennas considered are relatively narrow band, with
bandwidths less than or equal to 25%.
In this paper, we present the design and develop of a dual polarized
broadband printed antenna capable of operation over a 50% impedance
Manuscript received February 13, 2003; revised September 17, 2003.
K. Ghorbani is with the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC 3000, Australia.
R. B. Waterhouse was with Pharad Technologies, North Fitzroy, VIC 3068
Australia. He is now with Pharad Technologies, Baltimore, MD 21227 USA
(e-mail: r.waterhouse@ieee.org).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2004.832484
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
Fig. 7. Normalized slot admittance at resonance as a function of the dielectric
substrate thickness t (Oset = 4:0 mm, " = 2:2; slot length = 13:2 mm,
slot width = 1 mm).
IV. CONCLUSION
A full-wave MoM procedure for printed waveguide slots has been pre-
sented and validated against a commercial FEM code. From it both the
tangential electric field and the scattering data of a printed slot can be ob-
tained. From the latter we derive that a waveguide printed slot behaves
as a shunt element, as a standard waveguide longitudinal slot does. The
MoM procedure has been devised in order to exploit the simple geometric
form of a slot to realize an accurate and very effective code. As a result,
an accurate electromagnetic characterization of this structure can be ob-
tained, with the scattering data recast in a form suitable to be used in slot
array design procedures based on Elliot’s method. This allows to design
slot arrays with the slots printed on the aperture plane, with the same ac-
curacy of a standard waveguide slot array.
As a consequence, the new slot configuration proposed here can be
effectively used to allow an easier, less expensive array realization,
which permits a simple reuse of the array itself when the pattern re-
quirements changes.
REFERENCES
[1] R. S. Elliott, “An improved design procedure for small arrays of shunt
slots,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. AP-31, pp. 48–53, 1983.
[2] Y. Kimura, T. Hirano, J. Hirokawa, and M. Ando, “Chokes for alter-
nating-phase fed single-layer slotted waveguide arrays,” Proc. IEEE Int.
Antennas Propagat. Symp. Dig., vol. 38, pp. 82–85, July 2000.
[3] R. F. Harrington, Field Computation by Moment Methods. New York:
IEEE Press, 1993.
[4] R. W. Lyon and A. J. Sangster, “Efficient moment method analysis of ra-
diating slots in a thick-walled rectangular waveguide,” Proc. Inst. Elect.
Eng., pt. H, vol. 128, no. 4, Aug. 1981.
[5] R. E. Collin, Field Theory of Guided Waves. New York, NY: IEEE
Press, 1990.
[6] G. Mazzarella and G. Montisci, “A rigorous analysis of dielectric-cov-
ered narrow longitudinal shunt slots with finite wall thickness,” Electro-
magn., vol. 19, pp. 407–418, 1999.
[7] J. Joubert and D. A. McNamara, “Analysis of radiating slots in a rect-
angular waveguide loaded with a dielectric slab,” IEEE Trans. Antennas
Propagat., vol. 41, Sept. 1993.
[8] S. R. Rengarajan, “Compound radiating slot in a broad wall of a rect-
angular waveguide,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. AP-37, pp.
1116–1124, 1989.
[9] T. Vu Khac and C. T. Carson, “Impedance properties of longitudinal
slot antenna in the broad face of rectangular waveguide,” IEEE Trans.
Antennas Propagat., vol. AP-21, pp. 708–710, 1973.
[10] J. R. Mosig, R. C. Hall, and F. E. Gardiol, Handbook of Microstrip An-
tennas, J. R. James and P. S. Hall, Eds, London, U.K.: Peregrinus, 1993.
0018-926X/04$20.00 © 2004 IEEE
2171
Dual Polarized Wide-Band Aperture Stacked Patch
Antennas
K. Ghorbani and R. B. Waterhouse
Abstract—A wide-band, dual polarized printed antenna is designed and
developed in this paper. The antenna is based upon an aperture stacked
patch layout and incorporates a simple dual-layered feeding technique to
achieve dual-polarized radiation. The printed antenna has a measured 10
dB return loss bandwidth of 52% and an isolation between the excitation
ports of greater than 39 dB over this frequency range. The gain of the an-
tenna is 7 4 dBi 0 4 dB and the typical issues associated with incor-
porating an aperture excited solution are resolved by using a cross-shaped
reflector patch to ensure the front-to-back ratio is greater than 20 dB.
Index Terms—Aperature antennas, microstrip antennas, polarization.
I. INTRODUCTION
As mobile communication services become more sophisticated, the
need for larger spectral bandwidth for delivery of these provisions is
apparent. It was because of this trend the International Telecommunica-
tions Union recommended that for IMT-2000 several frequency bands
be utilized over almost a 50% range centered near 2 GHz [1]. Thus, base
station antennas must be able to operate efficiently over ever increasing
frequency ranges than were originally required. Also, to further en-
hance the link performance between the base station and wireless user,
diversity techniques have been proposed and subsequently used at the
base station. Polarization diversity is a useful technique to reduce the
detrimental effects of multipath fading and is a common procedure uti-
lized at base stations of most mobile communication systems.
Printed antennas have many salient features that have made them pri-
mary candidates for cellular base stations including their inherent ease
of mass construction and their conformal nature. However, in their orig-
inal form and subsequent bandwidth enhancement procedures, such as
stacking patches [2], or for the case of an aperture excited patch, using
a large slot [3] it is difficult to achieve the previously mentioned band-
width and therefore difficult to provide a single element solution. A
single element solution allows for simple, low cost arrays to be de-
veloped to provide the necessary sectoral radiation patterns typically
required at a base station terminal.
Over past few years there have been several reported printed an-
tennas that can achieve 50% bandwidth: Aperture stacked patches
(ASPs) [4], Quasi Yagi–Uda printed antennas [5] and Suspended
patches with three-dimensional feeds [6], to name a few. Each of these
printed antennas has their relative figures of merit and can readily
satisfy the necessary bandwidth requirements for IMT-2000. However,
of these solutions, the easiest to achieve good quality dual polarization
is the aperture-stacked patch, due to the inherent polarization purity
of a thin slot excited patch antenna. There have been several dual
polarized slot coupled patch antennas investigated recently [7]–[11],
however the antennas considered are relatively narrow band, with
bandwidths less than or equal to 25%.
In this paper, we present the design and develop of a dual polarized
broadband printed antenna capable of operation over a 50% impedance
Manuscript received February 13, 2003; revised September 17, 2003.
K. Ghorbani is with the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC 3000, Australia.
R. B. Waterhouse was with Pharad Technologies, North Fitzroy, VIC 3068
Australia. He is now with Pharad Technologies, Baltimore, MD 21227 USA
(e-mail: r.waterhouse@ieee.org).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2004.832484
2172 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004

Fig. 1. Geometry of dual polarized ASP antenna.

bandwidth, with polarization isolation greater than 35 dB and a gain of

7 dBi 6 0:4 dB over this band of frequencies. Our solution utilizes a
dual polar, broadband reflector patch below the feed/antenna ground-
plane which improves the front-to-back ratio (FBR) of the element to
more than 20 dB across the band of interest, a key aspect for sectorized
cellular base stations and an issue with most aperture solutions.

II. ANTENNA CONFIGURATION AND DESIGN

The geometry of dual polarized ASP antenna is shown in Fig. 1. As
can be seen from this diagram, 2 rectangular patches are mounted on
multiple dielectric layers (in this case 2 each) located above a feed layer
situated above a ground-plane. Another feed layer used to provide the
orthogonal polarization exists below the ground-plane. Power is cou-
pled to the patch radiators from the feed networks via a cross-shaped
slot in the common ground-plane. Beyond the lower feed substrate
are a foam spacer and then a cross-shaped patch use to enhance the
front-to-back ratio.
The strategy outlined in [4] was used to design a linearly polar- Fig. 2. Measured and Ensemble 6.1 return loss of dual polarized ASP antenna:
ized aperture-stacked patch with the appropriate bandwidth (50%). En- (a) Port 1, (b) Port 2 (parameters: "r1 = 4:5; h1 = 1:58 mm, "r2 = 1; h2 =
35 mm, "r3 = 2:2; h3 = 0:508 mm, "r4 = 2:2; h4 = 0:508 mm, "r5 =
semble 6.1, a planar method of moments (MoM) field simulator, was 1:07; h5 = 9 mm, "r6 = 2:2; h6 = 3:175 mm, "r7 = 1; h7 = 13 mm,
utilized as the simulation tool. Symmetry is a very important aspect in "r4 = 2:2; h8 = 1:58 mm, W1REF = 10 mm, L1REF = 85 mm,
the design of the antenna to achieve a high degree of isolation between W2REF = 10 mm, L2REF = 85 mm, W1F = 0:4 mm, L1STUB =
the two polarization ports over all operation frequencies. By using a 12:3 mm, W2F = 0:4 mm, L2STUB = 13:1 mm, W2SL = 10 mm,
L2SL = 46 mm, W2SL = 10 mm, L2SL = 46 mm, W1 = 47 mm,
centered crossed slot to feed the patch element, a high degree of sym- L1 = 47 mm, W2 = 45 mm, L2 = 45 mm.).
metry can be maintained, however this necessitates a balanced feed net-
work for each polarization excitation. Incorporating a single feed-line
on each polarization of the crossed slot would introduce asymmetry,
which can degrade the isolation between the two ports. Using small
slots (as in [9], [10]) is not an option as the bandwidth requirement is
too large for such a solution. In the proposed configuration each feed
network is placed on a separate layer on opposite sides of the ground
plane of the antenna as can be seen in Fig. 1. This feed layout is based on
that presented in [8], [11] and avoids using an air-bridge (as in the case
where both balanced feeds for each polarization are etched on the same
board). Using separate feed layers improves the isolation between the
ports due to limiting spurious radiation from the air-bridge as well as
reduces the construction cost of the antenna. The input impedance for
the two ports will differ slightly as the upper feed network can couple to
the patch elements. However this is typically negligible as electrically
thick layers are used between the slot and the patches of the ASP and Fig. 3. Measured and Ensemble 6.1 isolation between Port 1 and Port 2.
so direct coupling from the feed-line to the patches should be minimal.
Having said that, the height of two feeding layers must be chosen so
that the mutual coupling between the slot and patch elements remains layers of Rogers Duroid 5880 laminate ("r3 ; "r4 ; "r6 ; "r8 ), one layer of
the same for both polarization ports. The proposed ASP consists of four FR4 dielectric material ("r1 ) and three air/foam layers ("r2 ; "r5 ; "r7 ).
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
Fig. 4. Measured radiation patterns of dual polarized ASP antenna at 2.0 GHz: (a) H-plane Port 1, (b) H-plane Port 2, (c) E-plane Port 1, (d) E-plane Port 2.
ASP antennas normally produce a relatively low front to back ratio
(typically 10–14 dB [4]) due to the resonant aperture used to enhance
the bandwidth of the aperture-coupled patches. In order to increase the
FBR a microstrip antenna element as a reflector (based on the method
described in [12]) was used. The length of the reflector is chosen so the
phase of the radiated field due to the reflector is approximately opposite
to the radiated field from the aperture. Changing the spacing (between
the reflector and the aperture) and width of the reflector can control the
magnitude of the radiated field. The total cancellation will occur when
the magnitudes of the radiated field from the aperture and the reflector
are approximately equal while the phases are opposite. The spacing
between the aperture and the reflector should also be sufficient so the
reflector has negligible affect on the input impedance of the antenna.
For the application considered here a cross-shaped element was chosen
to ensure minimal back radiation in both polarizations was achieved.
To reduce the cost of the antenna and to make it more rigid in con-
struction, an FR4 substrate was used for the microstrip patch reflector.
The spacing between the reflector patch and the lower feedline was
optimized in order to achieve a FBR of greater than 20 dB without af-
fecting the input impedance behavior of both polarization networks.
This optimization was done by simulation. The procedure outlined in
[12] was followed here. This procedure is pretty robust and so for the
sake of brevity, we simply referenced it in this paper. The optimiza-
tion procedure is conducted over the entire 10 dB return loss band-
width. Plots of the affect of spacing on the FBR are given in [12]
and these were consistent with the study conducted here. Typically for
2173
the optimum design the FBR peaks at a frequency between the lower
band-edge and the center frequency. Slightly increasing the spacing
from this value can enhance the peak FBR at the expense of the achiev-
able 20 dB FBR bandwidth. The reflector patch enhanced the FBR by
more than 5 dB across the entire band to greater than 20 dB.
III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Fig. 2(a) and (b) show the measured and calculated return loss from
Port 1 and Port 2 of the dual polarized ASP antenna, respectively (port
1 corresponds to feed 1 in Fig. 1). As can be seen from these responses,
there is good agreement between the theoretical and experimental re-
sults. 10 dB return loss bandwidths of greater than 52% for both polar-
izations were obtained. The lower edge of the matched band is slighter
lower for Port 2 than Port 1. This can be attributed to the height of the
upper feed substrate and so the coupling between the slot and the patch
element for this polarization is stronger than between the slot and the
patch element for the Port 1 excitation. The shift is less than 1%. Fig. 3
shows the measured and calculated isolation between two ports. An iso-
lation of more than 39 dB over the impedance-matched band has been
achieved. As mentioned before, the two feed networks are separated
by the ground plane, thereby eliminating any cross coupling between
the microstrip-lines in the two networks. The magnitude of isolation
presented here is comparable with the previous dual polarized aperture
coupled patches presented in the literature and is achieved over a con-
siderably larger impedance bandwidth.
2174 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
Fig. 5. Measured and Ensemble 6.1 gain of dual polarized ASP antenna.
A full radiation characterization of the antenna was conducted and the
results at the band edges (1.5 and 2.5 GHz) as well as the center frequency
(2 GHz). The results at 2 GHz are shown in Fig. 4. The cross-polarization
levels for this antenna are considerably low, with a higher contribution in
theE-planeofeachexcitedport.Thiscanbeattributedtotheinteractionof
excited surface waves, the slot and the edges of the truncated substrates.
Such an interaction is always more prevalent in the E-plane. The cross-
polar level for each excitation and in each plane is not less than 12 dB
below the copolar value for scan angles up to 660 , angles consistent
with a three-sectored base station. Of course the worse cases are at the
extreme scan angles,wherethecopolarradiateddecaysmorerapidly. The
cross-polarization levels are the highest at 1.5 GHz, which is due to the
size of the ground-plane (here 105 mm 2 105 mm). The finite size of the
ground-planewillhaveagreaterimpactatlowerfrequencies,asitsrelative
size issmaller. A measured FBR(the ratio ofpower at broadside ( = 0 )
and  = 180 ) of approximately 20 dB was obtained for the antenna over
the entire impedance bandwidth.
The gain of the antenna was greater than 7 dBi over the entire
VSWR < 2 : 1 band. A comparison between theory and experiment
are shown in Fig. 5. As can be seen from this figure there is very
good agreement between the predicted and measured results. The gain
of the dual-polarized ASP drops off at higher frequencies, beyond
the operation bandwidth of the antenna due to the slot becoming the
dominant radiation mechanism [12].
There are many design parameters in the dual polarized ASP with
reduced backward directed radiation. Because of this, it is important to
ensure that the overall performance of the antenna is not sensitive to
parameter variations (tolerances in the dielectric constants of the mate-
rials, or etching procedures). We conducted a parameter sensitivity in-
vestigation via simulation (a three-sigma test) on the proposed antenna,
allowing all the parameters associated with antenna (conductor/slot di-
mensions (60:02 mm, materials ("r 6 0:02; h 6 0:025 mm), to be
varied within the material tolerances and etching tolerances. The find-
ings showed minimal impact on the return loss bandwidth and FBR
performance. There were slight increases in the peaks of the return loss
within the 10 dB return loss band by 1.5 dB when all the conductors
were over-etched by 0.02 mm, however, these peaks were still below
the 10 dB requirement. These findings show that the antenna is very
tolerant to moderate variations in all the parameters.
IV. CONCLUSION
In this paper, a dual-polarized wide-band patch antenna has been
presented. The antenna has a VSWR < 2 : 1 bandwidth of greater
than 50%, an isolation between ports of more than 39 dB and a gain of
7:4 dBi 6 0:4 dB over this frequency range. A cross-shaped reflector
0018-926X/04$20.00 © 2004 IEEE
patch ensures the FBR of the antenna is greater than 20 dB over the
entire 50% matched-impedance bandwidth. The measured results are
in very good agreement with the theoretical predictions. The antenna is
simple to manufacture and is suited to being incorporated into a mobile
communications base station array.
REFERENCES
[1] Handbook on Antennas in Wireless Communications, L. Godara, Ed.,
CRC Press, New York, 2001.
[2] R. B. Waterhouse, “Design of probe-fed stacked patches,” IEEE Trans.
Antennas Propagat., vol. 47, pp. 1780–1784, Dec. 1999.
[3] J. F. Zurcher, “The SSFIP: A global concept for high performance broad-
band planar antennas,” Electron. Lett., vol. 24, pp. 1433–1435, Nov.
1988.
[4] S. D. Targonski, R. B. Waterhouse, and D. M. Pozar, “A wideband aper-
ture coupled stacked patch antenna using thick substrates,” Electron.
Lett., vol. 32, pp. 1941–1942, Oct. 1996.
[5] N. Kaneda, W. R. Deal, Y. Qian, R. Waterhouse, and T. Itoh, “A broad-
band planar quasiyagi antenna,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol.
50, pp. 1158–1160, Aug. 2002.
[6] N. Herscovici, “A wide-band single-layer patch antenna,” IEEE Trans.
Antennas Propagat., vol. 46, pp. 471–474, Apr. 1998.
[7] E. Aloni and R. Kastner, “Analysis of a dual circularly polarized mi-
crostrip antenna fed by crossed slots,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat.,
vol. 42, pp. 1053–1058, Aug. 1994.
[8] M. Yamazaki, E. T. Rahardjo, and M. Haneishi, “Construction of a slot-
coupled planar antenna for dual polarization,” Electron. Lett., vol. 30,
pp. 1814–1815, 1994.
[9] S. Hienonen, A. Lehto, and A. V. Raisanen, “Simple broadband dual-po-
larized aperture-coupled microstrip antenna,” in Proc. IEEE APS Symp.
Digest, Orlando, FL, June 1999, pp. 1228–1231.
[10] S. C. Gao, L. W. Li, P. Gardner, and P. S. Hall, “Wideband dual-polarized
microstrip patch antenna,” Electron. Lett., vol. 37, pp. 1213–1214, Sept.
2001.
[11] J. R. Sanford and A. Tengs, “A two substrate dual polarized aperture cou-
pled patch,” Proc. IEEE Trans. Antennas and Propagation Symp. Digest,
pp. 1544–1547, 1996.
[12] R. B. Waterhouse, D. Novak, A. Nirmalathas, and C. Lim, “Broadband
printed sectoral coverage antennas for millimeter-wave wireless appli-
cations,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 50, pp. 12–16, Jan. 2002.
Resonant Frequency of Equilateral Triangular Microstrip
Antenna With and Without Air Gap
Debatosh Guha and Jawad Y. Siddiqui
Abstract—A tunable equilateral triangular microstrip patch (ETMP) an-
tenna with a variable air gap between the substrate and the ground plane
has been studied theoretically and experimentally. Calculated resonant fre-
quencies for different air gap heights have been verified with measurements
of a coax-fed antenna. The tunability of the antenna as a function of the air
gap height is studied theoretically showing over 200% tunable range of an
ETMP with 50 mm side length printed on a substrate with = 10 5.
The computed results for the antennas with zero air gap height are com-
pared with a standard spectral domain moment method analysis supported
by other previously reported experiments. Very close agreement is revealed
in all comparisons.
Index Terms—Microstrip antenna, triangular microstrip patch, tunable
microstrip antenna.
Manuscript received October 22, 2002; revised June 30, 2003. This work was
supported by the Center of Advanced Study in Radio Physics and Electronics,
University of Calcutta.
The authors are with the Institute of Radio Physics and Electronics, Uni-
versity of Calcutta, Calcutta 700 009, India (e-mail: dgirpe@yahoo.co.in; sid-
diqui@cal.vsnl.net.in).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2004.832504
2174 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
Fig. 5. Measured and Ensemble 6.1 gain of dual polarized ASP antenna.
A full radiation characterization of the antenna was conducted and the
results at the band edges (1.5 and 2.5 GHz) as well as the center frequency
(2 GHz). The results at 2 GHz are shown in Fig. 4. The cross-polarization
levels for this antenna are considerably low, with a higher contribution in
theE-planeofeachexcitedport.Thiscanbeattributedtotheinteractionof
excited surface waves, the slot and the edges of the truncated substrates.
Such an interaction is always more prevalent in the E-plane. The cross-
polar level for each excitation and in each plane is not less than 12 dB
below the copolar value for scan angles up to 660 , angles consistent
with a three-sectored base station. Of course the worse cases are at the
extreme scan angles,wherethecopolarradiateddecaysmorerapidly. The
cross-polarization levels are the highest at 1.5 GHz, which is due to the
size of the ground-plane (here 105 mm 2 105 mm). The finite size of the
ground-planewillhaveagreaterimpactatlowerfrequencies,asitsrelative
size issmaller. A measured FBR(the ratio ofpower at broadside ( = 0 )
and  = 180 ) of approximately 20 dB was obtained for the antenna over
the entire impedance bandwidth.
The gain of the antenna was greater than 7 dBi over the entire
VSWR < 2 : 1 band. A comparison between theory and experiment
are shown in Fig. 5. As can be seen from this figure there is very
good agreement between the predicted and measured results. The gain
of the dual-polarized ASP drops off at higher frequencies, beyond
the operation bandwidth of the antenna due to the slot becoming the
dominant radiation mechanism [12].
There are many design parameters in the dual polarized ASP with
reduced backward directed radiation. Because of this, it is important to
ensure that the overall performance of the antenna is not sensitive to
parameter variations (tolerances in the dielectric constants of the mate-
rials, or etching procedures). We conducted a parameter sensitivity in-
vestigation via simulation (a three-sigma test) on the proposed antenna,
allowing all the parameters associated with antenna (conductor/slot di-
mensions (60:02 mm, materials ("r 6 0:02; h 6 0:025 mm), to be
varied within the material tolerances and etching tolerances. The find-
ings showed minimal impact on the return loss bandwidth and FBR
performance. There were slight increases in the peaks of the return loss
within the 10 dB return loss band by 1.5 dB when all the conductors
were over-etched by 0.02 mm, however, these peaks were still below
the 10 dB requirement. These findings show that the antenna is very
tolerant to moderate variations in all the parameters.
IV. CONCLUSION
In this paper, a dual-polarized wide-band patch antenna has been
presented. The antenna has a VSWR < 2 : 1 bandwidth of greater
than 50%, an isolation between ports of more than 39 dB and a gain of
7:4 dBi 6 0:4 dB over this frequency range. A cross-shaped reflector
0018-926X/04$20.00 © 2004 IEEE
patch ensures the FBR of the antenna is greater than 20 dB over the
entire 50% matched-impedance bandwidth. The measured results are
in very good agreement with the theoretical predictions. The antenna is
simple to manufacture and is suited to being incorporated into a mobile
communications base station array.
REFERENCES
[1] Handbook on Antennas in Wireless Communications, L. Godara, Ed.,
CRC Press, New York, 2001.
[2] R. B. Waterhouse, “Design of probe-fed stacked patches,” IEEE Trans.
Antennas Propagat., vol. 47, pp. 1780–1784, Dec. 1999.
[3] J. F. Zurcher, “The SSFIP: A global concept for high performance broad-
band planar antennas,” Electron. Lett., vol. 24, pp. 1433–1435, Nov.
1988.
[4] S. D. Targonski, R. B. Waterhouse, and D. M. Pozar, “A wideband aper-
ture coupled stacked patch antenna using thick substrates,” Electron.
Lett., vol. 32, pp. 1941–1942, Oct. 1996.
[5] N. Kaneda, W. R. Deal, Y. Qian, R. Waterhouse, and T. Itoh, “A broad-
band planar quasiyagi antenna,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol.
50, pp. 1158–1160, Aug. 2002.
[6] N. Herscovici, “A wide-band single-layer patch antenna,” IEEE Trans.
Antennas Propagat., vol. 46, pp. 471–474, Apr. 1998.
[7] E. Aloni and R. Kastner, “Analysis of a dual circularly polarized mi-
crostrip antenna fed by crossed slots,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat.,
vol. 42, pp. 1053–1058, Aug. 1994.
[8] M. Yamazaki, E. T. Rahardjo, and M. Haneishi, “Construction of a slot-
coupled planar antenna for dual polarization,” Electron. Lett., vol. 30,
pp. 1814–1815, 1994.
[9] S. Hienonen, A. Lehto, and A. V. Raisanen, “Simple broadband dual-po-
larized aperture-coupled microstrip antenna,” in Proc. IEEE APS Symp.
Digest, Orlando, FL, June 1999, pp. 1228–1231.
[10] S. C. Gao, L. W. Li, P. Gardner, and P. S. Hall, “Wideband dual-polarized
microstrip patch antenna,” Electron. Lett., vol. 37, pp. 1213–1214, Sept.
2001.
[11] J. R. Sanford and A. Tengs, “A two substrate dual polarized aperture cou-
pled patch,” Proc. IEEE Trans. Antennas and Propagation Symp. Digest,
pp. 1544–1547, 1996.
[12] R. B. Waterhouse, D. Novak, A. Nirmalathas, and C. Lim, “Broadband
printed sectoral coverage antennas for millimeter-wave wireless appli-
cations,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 50, pp. 12–16, Jan. 2002.
Resonant Frequency of Equilateral Triangular Microstrip
Antenna With and Without Air Gap
Debatosh Guha and Jawad Y. Siddiqui
Abstract—A tunable equilateral triangular microstrip patch (ETMP) an-
tenna with a variable air gap between the substrate and the ground plane
has been studied theoretically and experimentally. Calculated resonant fre-
quencies for different air gap heights have been verified with measurements
of a coax-fed antenna. The tunability of the antenna as a function of the air
gap height is studied theoretically showing over 200% tunable range of an
ETMP with 50 mm side length printed on a substrate with = 10 5.
The computed results for the antennas with zero air gap height are com-
pared with a standard spectral domain moment method analysis supported
by other previously reported experiments. Very close agreement is revealed
in all comparisons.
Index Terms—Microstrip antenna, triangular microstrip patch, tunable
microstrip antenna.
Manuscript received October 22, 2002; revised June 30, 2003. This work was
supported by the Center of Advanced Study in Radio Physics and Electronics,
University of Calcutta.
The authors are with the Institute of Radio Physics and Electronics, Uni-
versity of Calcutta, Calcutta 700 009, India (e-mail: dgirpe@yahoo.co.in; sid-
diqui@cal.vsnl.net.in).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2004.832504
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004 2175

I. INTRODUCTION
Since the early phase of microstrip research the triangular geometry
of microstrip patch is being investigated as planar circuit components
[1]–[3] as well as microstrip antennas [4]–[17]. Many new configura-
tions have also been studied in recent years to explore new character-
istics [18]–[24]. Very recently, Gurel and Yazgan [25] have analyzed a
tunable equilateral triangular microstrip patch (ETMP) antenna. They
have introduced a variable air gap in between the ground plane and
the substrate like some previous investigations with other geometries
[26]–[28].
The resonant frequency fr of the ETMP becomes a critical design
parameter since it is inherently a narrow bandwidth structure. Starting
from [1], most of the formulations for fr are reported on the basis of
the cavity model analyzes (CMA) [1], [4], [7]–[17], [25], though a few
deal with other techniques like spectral domain technique [3], [19], ge-
ometrical theory [6] and spectral domain analysis with method of mo-
ment solution (SDA MoM) [12]. One recent advance in this field [25]
presents a new computation of the resonant frequency of an ETMP with
and without air gap employing Wolff’s cavity model [29]. In [25], a Fig. 1. Coax-fed ETMP antenna with an air gap between the substrate and the
better accuracy of their theory with respect to SDA MoM [12] and other ground plane.
available cavity model results is also outlined. But the formulation [25]
itself suffers from some limitations. The effective side length of the The quantity "r;dyn for the TM modes under an ETMP now can be
ETMP derived in [25] is valid only for the substrates with "r < 10. calculated from [30, eq.(4)–(16)] with n = 0:3525.
These shortcomings are addressed in this paper and a simple formula The effective radius of the equivalent circle is calculated from [30]
of the resonant frequency of an ETMP with and without air gap is pro- which with the help of (2) determines the effective side length of the
posed on the basis of an improved cavity model recently proposed by ETMP as
one of the authors [30]. Like [30], the present model should be widely
2
applicable, even to the MIC design on semiconductor materials with se = a (1 + q ) (3)
"r  12. Furthermore, the variable air gap, as shown in Fig. 1, intro- 3
duces tunability to the antenna and enhances its impedance bandwidth. where q is the parameter determining the fringing field effect derived
Although Mirshekar-Syahkal and Hassani [20] investigated stacked as [30, eq.(4)–(17)].
ETMP with dissimilar substrates, including air, no experimental
result of an ETMP with an air gap is available in open literature. The
III. RESULTS
calculated results are compared with measurements performed on HP
8720C network analyzer. The tunability of the antenna as a function A tunable ETMP antenna with variable air gap analyzed in
of the variable air gap (h1 of Fig. 1) is presented as design data for Section II and depicted in Fig. 1, reduces to the conventional
various combinations of antenna parameters. Computed results for the geometry when h1 = 0. The computed results of such a structure
ETMPs without air gap are compared with a standard theory supported have been compared with some data reported earlier. The spectral
by different experimental data. domain analyzes with method of moment solution (SDA MoM)
is the most accurate method and hence the SDA MoM results
II. THEORETICAL CALCULATIONS [12] are taken as the reference to compare the computed values
in Tables I and II. Table I deals with an antenna printed on a
Following the cavity model analysis by Helszajn [1], a simple and low dielectric constant substrate as measured by Dahele and Lee
more general expression for the resonant frequencies of TMnml modes [7]. The present formulation is compared with another accurate
of an ETMP antenna with and with out air gaps can be given as [1] cavity model analysis using GA optimization (CMA-GA) [17] with
2c
fr;nm = p
3se "r;e
2
(n + nm + m )
2 (1) reference to the SDA MoM [12]. The comparison shows very close
approximation of the calculated results to those of the SDA MoM
where c is the velocity of light in free space, se is the effective side [12] ones and even improvement over [17]. The measured values
length of an ETMP and "r;e is the effective relative permittivity of the also correspond to the theoretical values with close agreement.
medium below the patch. A similar comparison is presented in Table II for high dielectric
In the present formulation, se and "r;e are determined using the constant substrate. Here, the present theory rather shows a closer
improved cavity model [30]. The parameter "r;e is derived in terms approximation with the SDA MoM [12] results. The authors have
of "re and "r;dyn [30, eq. 3], where "re is the equivalent permittivity experienced the same observation from the comparison with another
of the two-layer dielectric medium (Fig. 1) and "r;dyn is the dynamic SDA result [3] for a wide range of patches printed on a substrate
dielectric constant of the medium below the patch. The quantity "r;dyn with "r = 10:2.
of an ETMP can be obtained from the static main and static fringing The dominant mode resonant frequency of the ETMP without
capacitances of an equivalent circular microstrip disk [30]. The equiv- air gap is examined for different substrate heights and "r values in
alent circle of an equilateral triangular patch is determined on the basis Fig. 2. The effect of the substrate height h(h = h2 ) is predominant
of equal circumference of both the geometries keeping in view the same in the lower "r case where the fringing fields change considerably
fringing field effects for the dominant modes. The radius of an equiva- with h [30, Fig. 2]. That effect is negligibly small in high dielectric
lent circle thus can be equated as constant substrates. This is also supported by the SDA MoM [12]
3 results, also depicted in Fig. 2 by discrete circles. Excellent agreement
a=
2
s (2) is revealed except for the low "r curve with h  8 mm. This may
2176 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004

TABLE I
COMPARISON OF CALCULATED RESONANT FREQUENCIES OF AN ETMP AND
MEASURED VALUES (LOW DIELECTRIC PERMITTIVITY) "r : , = 2 32
s = 100mm, h1 =0
, h2 = 1 59
: mm,  : mm=30

TM
Fig. 2. Computed resonant frequency of 10 mode of the ETMP antenna
( = ) = 100
versus thickness of the substrate h h h2 . s mm, h1 =0; ——
TABLE II Present Model,  SDA MoM [12].
COMPARISON OF CALCULATED RESONANT FREQUENCIES OF AN ETMP AND
MEASURED VALUES (HIGH DIELECTRIC PERMITTIVITY) "r : , = 10 5
s = 41mm, h1 =0
, h2 =07
: mm,  =50
: mm TABLE III
COMPARISON OF CALCULATED RESONANT FREQUENCIES OF AN ETMP
WITH VARIABLE AIR GAP AND MEASUREMENTS s = 15 5
: mm,
h2 = 0 508
: mm, "r =22 =34
: , : mm

be explained as an inherent limitation of the cavity model which

is best suitable for small h=0 ratio. Similar disagreement with
the measurements of an identical patch is reported in [10] for low
dielectric constant substrate but this occurs at a much lower value
of h = 1:59 mm when compared with their integration average
method calculation.
No result of the ETMP antenna with air gap is available in open lit-
erature and hence the calculated frequencies are compared with mea-
surements of a coax-fed tunable antenna etched on RT-Duroid 5880
and measured on HP 8720C network analyzer. The antenna was fed
by a 50
SMA probe with   3:4 mm for all h1 values. The res-
onant frequencies measured from the minima of the return loss traces
are compared with the calculated values in Table III. Very close agree-
ment between the theory and experiment is observed for the first two
operating modes. However, the limited range of h1 values in the exper-
iment could not give a clear view of tunability of the antenna.
The tunability has been theoretically studied in Fig. 3. The design
data are presented for two different patches printed on two different Fig. 3. Dominant Mode resonant frequency normalized with respect to that
for h1=0 Versus h1 =h2 . h2= 0 508
: = 50
mm; —— s ( =
mm, f0 "r
substrates having widely varying dielectric constant. The resonant fre-
quency normalized with respect to that with h1 = 0 is plotted against
2 32) = 2 59
: (
: GHz, f0 "r = 10 5) = 1 24
: : GHz - - - s =5 mm,
( = 2 32) = 23 43
f0 "r : ( = 10 5) = 12 09
: GHz, f0 "r : : GHz.
h1 =h2 with h2 = 0:508 mm. The variation of f=f0 with h1 =h2 is
clearly observed for all s and "r values. Larger patches on high dielec-
IV. CONCLUSION
tric constant substrates should yield broader tunable frequency ranges.
The curves for the small patch (s = 5 mm), unlike those for s = A tunable equilateral triangular microstrip antenna with a variable
50 mm, show a blurred peak at some value near h1 =h2  1 and then air gap in between the substrate and the ground plane has been investi-
falls monotonically as h1 =h2 increases. The decrease in f=f0 with the gated both theoretically and experimentally. An improved formulation
increase in air gap height is due to the increase in the fringing factor q to compute accurate resonant frequencies of the operational modes in
as thoroughly discussed in [30]. The increase in the air gap height h1 an ETMP is proposed on the basis of an improved cavity model [30].
keeping h2  0 increases the resultant thickness h of the medium The computed results are compared with measurements of a proto-
below the patch with the effect of lowering its equivalent dielectric con- type tunable antenna printed on a RT-Duroid 5880 and measured on
stant to a significant fraction. This low permittivity value minimizes HP 8720C network analyzer. Very close agreement between the theory
the possibility of generating any surface wave even when the antenna and experiment is observed. Attractive tunability characteristics with
is electrically thick. the change in air gap height are also studied theoretically. Over 200%
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
tunable ranges of an ETMP antenna on "r = 10:5 with s = 50 mm
is demonstrated from theoretical data. Larger patches on higher dielec-
tric constant substrates should offer larger tunable frequency ranges.
The ETMP without air gap (Fig. 1, h1 = 0) reduces to the conven-
tional geometry which was studied by many other researchers [1]–[17]
earlier. The present model is compared with another accurate cavity
model [17], taking SDA MoM [12] as the reference. Improvement of
the present model is envisaged from the studies for different antenna
parameters.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank Dr. P. K. Saha and Dr. P. K. Basu,
University of Calcutta, for their constant encouragement.
REFERENCES
[1] J. Helszajn and D. S. James, “Planar triangular resonators with magnetic
walls,” IEEE Trans. Microwave Theory Tech., vol. MTT-26, pp. 95–100,
Feb. 1978.
[2] J. Helszajn, D. S. James, and W. T. Nisbet, “Circulators using planar
triangular resonators,” IEEE Trans. Microwave Theory Tech., vol.
MTT-27, pp. 188–193, Feb. 1979.
[3] A. K. Sharma and B. Bhat, “Analysis of triangular microstrip res-
onators,” IEEE Trans. Microwave Theory Tech., vol. MTT-30, pp.
2029–2031, Nov. 1982.
[4] Y. T. Lo, D. Solomon, and W. F. Richards, “Theory and experiment on
microstrip antennas,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. AP-27, pp.
137–145, 1979.
[5] I. J. Bahl and P. Bhartia, “Radiation characteristics of a triangular mi-
crostrip antenna,” Arch. Elek. Ubertragungstech., vol. 35, pp. 214–219,
1981.
[6] E. F. Kuester and D. C. Chang, “A geometrical theory for the resonant
frequencies and Q-factors of some triangular microstrip patch antennas,”
IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. AP-31, pp. 27–34, Jan. 1983.
[7] J. S. Dahele and K. F. Lee, “On the resonant frequencies of the trian-
gular patch antenna,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. AP-35, pp.
100–101, Jan. 1987.
[8] R. Garg and S. A. Long, “An improved formula for the resonant fre-
quency of the triangular microstrip patch antenna,” IEEE Trans. An-
tennas Propagat., vol. AP-36, p. 570, Apr. 1988.
[9] K. F. Lee, K. M. Luk, and J. S. Dahele, “Characteristics of the equilateral
triangular patch antenna,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. AP-36,
pp. 1510–1518, Nov. 1988.
[10] X. Gang, “On the resonant frequencies of microstrip antennas,” IEEE
Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 37, pp. 245–247, Feb. 1989.
[11] R. Singh, A. De, and R. S. Yadava, “Comments on an improved formula
for the resonant frequency of the triangular microstrip patch antenna,”
IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 39, pp. 1443–1444, Sept. 1991.
[12] W. Chen, K. F. Lee, and J. Dahele, “Theoretical and experimental studies
of the resonant frequencies of equilateral triangular microstrip antenna,”
IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 40, pp. 1253–1256, Oct. 1992.
[13] N. Kumprasert and K. W. Kiranon, “Simple and accurate formula for
the resonant frequency of the equilateral triangular microstrip patch an-
tenna,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 42, pp. 1178–1179, Aug.
1994.
[14] K. Güney, “Resonant frequency of a triangular microstrip antenna,” Mi-
crowave Opt. Technol. Lett., vol. 6, pp. 555–557, July 1993.
[15] , “Comments on ‘on the resonant frequencies of microstrip an-
tennas’,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 42, pp. 1363–1365, Sept.
1994.
[16] P. Mythili and A. Das, “Comments on ‘simple and accurate formula for
the resonant frequency of the equilateral triangular microstrip patch an-
tenna’,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 48, p. 636, Jan. 2000.
[17] D. Karaboğa, K. Güney, N. Karaboğa, and A. Kaplan, “Simple and accu-
rate effective side expression obtained by using a modified genetic algo-
rithm for the resonant frequency of an equilateral triangular microstrip
antenna,” Int. J. Electron., vol. 83, pp. 99–108, Jan. 1997.
[18] J. P. Damiano et al., “Study of multilayer microstrip antennas with radi-
ating elements of various geometry,” Proc. Inst. Elect. Eng., pt. H, vol.
137, no. 3, pp. 163–170, 1990.
0018-926X/04$20.00 © 2004 IEEE
2177
[19] H. R. Hassani and D. Mirshekar-Syahkal, “Analysis of triangular patch
antennas including radome effects,” Proc. Inst. Elect. Eng., pt. H, vol.
139, no. 3, pp. 251–256, 1992.
[20] D. Mirshekar-Syahkal and H. R. Hassani, “Characteristics of stacked
rectangular and triangular patch antennas for dual band applications,” in
Proc. 8th Inst. Elect. Eng. Int. Conf. Antennas and Propagation, 1993,
pp. 728–731.
[21] C. L. Tang and K. L. Wong, “A modified equilateral-triangular-ring
microstrip antenna for circular polarization,” Microwave Opt. Technol.
Lett., vol. 23, pp. 123–126, Oct. 1999.
[22] C. L. Tang, J. H. Lu, and K. L. Wong, “Novel dual-frequency and broad-
band designs of single-feed slot-loaded equilateral-triangular microstrip
antennas,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 48, pp. 1048–1054,
July 2000.
[23] J. H. Lu and K. L. Wong, “Single-feed circularly polarized equilateral
triangular microstrip antenna with a tuning stub,” IEEE Trans. Antennas
Propagat., vol. 48, pp. 1869–1872, Dec. 2000.
[24] Y. W. Jang, “Characteristics of a large bandwidth rectangular mi-
crostrip-fed inserted triangular patch in a circular slot antenna,”
Microwave J., vol. 45, no. 5, pp. 288–298, May 2002.
[25] C. S. Gurel and E. Yazgan, “New computation of the resonant frequency
of a tunable equilateral triangular microstrip patch,” IEEE Trans. Mi-
crowave Theory Tech., vol. 48, pp. 334–338, Mar. 2000.
[26] K. F. Lee, K. Y. Ho, and J. S. Dahele, “Circular disc microstrip antenna
with an air gap,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 32, pp. 880–884,
Aug. 1984.
[27] J. S. Dahele and K. F. Lee, “Theory and experiments on microstrip an-
tennas with air gaps,” Proc. Inst. Elect. Eng., pt. H, vol. 132, no. 7, pp.
455–460, Dec. 1985.
[28] F. Abboud, J. P. Damiano, and A. Papiernik, “A new model for cal-
culating the input impedance of coax-fed circular microstrip antennas
with and without air gaps,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 38,
pp. 1882–1885, Nov. 1990.
[29] I. Wolff and N. Knoppik, “Rectangular and circular microstrip disk ca-
pacitors and resonators,” IEEE Trans. Microwave Theory Tech., vol. 22,
pp. 857–864, Oct. 1974.
[30] D. Guha, “Resonant frequency of circular microstrip antennas with and
without airgaps,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 49, pp. 55–59,
Jan. 2001.
Effect of a Cavity Enclosure on the Resonant Frequency of
Inverted Microstrip Circular Patch Antenna
Debatosh Guha and Jawad Y. Siddiqui
Abstract—The inverted microstrip circular patch (IMCP) antenna has
been analyzed very recently by the present authors and the same microstrip
structure enclosed in a cylindrical cavity has been employed by others to
develop various active integrated antennas. In this paper, the effect of the
cylindrical enclosure in changing the resonant frequency of an IMCP has
been studied both theoretically and experimentally. The cavity-effect crit-
ically depends on the enclosed patch and the cavity dimensions which are
thoroughly investigated to help a designer in choosing the antenna parame-
ters. An efficient analytical formulation is also proposed to predict accurate
resonant frequencies of the cavity enclosed IMCPs and is verified with dif-
ferent experimental data.
Index Terms—Cavity enclosed microstrip patch, inverted microstrip
patch, microstrip antenna.
Manuscript received October 25, 2002; revised July 9, 2003. This work was
supported by the Center of Advanced Study in Radio Physics and Electronics,
University of Calcutta.
The authors are with the Institute of Radio Physics and Electronics, Uni-
versity of Calcutta, Calcutta 700 009, India (e-mail: dgirpe@yahoo.co.in; sid-
diqui@cal.vsnl.net.in).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2004.832502
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
tunable ranges of an ETMP antenna on "r = 10:5 with s = 50 mm
is demonstrated from theoretical data. Larger patches on higher dielec-
tric constant substrates should offer larger tunable frequency ranges.
The ETMP without air gap (Fig. 1, h1 = 0) reduces to the conven-
tional geometry which was studied by many other researchers [1]–[17]
earlier. The present model is compared with another accurate cavity
model [17], taking SDA MoM [12] as the reference. Improvement of
the present model is envisaged from the studies for different antenna
parameters.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank Dr. P. K. Saha and Dr. P. K. Basu,
University of Calcutta, for their constant encouragement.
REFERENCES
[1] J. Helszajn and D. S. James, “Planar triangular resonators with magnetic
walls,” IEEE Trans. Microwave Theory Tech., vol. MTT-26, pp. 95–100,
Feb. 1978.
[2] J. Helszajn, D. S. James, and W. T. Nisbet, “Circulators using planar
triangular resonators,” IEEE Trans. Microwave Theory Tech., vol.
MTT-27, pp. 188–193, Feb. 1979.
[3] A. K. Sharma and B. Bhat, “Analysis of triangular microstrip res-
onators,” IEEE Trans. Microwave Theory Tech., vol. MTT-30, pp.
2029–2031, Nov. 1982.
[4] Y. T. Lo, D. Solomon, and W. F. Richards, “Theory and experiment on
microstrip antennas,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. AP-27, pp.
137–145, 1979.
[5] I. J. Bahl and P. Bhartia, “Radiation characteristics of a triangular mi-
crostrip antenna,” Arch. Elek. Ubertragungstech., vol. 35, pp. 214–219,
1981.
[6] E. F. Kuester and D. C. Chang, “A geometrical theory for the resonant
frequencies and Q-factors of some triangular microstrip patch antennas,”
IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. AP-31, pp. 27–34, Jan. 1983.
[7] J. S. Dahele and K. F. Lee, “On the resonant frequencies of the trian-
gular patch antenna,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. AP-35, pp.
100–101, Jan. 1987.
[8] R. Garg and S. A. Long, “An improved formula for the resonant fre-
quency of the triangular microstrip patch antenna,” IEEE Trans. An-
tennas Propagat., vol. AP-36, p. 570, Apr. 1988.
[9] K. F. Lee, K. M. Luk, and J. S. Dahele, “Characteristics of the equilateral
triangular patch antenna,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. AP-36,
pp. 1510–1518, Nov. 1988.
[10] X. Gang, “On the resonant frequencies of microstrip antennas,” IEEE
Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 37, pp. 245–247, Feb. 1989.
[11] R. Singh, A. De, and R. S. Yadava, “Comments on an improved formula
for the resonant frequency of the triangular microstrip patch antenna,”
IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 39, pp. 1443–1444, Sept. 1991.
[12] W. Chen, K. F. Lee, and J. Dahele, “Theoretical and experimental studies
of the resonant frequencies of equilateral triangular microstrip antenna,”
IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 40, pp. 1253–1256, Oct. 1992.
[13] N. Kumprasert and K. W. Kiranon, “Simple and accurate formula for
the resonant frequency of the equilateral triangular microstrip patch an-
tenna,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 42, pp. 1178–1179, Aug.
1994.
[14] K. Güney, “Resonant frequency of a triangular microstrip antenna,” Mi-
crowave Opt. Technol. Lett., vol. 6, pp. 555–557, July 1993.
[15] , “Comments on ‘on the resonant frequencies of microstrip an-
tennas’,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 42, pp. 1363–1365, Sept.
1994.
[16] P. Mythili and A. Das, “Comments on ‘simple and accurate formula for
the resonant frequency of the equilateral triangular microstrip patch an-
tenna’,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 48, p. 636, Jan. 2000.
[17] D. Karaboğa, K. Güney, N. Karaboğa, and A. Kaplan, “Simple and accu-
rate effective side expression obtained by using a modified genetic algo-
rithm for the resonant frequency of an equilateral triangular microstrip
antenna,” Int. J. Electron., vol. 83, pp. 99–108, Jan. 1997.
[18] J. P. Damiano et al., “Study of multilayer microstrip antennas with radi-
ating elements of various geometry,” Proc. Inst. Elect. Eng., pt. H, vol.
137, no. 3, pp. 163–170, 1990.
0018-926X/04$20.00 © 2004 IEEE
2177
[19] H. R. Hassani and D. Mirshekar-Syahkal, “Analysis of triangular patch
antennas including radome effects,” Proc. Inst. Elect. Eng., pt. H, vol.
139, no. 3, pp. 251–256, 1992.
[20] D. Mirshekar-Syahkal and H. R. Hassani, “Characteristics of stacked
rectangular and triangular patch antennas for dual band applications,” in
Proc. 8th Inst. Elect. Eng. Int. Conf. Antennas and Propagation, 1993,
pp. 728–731.
[21] C. L. Tang and K. L. Wong, “A modified equilateral-triangular-ring
microstrip antenna for circular polarization,” Microwave Opt. Technol.
Lett., vol. 23, pp. 123–126, Oct. 1999.
[22] C. L. Tang, J. H. Lu, and K. L. Wong, “Novel dual-frequency and broad-
band designs of single-feed slot-loaded equilateral-triangular microstrip
antennas,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 48, pp. 1048–1054,
July 2000.
[23] J. H. Lu and K. L. Wong, “Single-feed circularly polarized equilateral
triangular microstrip antenna with a tuning stub,” IEEE Trans. Antennas
Propagat., vol. 48, pp. 1869–1872, Dec. 2000.
[24] Y. W. Jang, “Characteristics of a large bandwidth rectangular mi-
crostrip-fed inserted triangular patch in a circular slot antenna,”
Microwave J., vol. 45, no. 5, pp. 288–298, May 2002.
[25] C. S. Gurel and E. Yazgan, “New computation of the resonant frequency
of a tunable equilateral triangular microstrip patch,” IEEE Trans. Mi-
crowave Theory Tech., vol. 48, pp. 334–338, Mar. 2000.
[26] K. F. Lee, K. Y. Ho, and J. S. Dahele, “Circular disc microstrip antenna
with an air gap,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 32, pp. 880–884,
Aug. 1984.
[27] J. S. Dahele and K. F. Lee, “Theory and experiments on microstrip an-
tennas with air gaps,” Proc. Inst. Elect. Eng., pt. H, vol. 132, no. 7, pp.
455–460, Dec. 1985.
[28] F. Abboud, J. P. Damiano, and A. Papiernik, “A new model for cal-
culating the input impedance of coax-fed circular microstrip antennas
with and without air gaps,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 38,
pp. 1882–1885, Nov. 1990.
[29] I. Wolff and N. Knoppik, “Rectangular and circular microstrip disk ca-
pacitors and resonators,” IEEE Trans. Microwave Theory Tech., vol. 22,
pp. 857–864, Oct. 1974.
[30] D. Guha, “Resonant frequency of circular microstrip antennas with and
without airgaps,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 49, pp. 55–59,
Jan. 2001.
Effect of a Cavity Enclosure on the Resonant Frequency of
Inverted Microstrip Circular Patch Antenna
Debatosh Guha and Jawad Y. Siddiqui
Abstract—The inverted microstrip circular patch (IMCP) antenna has
been analyzed very recently by the present authors and the same microstrip
structure enclosed in a cylindrical cavity has been employed by others to
develop various active integrated antennas. In this paper, the effect of the
cylindrical enclosure in changing the resonant frequency of an IMCP has
been studied both theoretically and experimentally. The cavity-effect crit-
ically depends on the enclosed patch and the cavity dimensions which are
thoroughly investigated to help a designer in choosing the antenna parame-
ters. An efficient analytical formulation is also proposed to predict accurate
resonant frequencies of the cavity enclosed IMCPs and is verified with dif-
ferent experimental data.
Index Terms—Cavity enclosed microstrip patch, inverted microstrip
patch, microstrip antenna.
Manuscript received October 25, 2002; revised July 9, 2003. This work was
supported by the Center of Advanced Study in Radio Physics and Electronics,
University of Calcutta.
The authors are with the Institute of Radio Physics and Electronics, Uni-
versity of Calcutta, Calcutta 700 009, India (e-mail: dgirpe@yahoo.co.in; sid-
diqui@cal.vsnl.net.in).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2004.832502
2178 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004

I. INTRODUCTION
The inverted microstrip circular patch (IMCP) in a cavity enclosed
geometry has been employed in designing several active antenna mod-
ules in recent years [1]–[5]. The air dielectric below the patch in the in-
verted microstrips is advantageous from various aspects [1] and hence
should be an attractive candidate in exploring new integrated antennas.
The cavity enclosure, in addition, gives the antenna a compact, minia-
ture and rigid shape without degrading its gain or radiation charac-
teristics [1]. But a prior knowledge of the operating frequency of the
cavity enclosed patch becomes important in all these designs. That was
done experimentally [1], [3], [6] for some patch and cavity dimensions.
Approximate formulas without considering the cavity effect were also
used to compute some theoretical data.
Very recently, an IMCP in conventional configuration [Fig. 1(a)] has
been analyzed [7] to predict its accurate resonant frequency. The calcu-
lated values due to this [7] was inquisitively compared with the exper-
iments [1], [6] with cavity enclosed IMCPs. The comparison yields an
interesting observation that the theory for open IMCP [7] closely agrees
the experiments of the cavity enclosed IMCPs [6] and significantly dif-
fers from another measurement [1]. No theoretical or experimental re-
sults are available to understand or estimate the effect of the cavity
wall on the resonant behavior of an IMCP. This has been addressed in
this paper both theoretically and experimentally. The effect of a cylin-
drical cavity in changing the resonant frequency of an IMCP has been
analytically modeled. Some measurements have been carried out with
identical open and cavity enclosed prototype antennas to understand
the cavity-effect. The computed results are compared with some pre-
vious as well as new measurements.

II. THEORETICAL CALCULATIONS
A cavity enclosed IMCP geometry as shown in Fig. 1(b) maybe
looked upon as a conventional IMCP shown in Fig. 1(a), surrounded by
a metallic cylinder of radius r . So the cavity effect may be accounted
for in terms of the affected fringing fields caused by the closeness of
the cavity wall to the patch edge.
Let us start with the cavity resonator model of a conventional IMCP
geometry [Fig. 1(a)] where the fringing fields under the influence of the
dielectric medium on top of the patch of radius a is modeled in terms
of the effective patch radius ae derived as [7]
Fig. 1. Circular microstrip patch antenna: (a) inverted microstrip geometry,
(b) inverted microstrip patch enclosed in a cylindrical cavity, (c) equivalent
microstrip patch printed on a substrate with relative permittivity "r;eq .
TABLE I
COMPUTED RESONANT FREQUENCIES OF THE TM11 MODE OF CAVITY
ENCLOSED IMCPS COMPARED WITH THE MEASUREMENTS OF
NAVARRO et al. [1] r = 6:35 mm; "r = 2:3; h1 = 1:5 mm;
h2 = 1:524 mm;  = 2 mm

ae = a(1 + q) (1)

where q is a factor representing the fringing field effects and is ex-

pressed as [7]

01 (0:37 + 0:63"re )
01 0 1
q= 1 + "re
4
a 2 1+
4(1+" 4h 2:9h
a + 2 :6 + a
)
h 
(0:37 + 0:63"re )
01 0 1
+ 2:6a 2:9h
: (2)
4+ h + a where 11 is the first zero of the derivative of the Bessel function of
order one (11 = 1:841) and c is the velocity of electromagnetic waves
The parameter q solely depends on the patch radius to air-gap height in free space.
ratio (a=h1 ) and the effective relative permittivity "re of the medium Now, if the IMCP is enclosed by a cylindrical enclosure of radius r
below the patch. The dielectric medium of height h2 [Fig. 1(a)] above [Fig. 1(b)] and ae  r or ae  r , under that condition one can surmise
the patch actually causes the change in the fringing electric fields. This that the cylindrical enclosure effectively turns to a circular cavity of
effect is accounted for in terms of the effective relative permittivity "re height h1 resonating at a frequency close to the fr determined as (3).
derived in [7, eqs.(4)–(11)] as the functions of a=h1 and h2 =h1 ratios. Standard h1 value of microstrip structure results in h1 =r  1 and thus
The resonant frequency of the TM11 mode in an IMCP can be de- it satisfies the condition of h1 =r < 2:03 for exciting TMz010 mode in
termined as [7] a circular cavity [8] resonating at

fr = 11 2 c (3) p 2 c:
f = 2:4049
2r "r;eq
(4)
2ae
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
TABLE II
RESONANT FREQUENCIES OF THE TM11 MODE OF IMCP ANTENNAS WITH AND WITHOUT CAVITY ENCLOSURE: COMPUTED RESULTS
COMPARED WITH NEW MEASUREMENTS r = 6:35 mm; h1 = 1:6 mm;  = 2 mm
The cavity resonant frequency (4) equating to (3) under the condition of
ae = r (for ae  r or ae  r ) yields an equivalent dielectric constant
of the medium filling the cavity as "r;eq  1:706. The simple deriva-
tion under the given conditions is significant one in incorporating all the
fringing field effects caused by the cavity as well as by the inverted sub-
strate of the IMCP. Since the cavity model of a circular microstrip disk
represents a magnetic wall circular cavity of identical parameters [9],
the newly modeled circular cavity filled with "r;eq can be represented
by a simplified equivalent microstrip structure as shown in Fig. 1(c)
where a patch of radius a is printed on a microstrip substrate with di-
electric constant "r;eq and thickness h1 .
The resonant frequency of the equivalent antenna configuration of
Fig. 1(c) now can be readily determined from the improved formula-
tions proposed by one of the authors in [10].
III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
The proposed model of the cavity enclosed IMCP is valid for the
limited patch dimensions expressed as ae  r or ae  r . The mea-
surements of different sets of antennas [1], [6] are compared with the
computed results to verify the present formulation as well as to examine
the extent of its validity with reference to the relative dimensions of
the cavity and the IMCP. The closeness between the cavity wall and
the patch with respect to the patch-ground plane separation may be ex-
pressed as (r 0 ae )=h1 . The cavity wall affects the fringing fields in
the IMCP under limited condition. This may be judged in terms of a
cavity factor defined as g = f(r 0 ae )=h1 g=(ae =a), where ae =a ratio
represents the fringing factor.
The measurements of several IMCPs enclosed in a cavity [1] are
compared with the present theory in Table I where the smallest patch
dimension corresponds to maximum value of g = 0:43. The present
model shows excellent agreement with all the measurements with an
average error of 0.35% except for a particular one. The discrepancy for
a = 4:5 mm may be due to any experimental error. The calculated
values for the open IMCPs [7] incorporated in Table I differ signifi-
cantly from those for cavity enclosed antennas with an average relative
deviation of 22%. Thus, it predicts significant effect of the cylindrical
enclosure in changing the resonant behavior of the IMCPs.
Similar investigations were done experimentally by the present au-
thors by fabricating some open type as well as cavity enclosed iden-
tical patches printed on different sets of substrate materials. The reso-
nant frequencies of the probe-fed antennas were determined from the
minima on the return loss traces measured on HP 8720C network an-
alyzer. About 3-mm thick, 70 mm 2 70 mm ground plane was used
for the measurements of open type geometry [7]. For cavity enclosed
antenna, it was of same thickness and other parameters are given in
Table II. SMA probes with 0.254-mm diameter were used to excite the
patches and the feed locations were maintained at about 2 mm from the
2179
Fig. 2. Resonant frequency of IMCP antenna with and without cavity
enclosure and corresponding cavity factor g versus patch radius. "r = 2:3,
r = 30 mm, h1 = 1:43 mm, h2 = 1:57 mm,  optimized in each
measurement [6].
patch center. Experimental results of the new measurements are com-
pared with the computed data in Table II. Here also the effect of the
cavity is equally pronounced from the measured data showing approx-
imately 19% change in fr when g = 0:18 and 0.33. Comparatively a
smaller patch in the same cavity resulting in g  0:59 is almost free
from the cavity-effect as revealed from the experiment.
From the critical studies of the data in Tables I and II, it is apparent
that the effect of the cavity is pronounced for those antenna dimensions
which result in g  0:43. But with a slightly larger value like g  0:59,
the patch resonance is hardly affected by the cavity enclosure. This has
been examined in Fig. 2 using the measured results of some IMCPs in
a 60-mm diameter cavity [6]. Theoretical resonant frequency and cal-
culated g values of the measured antennas are also plotted against the
patch dimension. The g values for the measured patches [6] are 0.5.
All the experimental values except a single one are found to follow
the theoretical curve for open type IMCP [7]. The measured point at
a = 27:5 mm corresponding to g = 0:5 shows much deviation from
the open IMCP curve indicating the effect of the cavity on it. This mea-
sured value also shows closeness to the curve due to the present formu-
lation for cavity enclosed IMCP. Thus it is apparent from the studies
that the cavity enclosed IMCPs with g  0:5 are under the influence of
the cavity where the present formulas can be efficiently used to com-
pute their dominant mode resonant frequencies.
Fig. 3 shows the effect of the height h1 in a cavity in changing the
cavity factors g and r=ae and also the resonant frequency of a cavity en-
closed IMCP on the basis of computed data. A theoretical curve for the
resonant frequency of an identical IMCP without cavity is also included
2180 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
Fig. 3. Resonant frequency of IMCP antenna with and without cavity
enclosure and corresponding cavity factors g and r=ae versus h1. r =
6:35 mm, h2 = 1:524 mm, "r = 2:3, a = 4:0 mm.
for comparison. The increase in h1 causes decrease in both r=ae and
g values revealing the increasing cavity-effect on the IMCP. The reso-
nant frequency also decreases with the increase in h1 for both cavity
enclosed and open type IMCPs. However, the effect of the cavity enclo-
sure in diminishing the resonant frequency is significant over a consid-
erable range of h1 values, particularly at the lower values of h1 . Only
a single measured value is available [1] to compare with the theoretical
curve in Fig. 3 and this value shown by a solid circle corresponds to
g < 0:5. Excellent agreement between the experiment and the present
theory is also revealed.
The present studies show that a cavity enclosure influences the res-
onance of an IMCP under limited conditions resulting in lower reso-
nant frequency. However, its effect on the radiation characteristics of
an IMCP is not significant to that extent as reported in [1]. Uniform
radiation patterns with acceptable cross polarization level and 6.65 dBi
gain were reported [1] from the measurements of a typical cavity en-
closed probe fed IMCP antenna.
IV. CONCLUSION
The inverted microstrip patches in open or cavity enclosed config-
uration are attractive for integrating with active devices below it. The
change in resonance condition under the influence of a cylindrical
cavity enclosing an IMCP has been thoroughly investigated both
theoretically and experimentally. If different patches are examined in
a same cylindrical enclosure, all are not affected by the cavity and
a factor determining that dependence has been examined with the
help of the new and previous data. A simple analytical formulation
is proposed to predict the resonant frequency of cavity enclosed
patches so far those are under the influence of the cavity. The theory
is compared with different measurements resulting in very close
approximation between them. The studies in this paper thus should
guide a designer in choosing proper cavity and IMCP dimensions for
a specified frequency within approximately 0.5% accuracy.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank Dr. P. K. Saha and Dr. P. K. Basu
of the University of Calcutta for their interest in the work and constant
encouragement.
0018-926X/04$20.00 © 2004 IEEE
REFERENCES
[1] J. A. Navarro, L. Fan, and K. Chang, “Active inverted stripline circular
patch antennas for spatial power combining,” IEEE Trans Microwave
Theory Tech., vol. 41, pp. 1856–1863, Oct. 1993.
[2] , “Novel FET integrated inverted stripline patch,” Electron. Lett.,
vol. 30, no. 8, pp. 655–657, 1994.
[3] R. A. Flynt, L. Fan, J. A. Navarro, and K. Chang, “Low cost and com-
pact active integrated antenna transceiver for system applications,” IEEE
Trans. Microwave Theory Tech., vol. 44, pp. 1642–1649, Oct. 1996.
[4] C. M. Montiel, L. Fan, and K. Chang, “A novel active antenna with self-
mixing and wideband varactor-tuning capabilities for communication
and vehicle identification applications,” IEEE Trans Microwave Theory
Tech., vol. 44, pp. 2421–2430, Dec. 1996.
[5] J. A. Navarro and K. Chang, “Active microstrip antenna,” in Advances
in Microstrip and Printed Antennas, K. F. Lee and W. Chen, Eds. New
York: Wiley, 1997, ch. 8.
[6] J. A. Navarro, J. McSpadden, and K. Chang, “Experimental study of
inverted microstrip for integrated antennas applications,” in IEEE An-
tennas Propagat. Int. Symp. Proc., Seattle, WA, 1994, pp. 920–923.
[7] D. Guha and J. Y. Siddiqui, “A new CAD model to calculate the
resonant frequency of inverted microstrip circular patch antenna,”
Microwave Opt. Technol. Lett., vol. 35, no. 6, Dec. 20, 2002.
[8] C. A. Balanis, Advanced Engineering Electromagnetics. New York:
Wiley, 1989, ch. 9.
[9] I. Wolff and N. Knoppik, “Rectangular and circular microstrip disk ca-
pacitors and resonators,” IEEE Trans Microwave Theory Tech, vol. 22,
pp. 857–864, Oct. 1974.
[10] D. Guha, “Resonant frequency of circular microstrip antennas with and
without air gaps,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propaga., vol. 49, pp. 55–59,
Jan. 2001.
Design and Development of Multiband Coaxial Continuous
Transverse Stub (CTS) Antenna Arrays
Robert Isom, Magdy F. Iskander, Zhengqing Yun, and Zhijun Zhang
Abstract—Continuous transverse stub (CTS) technology has been
adapted to use with coaxial lines to produce effective microwave an-
tenna structures that radiate omnidirectionally, with high efficiency, low
reflection, and useful radiation patterns. In this paper, we describe the
design, construction, and testing of a new type of antenna arrays, that is, a
six-element multiband (4.2 and 19.4 GHz) CTS antenna array. The design
of the CTS array was optimized through simulation using finite-difference
time-domain and then built and tested using both S-parameters and
radiation pattern measurements. Simulation results agreed very well with
measured data. These simple and low cost coaxial CTS structures could
be adapted for base station applications in wireless communication, for
satellite communication systems, and Identification Friend-or-Foe systems
for the military.
Index Terms—Antenna array, coaxial continuous transverse stub (CTS),
continuous transverse stub (CTS), multiband array.
I. INTRODUCTION
Continuous transverse stub (CTS) technology developed in the early
1990s at Hughes Aircraft Company [1] has attracted research attentions
recently [2], [3]. This technology offers advantages over traditional ap-
proaches to antenna design at microwave frequencies. Benefits of CTS
Manuscript received May 1, 2003; revised October 21, 2003.
R. Isom is with the Antenna Department, Raytheon Systems, M/S 8019,
McKinney, TX 75071 USA.
M. F. Iskander, Z. Yun, and Z. Zhang are with the Hawaii Center for Advanced
Communication, College of Engineering, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, HI
96822 USA (e-mail: iskander@spectra.eng.hawaii.edu)
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2004.832336
2180 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
Fig. 3. Resonant frequency of IMCP antenna with and without cavity
enclosure and corresponding cavity factors g and r=ae versus h1. r =
6:35 mm, h2 = 1:524 mm, "r = 2:3, a = 4:0 mm.
for comparison. The increase in h1 causes decrease in both r=ae and
g values revealing the increasing cavity-effect on the IMCP. The reso-
nant frequency also decreases with the increase in h1 for both cavity
enclosed and open type IMCPs. However, the effect of the cavity enclo-
sure in diminishing the resonant frequency is significant over a consid-
erable range of h1 values, particularly at the lower values of h1 . Only
a single measured value is available [1] to compare with the theoretical
curve in Fig. 3 and this value shown by a solid circle corresponds to
g < 0:5. Excellent agreement between the experiment and the present
theory is also revealed.
The present studies show that a cavity enclosure influences the res-
onance of an IMCP under limited conditions resulting in lower reso-
nant frequency. However, its effect on the radiation characteristics of
an IMCP is not significant to that extent as reported in [1]. Uniform
radiation patterns with acceptable cross polarization level and 6.65 dBi
gain were reported [1] from the measurements of a typical cavity en-
closed probe fed IMCP antenna.
IV. CONCLUSION
The inverted microstrip patches in open or cavity enclosed config-
uration are attractive for integrating with active devices below it. The
change in resonance condition under the influence of a cylindrical
cavity enclosing an IMCP has been thoroughly investigated both
theoretically and experimentally. If different patches are examined in
a same cylindrical enclosure, all are not affected by the cavity and
a factor determining that dependence has been examined with the
help of the new and previous data. A simple analytical formulation
is proposed to predict the resonant frequency of cavity enclosed
patches so far those are under the influence of the cavity. The theory
is compared with different measurements resulting in very close
approximation between them. The studies in this paper thus should
guide a designer in choosing proper cavity and IMCP dimensions for
a specified frequency within approximately 0.5% accuracy.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank Dr. P. K. Saha and Dr. P. K. Basu
of the University of Calcutta for their interest in the work and constant
encouragement.
0018-926X/04$20.00 © 2004 IEEE
REFERENCES
[1] J. A. Navarro, L. Fan, and K. Chang, “Active inverted stripline circular
patch antennas for spatial power combining,” IEEE Trans Microwave
Theory Tech., vol. 41, pp. 1856–1863, Oct. 1993.
[2] , “Novel FET integrated inverted stripline patch,” Electron. Lett.,
vol. 30, no. 8, pp. 655–657, 1994.
[3] R. A. Flynt, L. Fan, J. A. Navarro, and K. Chang, “Low cost and com-
pact active integrated antenna transceiver for system applications,” IEEE
Trans. Microwave Theory Tech., vol. 44, pp. 1642–1649, Oct. 1996.
[4] C. M. Montiel, L. Fan, and K. Chang, “A novel active antenna with self-
mixing and wideband varactor-tuning capabilities for communication
and vehicle identification applications,” IEEE Trans Microwave Theory
Tech., vol. 44, pp. 2421–2430, Dec. 1996.
[5] J. A. Navarro and K. Chang, “Active microstrip antenna,” in Advances
in Microstrip and Printed Antennas, K. F. Lee and W. Chen, Eds. New
York: Wiley, 1997, ch. 8.
[6] J. A. Navarro, J. McSpadden, and K. Chang, “Experimental study of
inverted microstrip for integrated antennas applications,” in IEEE An-
tennas Propagat. Int. Symp. Proc., Seattle, WA, 1994, pp. 920–923.
[7] D. Guha and J. Y. Siddiqui, “A new CAD model to calculate the
resonant frequency of inverted microstrip circular patch antenna,”
Microwave Opt. Technol. Lett., vol. 35, no. 6, Dec. 20, 2002.
[8] C. A. Balanis, Advanced Engineering Electromagnetics. New York:
Wiley, 1989, ch. 9.
[9] I. Wolff and N. Knoppik, “Rectangular and circular microstrip disk ca-
pacitors and resonators,” IEEE Trans Microwave Theory Tech, vol. 22,
pp. 857–864, Oct. 1974.
[10] D. Guha, “Resonant frequency of circular microstrip antennas with and
without air gaps,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propaga., vol. 49, pp. 55–59,
Jan. 2001.
Design and Development of Multiband Coaxial Continuous
Transverse Stub (CTS) Antenna Arrays
Robert Isom, Magdy F. Iskander, Zhengqing Yun, and Zhijun Zhang
Abstract—Continuous transverse stub (CTS) technology has been
adapted to use with coaxial lines to produce effective microwave an-
tenna structures that radiate omnidirectionally, with high efficiency, low
reflection, and useful radiation patterns. In this paper, we describe the
design, construction, and testing of a new type of antenna arrays, that is, a
six-element multiband (4.2 and 19.4 GHz) CTS antenna array. The design
of the CTS array was optimized through simulation using finite-difference
time-domain and then built and tested using both S-parameters and
radiation pattern measurements. Simulation results agreed very well with
measured data. These simple and low cost coaxial CTS structures could
be adapted for base station applications in wireless communication, for
satellite communication systems, and Identification Friend-or-Foe systems
for the military.
Index Terms—Antenna array, coaxial continuous transverse stub (CTS),
continuous transverse stub (CTS), multiband array.
I. INTRODUCTION
Continuous transverse stub (CTS) technology developed in the early
1990s at Hughes Aircraft Company [1] has attracted research attentions
recently [2], [3]. This technology offers advantages over traditional ap-
proaches to antenna design at microwave frequencies. Benefits of CTS
Manuscript received May 1, 2003; revised October 21, 2003.
R. Isom is with the Antenna Department, Raytheon Systems, M/S 8019,
McKinney, TX 75071 USA.
M. F. Iskander, Z. Yun, and Z. Zhang are with the Hawaii Center for Advanced
Communication, College of Engineering, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, HI
96822 USA (e-mail: iskander@spectra.eng.hawaii.edu)
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2004.832336
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
Fig. 1. Schematic of a six-element multiband coaxial CTS antenna array. First
set of stubs from input are high-frequency stubs. Second set of stubs from input
are low-frequency stubs.
structures include compact size, lightweight, low loss, and high direc-
tivity. Parallel-plate CTS arrays have achieved average gains of 39.7 dB
over a bandwidth of 37–40 GHz [2]. This high gain is achieved along
with relative dimensional insensitivity, thus reducing fabrication costs.
CTS technology also offers greater tunable bandwidth than wave-
guide or patch antennas, higher efficiencies, and polarization isolation
of 25–50 dB. It is desired to apply the advantages of the presently avail-
able planar CTS technology to a new design that incorporates coaxial
geometries. Such a process has been successfully implemented and
some of the obtained results for a new coaxial CTS antenna were re-
ported elsewhere [4], [5].
Coaxial CTS structures offer several additional advantages over
planar CTS. They provide an omni-directional radiation pattern in the
plane of the radiating stubs (perpendicular to the transmission line)
as there is no azimuthal dependence in the designed cylindrical stubs.
Secondly, coaxial structures are inherently easier to impedance match,
thus providing higher efficiency and facilitate system integration with
other coaxial structures.
In this paper, a two-band coaxial CTS is designed by simulating dif-
ferent structures using the two-dimensional finite-difference time-do-
main (2-D-FDTD) code. A prototype antenna is then constructed and
tested. The measured S-parameters and radiation patterns agree well
with the simulated results.
II. COAXIAL CTS DESIGN PROCEDURE
Design procedures for a coaxial CTS array include choosing the fol-
lowing parameters for both of the high- and low-frequency sections (see
Fig. 1): 1) width of stub segment: L1; 2) length of transmission line be-
tween stubs: L2; 3) dielectric constant of fill material: "r ; 4) diameter of
inner conductor: D1; 5) diameter of outer conductor: D2; and 6) diam-
eter of radial stub: D3. To help characterize the antenna performance
as we vary some or all of these design parameters, a 2-D axially sym-
metric cylindrical FDTD code was used to simulate the performance
and characterize the many tradeoffs involved in the design of these an-
tennas. For the arrays we designed in this paper, we first designed two
separated three-element arrays one at the lower frequency (4.2 GHz)
while the other was designed at 19.4 GHz. The two sections were then
joined and the entire six-element array was optimized to achieve the
desired S-parameters and radiation pattern characteristics. The design
of each of the two sections follows a procedure similar to that described
in an earlier paper [5], and the discussion in this paper will focus on the
design of the six-element multiband array.
III. DESIGN OF A MULTIBAND COAXIAL CTS ANTENNA ARRAY
The multiband array is a six-element coaxial CTS array with three
elements designed to operate at 4.2 GHz and the other three elements at
2181
Fig. 2. Photograph of fabricated multiband six-element coaxial CTS antenna
array designed to operate at 4.2 and 19.4 GHz: angled view.
19.4 GHz. This array was designed to provide low reflection, high-ra-
diation efficiency, and a broadside radiation pattern at two frequencies,
4.2 GHz (C-band) and 19.4 GHz (K-band). In designing this array, we
used dielectric loading (Teflon and polyethylene) to improve the per-
formance and reduce the overall size of the array.
As mentioned earlier, two sets of stubs were designed: one that was
nonradiating (full transmission) at lower frequencies and radiates ef-
fectively at higher frequencies (high-frequency stubs), and a second set
of stubs that radiate at the lower frequency (low-frequency stubs). The
two sets need to be arranged in tandem with the high-frequency stubs
near the input. This way, high-frequency signals would radiate from
the high-frequency stubs before reaching the low-frequency stubs at
the end, and the low-frequency signal, on the other hand, would effi-
ciently pass through the high-frequency stubs connected to the input,
and the input low-frequency signal will radiate when reaching the low-
frequency stubs at the end of the array.
To accomplish this, it was necessary to know the electrical dimensions
that would produce full transmission for the high-frequency stubs at the
lower frequency. For this purpose, structures with narrow gaps and long
stub diameters were simulated. It was found that narrow gap ( ) stubs
with a stub diameter of approximately =3 (12 mm at 8 GHz) or longer
will produce close to full transmission at the lower frequencies. At higher
frequencies, however, the same physical dimensions of the stubs were
foundtoradiate efficiently.Itis therefore possible todesigna coaxial CTS
structure that produces efficient radiation at a high frequency and appears
almost transparent at lower frequencies.
Using this approach, we simulated a coaxial CTS array with multi-
band performance. The designed array was dielectrically loaded with
Teflon and polyethylene to help improve impedance matching and re-
duce the size. Further performance enhancements for the multiband
array were achieved by controlling design parameters such as the stub
gap, stub height, and stub spacing of both the high-and low-frequency
stubs. The entire multiband array was further optimized to account for
the mutual coupling effects.
Following a manual optimization using inhouse FDTD codes [5],
a multiband coaxial CTS antenna array design was achieved that
produced low reflection and good radiation characteristics at both the
upper and lower frequency bands. The dimensions of the high-fre-
quency stubs were L1 = 5:2 mm, L2 = 3:8 mm, D1 = 1:12 mm,
D2 = 3:6 mm, and D3 = 44:4 mm. The dimensions of the low-fre-
quency stubs were L1 = 18:9 mm, L2 = 29:6 mm, D1 = 1:12 mm,
D2 = 3:6 mm, and D3 = 61:2 mm. The spacing between the last
high-frequency stub and the first low-frequency stub in the tandem
connection of the two arrays was 21.6 mm. The radial waveguide
stubs were dielectrically loaded with Teflon rings. The coaxial line of
the multiband array was filled with polyethylene. The Teflon (stubs)
and polyethylene (coaxial line) were both simulated with "r = 2:2
and tan   0 (negligible dielectric losses). Fig. 1 shows a schematic
of the designed multiband six-element array, and Fig. 2 shows a
photograph of the fabricated and tested array.
2182 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004

+ S
Fig. 3. Comparison of simulated (solid with ) and measured (solid) -parameter performance for six-element multiband coaxial CTS antenna array. Design
frequencies are 4.2 GHz (C-band) and 19.4 GHz (K-band).

Following fabrication of the six-element multiband coaxial CTS an-

tenna array, the physical dimensions of the structure were measured and
found to be in accord with the design parameters. There was a slight
air gap between the machined Teflon rings and the polyethylene-filled
coaxial transmission line at the base of the stub. A new FDTD model
that matched these measured physical dimensions and included the de-
viations from the initial design was then simulated. Simulations results
were then compared with the measured S-parameters and radiation pat-
terns for the fabricated prototype array.
Measurements of the coaxial CTS array were taken using the HP
8510B Network Analyzer. The S-parameters were characterized across
3–20 GHz band. These experimental results are shown along with the
simulation S-parameter results obtained using FDTD in Fig. 3. As may
be noted, there is a good agreement of resonant frequency performance
between measurement and simulations. The multiband array was found
to possess S11 = 033 dB and 98% radiated power (S21 < 020 dB) in
the lower band at 4.2 GHz. The multiband array was found to possess +s
Fig. 4. Comparison of measured ( ) and simulated (solid) radiation pattern
S11 over 060 dB and 98% radiated power in the upper band at 19.4 at 4.2 GHz for the six-element multiband coaxial CTS antenna array. Feed is
GHz. The 10-dB bandwidth (where S11 < 010 dB, VSWR < 2) was from 0 . Displayed on a dB-scale normalized to 0 dB.
found to be 6% ( 250 MHz) in lower band and 12% ( 2:2 GHz) in
the upper band. characteristics (98% power radiated) at both 4.2 and 19.4 GHz. This
validates the multiband design and illustrates the usefulness of the two-
The radiation pattern of the six-element multiband coaxial CTS an-
dimensional FDTD axially symmetric code as a design tool for coaxial
tenna array was also measured at 4.2 GHz (see Fig. 4). The measured
CTS structures.
radiation pattern produced broadside patterns, useful for many appli-
cations. There was a slight rotation in the radiation pattern away from
the source ( = 180 ). This deviation from the simulated results was
IV. TOLERANCE ANALYSIS
small and did not change the broadside nature of the pattern or produce Planar CTS technology allows for relatively large tolerances in fab-
significant changes in the side lobe levels. The radiation pattern at 19.4 rication without significant alteration in the antenna performance. This
GHz was also measured in anechoic chamber (see Fig. 5) and found dimensional insensitivity is critical to achieving low cost fabrication.
to be in agreement with simulation results. Increased side lobe levels It was important to determine if coaxial CTS structures possessed the
in the 19.4 GHz pattern are seen toward endfire (at 180 ) due to the same relative dimensional insensitivity.
effect of the feed cable and connectors. This effect was not significant Small changes were made in the simulation models, representing de-
enough to change the main broadside nature of the pattern or the max- viations from the design dimensions, and FDTD simulations were run
imum side lobe level as shown in Fig. 5. with these changes included both as increases and decreases from the
Good agreement between simulated and measured results was seen design dimensions. These changes were performed on all physical di-
for both S-parameter and radiation performance. For both simulated mensions at the same time. S-parameter results were compared to orig-
and measured results, the multiband coaxial CTS antenna array was inal design results. It was found that even by allowing for a large tol-
seen to produce low reflection (S11 < 020 dB) and good radiation erance as 5–10 mils, coaxial CTS structures maintained their antenna
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
+s
Fig. 5. Comparison of measured ( ) and simulated (solid) radiation pattern
at 19.4 GHz for the six-element multiband coaxial CTS antenna array. Feed is
from 180 . Displayed on a dB-scale normalized to 0 dB.
S
Fig. 6. Plot showing change in 11 for small changes in the physical
dimensions of the six-element multiband coaxial CTS array. The solid line
represents the original simulation. The +s represent a decrease in size from
X
the original dimensions. The s represent an increase in size from the original
dimensions.
performance and impedance matching characteristics at the design fre-
quencies.
Specifically, FDTD simulation tests were run on three cases for the
six-element multiband array. These cases consisted of simulation at the
design specifications, simulation at dimensions one cell size (.129 mm
or 5 mils) larger than the design specifications, and simulation at di-
mensions one cell size smaller than the design specifications. The re-
sults of the simulations for S11 are shown in Fig. 6. These results show
that despite some small variation in the S-parameter performance of
the array, its overall antenna performance was maintained in the re-
gions around the design frequencies.
We also simulated the effect of small variations in the dielectric con-
stant of the Teflon-filled multiband antenna array on the antenna perfor-
mance. A simulation was performed using the expected value of Teflon
("r = 2:1), while two others were made using somewhat smaller and
larger values for Teflon ("r = 2:0 and 2.2, respectively). The vari-
ations represent a change in the dielectric constant of approximately
5%. The results of these simulations are shown in Fig. 7. As it may be
2183
S
Fig. 7. Plot showing change in 11 for small changes in the dielectric constant
of the six-element coaxial CTS array. The solid line represents "r=21 : . The
+s represent "r=20 X
: . The s represent "r =22 : .
seen, coaxial CTS array is also robust and relatively insensitive to small
changes in the dielectric constant of filling material.
V. CONCLUSION
Coaxial CTS technology provides low cost, high-efficiency antenna
arrays and with excellent radiation and S-parameter characteristics.
The radial stubs of coaxial CTS arrays provide an omni-directional pat-
tern in the plane perpendicular to the coaxial line. Coaxial CTS struc-
tures also possess the added advantages of ease of impedance matching,
ease of feed, and maintains the insensibility to dimensional and dielec-
tric constant tolerances.
In this paper, the design, construction and testing of a multiband an-
tenna array was described. S-parameter performance from 3–20 GHz
was measured using the HP8510B Network Analyzer. Good agreement
was achieved between simulated S-parameter results obtained using
FDTD and measured results, particularly at the desired multiband fre-
quencies of 4.2 and 19.4 GHz. The measured and simulated results con-
firmed that it was possible to obtain low reflection, high-radiation effi-
ciency, and good radiation pattern at frequencies in two different bands
(C-band and K-band).
Radiation pattern measurements were also taken at 4.2 and 19.4 GHz
and the broadside radiation pattern characteristic was verified. Several
simulations were also performed to confirm the dimensional tolerance,
and hence emphasize the low cost fabrication advantage of the coaxial
CTS antenna design.
The excellent radiation performance shown by the coaxial CTS an-
tenna arrays would enable many high-frequency communication ap-
plications for both military and commercial use. In particular, such
high-efficiency antenna arrays would be useful for close range wire-
less connectivity (e.g., Bluetooth). Additionally, this technology has
potential military application (e.g., Identification Friend-or-Foe (IFF)
systems). They are compact in size and lightweight. Potentially, beam-
steering capability can be accomplished in the same manner as planar
CTS designs, either mechanically or using Ferroelectric materials.
REFERENCES
[1] W. W. Milroy, “The continuous transverse stub (CTS) array: Basic
theory, experiment and application,” in Proc. Antenna Applications
Symp., Allerton Park, IL, Sept. 25-27, 1991.
2184 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
[2] , “Continuous transverse stub element devices and methods of
making same,” U.S. Patent 5 266 961, Aug. 29, 1991.
[3] M. F. Iskander, Z. Yun, Z. Zhang, R. Jensen, and S. Redd, “Design of
a low-cost 2-D beem-steering antenna using ferroelectric material and
the CTS technology,” IEEE Trans. Microwave Theory Tech., vol. 49, pp.
1000–1003, May 2001.
[4] Z. Zhang, M. F. Iskander, and Z. Yun, “Coaxial continuous transverse
stub element device antenna array and filter,” U.S. Patent 6 201 509, Nov.
5, 1999.
[5] M. F. Iskander, Z. Zhang, Z. Yun, and R. Isom, “Coaxial continuous
transverse stub (CTS) array,” IEEE Microwave Wireless Component
Lett., pp. 489–491, Dec. 2001.
Near-Field, Spherical-Scanning Antenna Measurements
With Nonideal Probe Locations
Ronald C. Wittmann, Bradley K. Alpert, and Michael H. Francis
Abstract—We introduce a near-field, spherical-scanning algorithm for
antenna measurements that relaxes the usual condition requiring data
points to be on a regular spherical grid. Computational complexity is of
the same order as for the standard (ideal-positioning) spherical-scanning
technique. The new procedure has been tested extensively.
Index Terms—Near-field measurements, probe-position correction,
spherical scanning.
I. INTRODUCTION
As frequency increases and wavelength decreases, it becomes
difficult to maintain mechanical tolerances in near-field scanning
antenna measurements. Therefore, the paradigm shifts from taking
measurements at predefined locations to accurately determining the
positions where measurements are actually made. Standard algo-
rithms for transformation from near-field to far-field require that
data points lie on a regular grid. Our goal is to relax this condition
without increasing computational complexity or sacrificing accuracy.
Previously, we have dealt with planar near-field scanning [1]. Here,
we turn our attention to spherical near-field scanning [2] . Although
the details are different, the basic approach is the same: The technique
relies on efficient linear transformation between spherical-mode
coefficients and probe response at actual measurement locations. The
conjugate-gradient method is applied to determine the coefficients
that produce a weighted-least-squares match to the measured probe
response. In the following, we sketch the theory and demonstrate the
algorithm through numerical simulation.
II. THEORY
The electric field of an antenna, operating at frequency f = !=2 ,
may be expressed as an expansion of spherical waves
N n
E(r) = mnm (r) + b2nm nnm(r)
1
bnm (1)
n=1 m=0n
where the vector modal (Hansen) functions mnm and nnm are de-
1 2
scribed in [3, Ch. 7], for example, and the coefficients bnm and bnm
completely characterize the radiated electromagnetic fields of the test
Manuscript received August 19, 2003.
The authors are with the National Institute of Standards and Technology,
Boulder, CO 80305 USA (e-mail: wittmann@boulder.nist.gov).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2004.832316
U.S. Government work not protected by U.S. copyright.
Fig. 1. Spherical scanning geometry.
antenna. The time-dependent factor exp(0i!t) has been suppressed.
Equation (1) is valid in free space outside the minimum sphere; that is,
outside the smallest sphere centered on the coordinate origin that en-
closes the radiating structure. The summation over n must be truncated
for practical reasons. Normally, it suffices to choose N  ka, where a
is the radius of the minimum sphere and k = 2= = !=c.
In spherical scanning, the probe is effectively moved over the sur-
face of a sphere of radius r so that it always “points” in the radial di-
r
rection 0^. As shown in Fig. 1, the probe’s position and orientation is
described by the Euler angles ('; ; ), where  and ' are the usual
spherical-coordinate angles that define the location of the probe. The
r
angle  measures rotation of the probe about ^. We assume that the
receiving pattern is broad enough that small pointing errors are unim-
portant. Although possible in principle, correcting for probe wobble
would be costly in terms of measurement and processing time.
In order to simplify the collection and processing of measurement
data, we follow common practice [4] and restrict our attention to special
probes that have a response w(r; '; ; ) with a simple  dependence
w(r; '; ; ) = 0w(r; '; ; 0=2) sin  + w(r; '; ; 0) cos :
(2)
Such probes are not difficult to construct [5, Ch. 1]. They are called
 = 61 probes for reasons that may not be clear in this context. An
example is a probe that measures transverse components of the electric
field with, say, E' = w(r; '; ; 0) and E = w(r; '; ; 0=2). Any
practical probe will approach a  = 61 probe as r is increased.
The Jensen transmission formula [4] expresses the measurement
wr
vector ( ) as an expansion in spherical harmonics
w(r)  w(r; '; ; 0=2)^ + w(r; '; ; 0)^'
[ Bnm (kr )Xnm (^r) + Bnm (kr )Ynm (^
r) ]
1 2
= (3)
nm
where
1 1
Bnm
= Mn bnm
:
2 2 (4)
Bnm bnm
M
In (4), n is a known 2 2 2 matrix depending on r and the probe
X
receiving function. The vector spherical harmonics nm and nm = Y
r X
i^ 2 nm are defined by Jackson [6].
Using (2), (3), and (4), we write
W = Ab:
(5)
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004 2185

Fig. 2. Simulated far-field pattern of a maximum directivity antenna for N =

128 (broken line) and the far-field pattern obtained ignoring probe-position = = =3
Fig. 3. Original pattern (broken line) and the difference between the computed
and original patterns after 1 iteration, Ir I I
errors, Ir= I = =3I .
.

The vector W ( )
contains the probe response w ri ; 'i ; i ; i at the mea-
b
surement points, is a vector of (unknown) expansion coefficients,
A
and is a (known) linear operator. Equation (5) is generally overde-
termined (with more measurements than unknowns), so we solve the
normal equations

A3W = Mb (6)
where
M = A3  A (7)

to obtain a least-squares estimate for b. Here A3 is the Hermitian ad-

joint (conjugate transpose) of A, and  is a diagonal matrix of positive
weights to be associated with the data points. When measurements are
nominally located on an equispaced grid we choose ii = j sin i j to
compensate for oversampling near the poles. (The choice of  can sig-
nificantly affect the condition number of the operator M.)
We solve the system (6) using a conjugate-gradient algorithm. This
requires one application of the operator M per iteration. Our implemen- = = =3
Fig. 4. Original pattern (broken line) and the difference between the computed
and original patterns after 15 iterations, Ir I I .
tation involves an unequally spaced fast Fourier transformation [7], [8] in
 and ' and interpolation in r . Because the expansion is bandlimited, the
accuracy of this interpolation can be controlled. The computational com-
( )
plexity of each iteration is O N 3 , which agrees with the standard spher-
ical near-field scanning technique. The procedure is completely analo-
gous to the planar near-field scanning case (see [1] for more detail).

III. VERIFICATION
To test the effectiveness of the position-correction algorithm, we
consider the transmitting pattern of a maximum-directivity antenna
with a directivity of about 42 dB, corresponding to N = 128 ([4, p.
55]). The amplitude of this pattern, as a function of  , is shown in Fig.
2. Standard spherical near-field measurement techniques require mea-
surements on a regular grid in  and ' with

1; 1'  2N360+ 1 = 1:


(8)

Position errors are simulated by evaluating the probe response at the

points
= = =3
Fig. 5. Original pattern (broken line) and the difference between the computed
and original patterns after 56 iterations, Ir I I .
(ri ; i ; 'i ) = (rp ; pi ; 'pi ) + ("ri; "i 1; "'i 1) (9)
where (rp ; pi ; 'pi ) is a nominal measurement point and "xi is
a sample from a uniform probability distribution on the interval First, consider the case Ir = I = I' = 3. In practice, we strive
[ 0 Ix ; I x ] . to limit probe-position errors to = 50 or less, so allowing radial errors
2186 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
Fig. 6. Residual as a function of iteration number, Ir = I  = I  = 3.
3
up to  may be regarded as extreme. Fig. 2 shows the far-field pattern
obtained if the data are processed without position correction; that is,
assuming that the measurement points lie on the ideal grid. This pattern
bears no resemblance to the true pattern. Figs. 3 –5 show the difference
between the computed pattern and the original after 1, 15, and 56 it-
erations. (Execution time was about 3 min per iteration on a 2 GHz
personal computer.) At 15 iterations (Fig. 4), errors are about 1 dB at a
sidelobe level 40 dB below peak, which is usually adequate in practice.
After 56 iterations (Fig. 5) the residual
" = kA3W 0 Mbk=kA3Wk
(10)
is less than 05 . Fig. 6 shows the residual as a function of iteration
10
number.
With less severe probe-position errors, fewer iterations are required.
= = = 0 25
For example, when Ir I I : (still extreme relative to
desired tolerances), only 13 iterations are required to reach " 05 .
= 10
IV. SUMMARY
We have developed a spherical near-field scanning algorithm that
does not require data to be measured on a regular grid. Computational
complexity for probe-position correction is of the same order as for the
standard (ideal-positioning) spherical-scanning algorithm. The new al-
gorithm is robust: we have successfully tested it for transverse probe-
position deviations of up to 3 maximum sample intervals (1)
, and for
()
radial deviations of up to three wavelengths  . The software is avail-
able from the authors.
REFERENCES
[1] R. C. Wittmann, B. K. Alpert, and M. H. Francis, “Near-field antenna
measurements using nonideal measurement locations,” IEEE Trans. An-
tennas Propagat., vol. 46, pp. 716–722, May 1998.
[2] , “Spherical near-field antenna measurements using nonideal
measurement locations,” in Proc. Antenna Measurements Tech. Assoc.,
Cleveland, OH, Nov. 3–8, 2002, pp. 43–48.
[3] J. A. Stratton, Electromagnetic Theory. New York: McGraw-Hill,
1941.
[4] J. E. Hansen, Ed., Spherical Near-Field Antenna Measurements,
London, U.K.: Peregrinus, 1988.
[5] R. C. Wittmann and C. F. Stubenrauch, Spherical Near-Field Scanning:
Experimental and Theoretical Studies: National Institute of Standards
and Technology NISTIR 3955, July 1990.
[6] J. D. Jackson, Classical Electrodynamics, 2nd ed. New York: Wiley,
1975.
0018-926X/04$20.00 © 2004 IEEE
[7] A. Dutt and V. Rohklin, “Fast Fourier transforms for nonequispaced
data,” in Proc. SIAM J. Scientific Comput., vol. 14, Nov. 1993, pp.
1369–1393.
[8] G. Beylkin, “On the fast fourier transform of functions with singulari-
ties,” Appl. Computat. Harmonic Anal., vol. 2, pp. 363–381, 1995.
Resonance Series Representation of the Early-Time Field
Scattered by a Coated Cylinder
Heike Vollmer and Edward J. Rothwell
Abstract—The transient response of a coated cylinder to a plane-wave
excitation is examined. It is shown that the early-time response has a com-
ponent very close to the resonance representation for a planar structure,
which may be isolated by subtracting the response of an uncoated cylinder.
This component can be used with the E-Pulse technique to diagnose
changes in coating parameters.
Index Terms—Electromagnetic transient scattering, nondestructive
testing, dielectric materials.
I. INTRODUCTION
The conducting surfaces of air vehicles are often coated with ab-
sorbing material to reduce their radar cross section. Since the properties
of the materials may degrade due to environmental exposure, detecting
changes in the material parameters is important. It has been shown that
the pulse response of a planar coated conductor consists of a reflection
from the air-coating interface, followed by a superposition of damped
sinusoids representing the multiple reflections within the coating layer
[1]. This natural resonance series allows the E-pulse technique, origi-
nally developed for radar target discrimination, to be used for detecting
material changes [2].
The surfaces of actual air vehicles are often curved rather than planar.
To determine if the temporal response of a coated curved surface can
also be written as a resonance series, we examine the transient field
reflected by a coated circular cylinder. We show that under certain
circumstances the early-time portion of the cylinder response is very
nearly a resonance series, with frequencies close to those of a planar
structure.
II. CALCULATION OF THE SCATTERED FIELD
Consider a circular conducting cylinder of a radius aligned along
the z -axis, coated with a dielectric material of radius b such that the
thickness of the coating is d = b 0 a. The coating has a permittivity
= =
" "r "0 and a permeability  0 . A plane wave is incident along
the x-axis as shown in Fig. 1, with the electric field oriented in either
transverse-magnetic (TM) or transverse-electric (TE) polarization.
In the case of TM polarization, the incident electric field is written
as E~ i z E0 e0jk x where k0 !=c. The far-zone scattered electric
=^ =
field is given by
2j e0pjk  1
Ezs  An j n cos n: (1)
k0  n=0
Manuscript received May 19, 2003; revised September 10, 2003.
The authors are with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engi-
neering, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824 USA (e-mail:
rothwell@egr.msu.edu).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2004.832331
2186 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
Fig. 6. Residual as a function of iteration number, Ir = I  = I  = 3.
3
up to  may be regarded as extreme. Fig. 2 shows the far-field pattern
obtained if the data are processed without position correction; that is,
assuming that the measurement points lie on the ideal grid. This pattern
bears no resemblance to the true pattern. Figs. 3 –5 show the difference
between the computed pattern and the original after 1, 15, and 56 it-
erations. (Execution time was about 3 min per iteration on a 2 GHz
personal computer.) At 15 iterations (Fig. 4), errors are about 1 dB at a
sidelobe level 40 dB below peak, which is usually adequate in practice.
After 56 iterations (Fig. 5) the residual
" = kA3W 0 Mbk=kA3Wk
(10)
is less than 05 . Fig. 6 shows the residual as a function of iteration
10
number.
With less severe probe-position errors, fewer iterations are required.
= = = 0 25
For example, when Ir I I : (still extreme relative to
desired tolerances), only 13 iterations are required to reach " 05 .
= 10
IV. SUMMARY
We have developed a spherical near-field scanning algorithm that
does not require data to be measured on a regular grid. Computational
complexity for probe-position correction is of the same order as for the
standard (ideal-positioning) spherical-scanning algorithm. The new al-
gorithm is robust: we have successfully tested it for transverse probe-
position deviations of up to 3 maximum sample intervals (1)
, and for
()
radial deviations of up to three wavelengths  . The software is avail-
able from the authors.
REFERENCES
[1] R. C. Wittmann, B. K. Alpert, and M. H. Francis, “Near-field antenna
measurements using nonideal measurement locations,” IEEE Trans. An-
tennas Propagat., vol. 46, pp. 716–722, May 1998.
[2] , “Spherical near-field antenna measurements using nonideal
measurement locations,” in Proc. Antenna Measurements Tech. Assoc.,
Cleveland, OH, Nov. 3–8, 2002, pp. 43–48.
[3] J. A. Stratton, Electromagnetic Theory. New York: McGraw-Hill,
1941.
[4] J. E. Hansen, Ed., Spherical Near-Field Antenna Measurements,
London, U.K.: Peregrinus, 1988.
[5] R. C. Wittmann and C. F. Stubenrauch, Spherical Near-Field Scanning:
Experimental and Theoretical Studies: National Institute of Standards
and Technology NISTIR 3955, July 1990.
[6] J. D. Jackson, Classical Electrodynamics, 2nd ed. New York: Wiley,
1975.
0018-926X/04$20.00 © 2004 IEEE
[7] A. Dutt and V. Rohklin, “Fast Fourier transforms for nonequispaced
data,” in Proc. SIAM J. Scientific Comput., vol. 14, Nov. 1993, pp.
1369–1393.
[8] G. Beylkin, “On the fast fourier transform of functions with singulari-
ties,” Appl. Computat. Harmonic Anal., vol. 2, pp. 363–381, 1995.
Resonance Series Representation of the Early-Time Field
Scattered by a Coated Cylinder
Heike Vollmer and Edward J. Rothwell
Abstract—The transient response of a coated cylinder to a plane-wave
excitation is examined. It is shown that the early-time response has a com-
ponent very close to the resonance representation for a planar structure,
which may be isolated by subtracting the response of an uncoated cylinder.
This component can be used with the E-Pulse technique to diagnose
changes in coating parameters.
Index Terms—Electromagnetic transient scattering, nondestructive
testing, dielectric materials.
I. INTRODUCTION
The conducting surfaces of air vehicles are often coated with ab-
sorbing material to reduce their radar cross section. Since the properties
of the materials may degrade due to environmental exposure, detecting
changes in the material parameters is important. It has been shown that
the pulse response of a planar coated conductor consists of a reflection
from the air-coating interface, followed by a superposition of damped
sinusoids representing the multiple reflections within the coating layer
[1]. This natural resonance series allows the E-pulse technique, origi-
nally developed for radar target discrimination, to be used for detecting
material changes [2].
The surfaces of actual air vehicles are often curved rather than planar.
To determine if the temporal response of a coated curved surface can
also be written as a resonance series, we examine the transient field
reflected by a coated circular cylinder. We show that under certain
circumstances the early-time portion of the cylinder response is very
nearly a resonance series, with frequencies close to those of a planar
structure.
II. CALCULATION OF THE SCATTERED FIELD
Consider a circular conducting cylinder of a radius aligned along
the z -axis, coated with a dielectric material of radius b such that the
thickness of the coating is d = b 0 a. The coating has a permittivity
= =
" "r "0 and a permeability  0 . A plane wave is incident along
the x-axis as shown in Fig. 1, with the electric field oriented in either
transverse-magnetic (TM) or transverse-electric (TE) polarization.
In the case of TM polarization, the incident electric field is written
as E~ i z E0 e0jk x where k0 !=c. The far-zone scattered electric
=^ =
field is given by
2j e0pjk  1
Ezs  An j n cos n: (1)
k0  n=0
Manuscript received May 19, 2003; revised September 10, 2003.
The authors are with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engi-
neering, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824 USA (e-mail:
rothwell@egr.msu.edu).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2004.832331
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004 2187

is possible to remove much of the extended interaction term by sub-

Fig. 1. Geometry of a TE-polarized plane wave incident on a dielectric-coated
cylinder.
The coefficients An may be found in the literature (for example, [3]).
For computational purposes we choose to write them as ratios of Bessel
functions:
tracting the field reflected by an uncoated conducting cylinder of radius
a. When a resonance series is fit to the resulting waveform, the reso-
nance frequencies are found to be nearly those of a planar conductor
with a coating of identical permittivity and thickness.
As an example, consider a coated cylinder with d = 0:1 m and
"r = 9. Equations (1) and (2) are evaluated for  =  (backscattered
field) at 2500 frequency points in the range 0–2.5 GHz using 200 terms
in each series (giving an accuracy of seven decimal places). Note that
the coating is 2:5 thick at the highest frequency, and that the term
p
e0jk  =  is suppressed. The frequency-domain data is windowed
using a Gaussian function and transformed into the time domain using
an inverse FFT. The results for a = 0:7 m and a = 1:9 m are shown
in Figs. 2–5. It is clearly seen in each figure that the early time consists
of a number of multiple reflections. In Fig. 4 the late-time creeping
wave appears around t = 17 nsec. The creeping wave is also present
in Fig. 2, but is not as pronounced.
Also shown in these figures is the temporal field reflected by a planar
coated conductor with a coating of thickness d = 0:1 m and a dielectric
constant of "r = 9. The planar response is found by computing the

= 0E0 "n j 0n (an 0 bn )fn

reflection coefficient of a normally-incident plane wave on a planar
An
an gn 0 bn
coated conductor [7]
0 0 P2
R=
1 0 0P 2
where
Jn (kb)
an = 0 Jn(ka) Yn (kb) ;
Jn (k0 b) Jn (k0 b) Yn (ka) where P
p
= exp(0jkd); 0 = ( 0 0 )=( + 0 ), and  = 0 = "r .
p Jn0 (kb) 0 Jn(ka) Yn0 (kb)
bn = "r
This reflection coefficient is computed at 2500 frequency points, win-
Jn0 (k0 b) Jn0 (k0 b) Yn (ka)
dowed and transformed into the time domain. We expect that in the
limit a ! 1 the reflections from the coated cylinder will be iden-
J n (k 0 b)
= fn Hn0 (k0 b)
(2)
tical to those from the planar conductor. For finite values of a the
fn = ; gn
Hn(2) (k0 b) Jn (k0 b) reflections are similar, but are not identical. Improved results can be
1; n = 0 obtained by subtracting the backscattered field from an uncoated con-
"n = 0; n > 0 ducting cylinder, found by substituting [8]
p
and where k = k0 "r . While the Bessel functions may overflow or An
J n (k 0 a)
= 0E0 "n j 0n ;
underflow for large values of n, their ratios remain computable. Hn(2) (k0 a)
~i = Jn0 (k0 a)
For the case of TE polarization, the incident magnetic field is H
0 Bn = 0E0 "n j 0n (2)
z^(E0 =0 )e jk x where 0 = 0 ="0 . The far-zone scattered electric Hn (k0 a)
field is given by
into (1) and (2). The resulting fields are much closer to the planar case,
2j e0jk  1 as seen in Figs. 2–5. In all cases, the TM fields are a better match for
Es  k0
p Bn j n cos n (2) the planar fields than are the TE fields.
n=0
with the coefficients IV. DETECTION OF CHANGES IN COATING PARAMETERS USING THE

Bn = 0E0 "n j 0n
(cn 0 dn )fn E-PULSE TECHNIQUE
cn gn 0 dn Since the late-time field reflected from a planar coated conductor is
where a pure resonance series, an E pulse can be constructed that produces

Jn0 (ka) Yn (kb)

a null result when convolved with the reflected field. If this E pulse is
Jn (kb)
cn = 0
Jn (k0 b) Jn (k0 b) Yn0 (ka)
; convolved with the field reflected by a conductor with different coating
parameters (thickness or dielectric constant) the result will be nonzero.
0 0 0 kb)
dn = p1"r JJ0n((kkb0 b)) 0 JJ0n((kka0 b)) YYn0 ((ka )
:
This allows a detection of changes in the coating parameters. To quan-
tify the change we compute the E-pulse discrimination number (EDNa)
n n n
[2]

III. THE TRANSIENT SCATTERED FIELD T +W

c2e (t) dt
T
The transient field scattered by the coated cylinder may be found by EDNa = T T +W
:
computing the inverse transform of (1) or (2). The resulting impulse
response has an early-time component consisting of multiple reflec- e2 (t) dt r2 (t) dt
0 T
tions within the dielectric layer, followed by a series of creeping waves
[4]–[6]. It is found that the multiple reflections do not comprise a pure Here, r(t) is the reflected field, e(t) is the E-pulse waveform, and ce (t)
natural mode series, but are superimposed with a term that extends into is the convolution of the E pulse with the reflected field. Also, Te is the
the early time due to interaction with the curved surface (due in part, duration of the E pulse, TL is the time at which the response begins
perhaps, to the presence of an early-time branch cut contribution). It to be a natural mode series, and W is the width of the natural mode
2188 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004

Fig. 2. Field reflected by a coated circular cylinder with parameters a = 0:7m, d = 0:1m, "r = 9. TM excitation. E Pulse is that for the planar surface.

Fig. 3. Field reflected by a coated circular cylinder with parameters a = 1:9m, d = 0:1m, "r = 9. TM excitation.

Fig. 4. Field reflected by a coated circular cylinder with parameters a = 0:7m, d = 0:1m, "r = 9. TE excitation.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
Fig. 5. Field reflected by a coated circular cylinder with parameters a = 1:9m, d = 0:1m, "r = 9. TE excitation.
Fig. 6. Normalized energy in the convolution of the planar-surface E Pulse with the field reflected from a coated cylinder.
component. In the case of the coated cylinder, TL + W is the time at
which the creeping wave first occurs.
Ideally, we would like to use the E pulse computed for the planar
reflected field to detect changes in the cylinder coatings. If we do,
there will be an error introduced since the coated cylinder response
is not a pure resonance series. However, if the EDNa due to this error
is smaller than the EDNa due to a change in coating parameters, the
change should be detectable. Fig. 6 shows the EDNa computed using
the planar E Pulse (shown in Fig. 2) with the coated cylinder response,
for various values of a. If the planar E Pulse matches the coated cylinder
response, the result is an EDNa of 0. As expected, the EDNa is nonzero,
but as a increases the coated cylinder more closely resembles the planar
surface and the EDNA decreases. Even so, we see that for both TE and
TM responses, the EDNa is relatively large, ranging from 0.01 to 0.1. In
contrast, when we subtract the uncoated cylinder response, the EDNA
is significantly reduced. As a numerical example, we find in [2] that an
increase in "r of 5% produces an EDNA of 0.0001. Thus for coated
cylinders of radius a = 0:9 (nine times the thickness) and larger the
change should be detectable with TM polarization as long as the con-
ducting cylinder response is subtracted. Similarly, an increase in d of
5% produces an EDNa of 0.0004, which should be detectable for coated
cylinders of radius a = 0:4 and larger.
2189
V. CONCLUSION
We have shown that the early-time temporal response of a coated
conducting cylinder consists of a series of multiple reflections. These
reflections do not form a pure resonance series, but are very close to
a resonance series when the response of an uncoated cylinder is sub-
tracted. In this case, the E-Pulse technique can be used to detect changes
in the permittivity or thickness of the coating.
REFERENCES
[1] J. Oh, E. Rothwell, D. Nyquist, and M. Havrilla, “Natural resonance rep-
resentation of the transient field reflected by a conductor-backed lossy
layer,” J. Electromagn. Waves Applicat., vol. 17, no. 5, pp. 673–694,
2003.
[2] G. Stenholm, E. J. Rothwell, D. P. Nyquist, L. C. Kempel, and L. L.
Frasch, “E-pulse diagnostics of simple layered materials,” IEEE Trans.
Antennas Propagat., vol. 51, pp. 3221–3227, Dec. 2003.
[3] C. C. H. Tang, “Backscattering from dielectric-coated infinite cylindrical
obstacles,” J. Appl. Phys., vol. 28, no. 5, pp. 628–633, May 1957.
[4] N. Wang, “Electromagnetic scattering from a dielectric-coated circular
cylinder,” IEEE Trans. Antenntas Propagat., vol. AP-33, pp. 960–963,
Sept. 1985.
2190 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
[5] R. Paknys and N. Wang, “Creeping wave propagation constants and
modal impedance for a dielectric coated cylinder,” IEEE Trans. An-
tennas Propagat., vol. AP-34, pp. 674–680, May 1986.
[6] , “Excitation of creeping waves on a circular cylinder with a thick
dielectric coating,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. AP-35, pp.
1487–1489, Dec. 1987.
[7] E. J. Rothwell and M. J. Cloud, Electromagnetics. Boca Raton, FL:
CRC Press, 2001.
[8] C. A. Balanis, Advanced Engineering Electromagnetics. New York:
Wiley, 1989.
High-Order Symplectic Integration Methods for
Finite Element Solutions to Time Dependent
Maxwell Equations
R. Rieben, D. White, and G. Rodrigue
Abstract—In this paper, we motivate the use of high-order integration
methods for finite element solutions of the time dependent Maxwell equa-
tions. In particular, we present a symplectic algorithm for the integration of
the coupled first-order Maxwell equations for computing the time depen-
dent electric and magnetic fields. Symplectic methods have the benefit of
conserving total electromagnetic field energy and are, therefore, preferred
over dissipative methods (such as traditional Runge–Kutta) in applications
that require high-accuracy and energy conservation over long periods of
time integration. We show that in the context of symplectic methods, sev-
eral popular schemes can be elegantly cast in a single algorithm. We con-
clude with some numerical examples which demonstrate the superior per-
formance of high-order time integration methods.
Index Terms—Finite element methods, high-order methods, Maxwell
equations, symplectic methods, time domain analysis.
I. INTRODUCTION
We are concerned with the finite element solution of the time de-
pendent Maxwell equations on unstructured grids using a combina-
tion of both high-order spatial and high-order temporal discretization
methods. In this paper we focus our attention on the high-order tem-
poral discretization process, and we investigate the use of symplectic
integration methods. Such methods were originally developed to solve
numerical systems derived from a Hamiltonian formulation and have
been successfully used in the fields of astronomy and molecular dy-
namics where numerical accuracy and energy conservation are very im-
portant over large time integration periods [1]. Recently, these methods
have been adapted for use in computational electromagnetics (CEM)
in conjunction with the finite difference method. In [2] and [3] a sym-
plectic finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) algorithm is presented
Manuscript received April 23, 2003; revised September 22, 2003. This work
was performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy by the Uni-
versity of California, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under contract
W-7405-Eng-48 and the U.S. Air Force under Contract F49620-01-1-0327.
R. Rieben and G. Rodrigue are with the University of California Davis and In-
stitute for Scientific Computing Research, Lawrence Livermore National Labo-
ratory, Livermore, CA 94551 USA (e-mail: rieben1@llnl.gov; ghrodrigue@uc-
davis.edu).
D. White was with the Center for Applied Scientific Computing Research,
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA 94551 USA (e-mail:
white37@llnl.gov). He is now with the Defense Sciences Engineering Division,
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore CA, 94551 USA (e-mail:
white37@llnl.gov).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2004.832356
0018-926X/04$20.00 © 2004 IEEE
that is implicit, fourth order accurate and valid for orthogonal three-di-
mensional grids . In [4] and [5], the authors present a modified sym-
plectic FDTD method that is up to fourth-order accurate in space and
time. A variation using the linear “serendipity” finite elements of [6] is
also mentioned. Here, we proceed in a similar manner using high-order
symplectic integration methods in conjunction with a high-order vector
finite element method for use in nonorthogonal, unstructured grids. The
spatial discretization is handled by the use of Nédeléc [7] basis func-
tions of arbitrary order which are based on the properties of differen-
tial forms [8], [9]. For the Galerkin procedure applied to either the fre-
quency domain or time dependent Maxwell equations [10], there are
significant advantages to both one-form and two-form finite element
basis functions [11]; including the proper modeling of the jump discon-
tinuity of field intensities and flux densities across material interfaces,
the elimination of spurious modes in eigenvalue computations and the
conservation of charge in time-dependent simulations [11]. These prop-
erties are crucial for the elimination of late time instabilities caused by
improper spatial discretization as investigated by [12]–[14].
We begin with a method of lines approach to the discretization of
the time dependent Maxwell equations. We approximate the coupled
partial differential equations using a high-order vector finite element
scheme which yields a linear system of ordinary differential equations
(ODEs). This system is then be discretized in time via a finite difference
method to produce a series of update steps which propagate the solu-
tions forward in time. However, most high-order numerical integration
methods (e.g., Runge–Kutta, Adams–Bashforth) are dissipative. This
can lead to misleading results for systems that need to be iterated for
long time intervals [15], [16]. A solution is to use a symplectic time
integration method that conserves energy. Therefore, in this paper we
investigate and promote the use of symplectic methods for the time in-
tegration of Maxwell’s equations.
II. AMPERE-FARADAY SYSTEM
We begin with the coupled first-order time dependent Maxwell equa-
tions

@
@t
E = r 2 (01 B) 0 J(t)
@
@t
B= 0r2E (1)
where  and  are (possibly tensor valued) functions representing the
J
material properties of the system and (t) is a time dependent current
source. Using a Galerkin finite element procedure with one-form (or
Curl -conforming) vector basis functions to discretize the electric field
intensity and two-form (or Div -conforming) vector basis functions to
discretize the magnetic flux density yields the following linear system
of ODEs
A
@
@t
T
e =K D b 0Aj
@
@t
b= 0K e (2)
where e and b represent the discrete differential one-form and two-
form electric and magnetic fields, respectively, K represents the dis-
crete Curl operator (i.e., the topological derivative matrix), A is the
one-form mass matrix computed using the material property function
 to represent the dielectric properties, D is the two-form mass ma-
trix computed using the material property function 01 to represent
the magnetic permeability and j is the discrete two-form time depen-
dent current source. Note that the vectors e and b will have different
dimensions and that the matrix K will be rectangular. This is due to
the dimensions of the Nédeléc polynomial spaces from which they are
2190 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
[5] R. Paknys and N. Wang, “Creeping wave propagation constants and
modal impedance for a dielectric coated cylinder,” IEEE Trans. An-
tennas Propagat., vol. AP-34, pp. 674–680, May 1986.
[6] , “Excitation of creeping waves on a circular cylinder with a thick
dielectric coating,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. AP-35, pp.
1487–1489, Dec. 1987.
[7] E. J. Rothwell and M. J. Cloud, Electromagnetics. Boca Raton, FL:
CRC Press, 2001.
[8] C. A. Balanis, Advanced Engineering Electromagnetics. New York:
Wiley, 1989.
High-Order Symplectic Integration Methods for
Finite Element Solutions to Time Dependent
Maxwell Equations
R. Rieben, D. White, and G. Rodrigue
Abstract—In this paper, we motivate the use of high-order integration
methods for finite element solutions of the time dependent Maxwell equa-
tions. In particular, we present a symplectic algorithm for the integration of
the coupled first-order Maxwell equations for computing the time depen-
dent electric and magnetic fields. Symplectic methods have the benefit of
conserving total electromagnetic field energy and are, therefore, preferred
over dissipative methods (such as traditional Runge–Kutta) in applications
that require high-accuracy and energy conservation over long periods of
time integration. We show that in the context of symplectic methods, sev-
eral popular schemes can be elegantly cast in a single algorithm. We con-
clude with some numerical examples which demonstrate the superior per-
formance of high-order time integration methods.
Index Terms—Finite element methods, high-order methods, Maxwell
equations, symplectic methods, time domain analysis.
I. INTRODUCTION
We are concerned with the finite element solution of the time de-
pendent Maxwell equations on unstructured grids using a combina-
tion of both high-order spatial and high-order temporal discretization
methods. In this paper we focus our attention on the high-order tem-
poral discretization process, and we investigate the use of symplectic
integration methods. Such methods were originally developed to solve
numerical systems derived from a Hamiltonian formulation and have
been successfully used in the fields of astronomy and molecular dy-
namics where numerical accuracy and energy conservation are very im-
portant over large time integration periods [1]. Recently, these methods
have been adapted for use in computational electromagnetics (CEM)
in conjunction with the finite difference method. In [2] and [3] a sym-
plectic finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) algorithm is presented
Manuscript received April 23, 2003; revised September 22, 2003. This work
was performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy by the Uni-
versity of California, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under contract
W-7405-Eng-48 and the U.S. Air Force under Contract F49620-01-1-0327.
R. Rieben and G. Rodrigue are with the University of California Davis and In-
stitute for Scientific Computing Research, Lawrence Livermore National Labo-
ratory, Livermore, CA 94551 USA (e-mail: rieben1@llnl.gov; ghrodrigue@uc-
davis.edu).
D. White was with the Center for Applied Scientific Computing Research,
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA 94551 USA (e-mail:
white37@llnl.gov). He is now with the Defense Sciences Engineering Division,
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore CA, 94551 USA (e-mail:
white37@llnl.gov).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2004.832356
0018-926X/04$20.00 © 2004 IEEE
that is implicit, fourth order accurate and valid for orthogonal three-di-
mensional grids . In [4] and [5], the authors present a modified sym-
plectic FDTD method that is up to fourth-order accurate in space and
time. A variation using the linear “serendipity” finite elements of [6] is
also mentioned. Here, we proceed in a similar manner using high-order
symplectic integration methods in conjunction with a high-order vector
finite element method for use in nonorthogonal, unstructured grids. The
spatial discretization is handled by the use of Nédeléc [7] basis func-
tions of arbitrary order which are based on the properties of differen-
tial forms [8], [9]. For the Galerkin procedure applied to either the fre-
quency domain or time dependent Maxwell equations [10], there are
significant advantages to both one-form and two-form finite element
basis functions [11]; including the proper modeling of the jump discon-
tinuity of field intensities and flux densities across material interfaces,
the elimination of spurious modes in eigenvalue computations and the
conservation of charge in time-dependent simulations [11]. These prop-
erties are crucial for the elimination of late time instabilities caused by
improper spatial discretization as investigated by [12]–[14].
We begin with a method of lines approach to the discretization of
the time dependent Maxwell equations. We approximate the coupled
partial differential equations using a high-order vector finite element
scheme which yields a linear system of ordinary differential equations
(ODEs). This system is then be discretized in time via a finite difference
method to produce a series of update steps which propagate the solu-
tions forward in time. However, most high-order numerical integration
methods (e.g., Runge–Kutta, Adams–Bashforth) are dissipative. This
can lead to misleading results for systems that need to be iterated for
long time intervals [15], [16]. A solution is to use a symplectic time
integration method that conserves energy. Therefore, in this paper we
investigate and promote the use of symplectic methods for the time in-
tegration of Maxwell’s equations.
II. AMPERE-FARADAY SYSTEM
We begin with the coupled first-order time dependent Maxwell equa-
tions

@
@t
E = r 2 (01 B) 0 J(t)
@
@t
B= 0r2E (1)
where  and  are (possibly tensor valued) functions representing the
J
material properties of the system and (t) is a time dependent current
source. Using a Galerkin finite element procedure with one-form (or
Curl -conforming) vector basis functions to discretize the electric field
intensity and two-form (or Div -conforming) vector basis functions to
discretize the magnetic flux density yields the following linear system
of ODEs
A
@
@t
T
e =K D b 0Aj
@
@t
b= 0K e (2)
where e and b represent the discrete differential one-form and two-
form electric and magnetic fields, respectively, K represents the dis-
crete Curl operator (i.e., the topological derivative matrix), A is the
one-form mass matrix computed using the material property function
 to represent the dielectric properties, D is the two-form mass ma-
trix computed using the material property function 01 to represent
the magnetic permeability and j is the discrete two-form time depen-
dent current source. Note that the vectors e and b will have different
dimensions and that the matrix K will be rectangular. This is due to
the dimensions of the Nédeléc polynomial spaces from which they are
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004 2191

derived [7]. For an electromagnetic problem with no physical dissi- TABLE I

pation due to conductivity or absorbing boundary conditions the total COEFFICIENTS FOR METHODS OF ORDER ONE THROUGH FOUR
electromagnetic energy should remain constant. In this particular finite
element method the instantaneous energy is the numerical version of
the total energy given by

E = eT A e + bT D b: (3)

Many time integration methods such a forward Euler, backward Euler,

Runge–Kutta, Adams–Bashforth, etc. are inherently dissipative and the
energy as measured by (3) is not conserved; given an initial condition
the electromagnetic energy will decay exponentially.
The very popular second-order central difference (also known as a
“leap frog”) method applied to system (2) can be written as

en = en01 + 1t(A01K T D bn01=2 0 j )

bn+1=2 = bn01=2 + 1t(0K en ): (4)
It is well known that this particular method is both conditionally
stable and nondissipative; the energy as measured by (3) is conserved.
Our goal is to apply higher order energy conserving time integration
methods to system (2). This is required to take full advantage of the
higher order finite element basis functions. The resulting method is
higher order in both space and time and will have significantly less
numerical dispersion than low-order FDTD type methods, which is
important for electrically large problems.
III. CONSERVATIVE TIME INTEGRATION
Consider a general system of ODEs, with field values p and q and an
independent variable t, that is of the specific form
@
@t
p = F (q; t)
~ ~
where F and G represent discretized versions of the original functions
F and G. The matrix S is referred to as the symplectic matrix, where the
word symplectic literally means “intertwined.” Note that this definition
only makes sense if the vectors of unknowns p and q are of the same
dimension, as in the case of a Hamiltonian system where q denotes the
generalized coordinates and p the generalized momenta.
As a specific example, consider the simple harmonic oscillator
(SHO) where F q; t( )= q and G p ( )= 0p. An exact solution to this
simple problem is given by p t ( ) = sin( )
t and q t ( ) = cos( )
t . We
can quantify the energy of this system (i.e., a conserved or constant
quantity) by the value
E = p 2 ( t) + q 2 ( t)
which for this specific example is equal to 1. Applying the leap frog
method to the SHO yields the following update scheme

@
@t
q = G (p): (5)
pn
qn+1=2
= 011t (1 011t t2 ) pn01
qn01=2
:

Systems of this form have the property of being nondissipative, i.e., the It is a straightforward calculation to show that this update scheme sat-
system does not lose energy as it evolves in time. Numerical integra- isfies (8) and is therefore symplectic. However, it is also straightfor-
tion methods for solving system (5) should likewise be nondissipative. ward to show that this mapping does not conserve the exact value of
For linear equations, such methods are typically written as an update E under iteration. This is due to the fact that symplectic maps solve
scheme of the form some Hamiltonian exactly, but not the exact one of the system [1], [17].
However, as shown by Yoshida [18], the numerical value of the inexact
pn+1
=M pn
(6) ~
conserved quantity E oscillates about the exact value E and the ampli-
qn+1 qn tude of this oscillation is reduced as the order of the symplectic method
where the field values at a new state are expressed in terms of values at is increased.
previous states. There are three specific cases of interest based on the To demonstrate the properties of symplectic integrators for conserva-
matrix norm of M, given by tive systems, we proceed to solve the SHO system numerically using
both a symplectic method (the order three case from Table I) and a
1
> ; unstable nonsymplectic fourth-order Runge–Kutta method. In both cases, the
jM j = 1 ; neutrally stable (nondissipative) (7) system is propagated from t =0 to t = 250 using a time step of
1
< ; stable, dissipative. 1 = 08
t : and the computed maximum global phase error will grow
linearly at each time step. Where the two cases differ is in the compu-
When the eigenvalues of the update matrix all lie within the unit circle tation of the energy of the system. Fig. 1 shows the computed numerical
in the complex plane, the method will be stable and dissipative. Nondis- energy of the system at each time step for both methods. For the sym-
sipative methods have the additional property that the eigenvalues of plectic method, the numerical energy is of the form
the update matrix all lie on the unit circle in the complex plane, with
additional constraints on the eignevectors for stability [11]. The map- E~ = 1 cos( 1 t) E
ping is said to be symplectic if the following relation holds [17]
while for the nonsymplectic method the energy is of the form
@ MT S @ M =S (8)
E~ = 2 exp(0 2 t) E :
where
Fig. 2 shows a parametric plot of the conjugate variables as a function
~
@ p F @q F ~ 0 I
@M = ~
@p G @ q G ~ ; S=
0I 0
of time. The numerical energy for the symplectic method oscillates at a
fixed amplitude around the exact value, and is therefore conserved (in
2192 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004

Fig. 1. Numerical energy at each time step using a symplectic method and a nonsymplectic Runge–Kutta method.

(a) (b)
Fig. 2. Parametric phase plots of the conjugate variables of a simple harmonic oscillator using (a) a symplectic method and (b) a nonsymplectic Runge–Kutta
method.

a time averaged sense). The energy for the nonsymplectic method dis- set of differential equations are typically characterized by the accuracy
sipates exponentially from the exact value, indicating spurious damp- of a single step in time (the independent variable). If for some small
ening of the system. 1
time step t the integration is performed so that it is accurate through
Such behavior is typical of symplectic methods when applied to con- 1
order tk , then the method is of k th order. In general, a method of
servative systems, and has therefore motivated us to apply them to the order k will require k evaluations of the functions F and G. Therefore,
particular system of (2). It should be noted that when a symplectic as the order of the method is increased the overall computational costs
method is applied to the Maxwell system of ODEs (2) the result does will increase likewise. However, as we will show in the next section,
not satisfy the symplectic property of (8). This is due to the fact (as for higher order methods, it is possible to increase the size of the time
mentioned previously) that the vectors e and b are not of the same di- 1
step t (while still maintaining numerical stability), thereby reducing
mension and that the matrix K is rectangular. Nevertheless this does the overall number of time steps. The order of the method can be ad-
not preclude the method from being used, in fact it has been success- justed simply by providing the algorithm with a corresponding set of
fully used in FDTD schemes where the dimension of e (the number of coefficients, a and b, each of length order . Table I lists exact values of
mesh edges) is different than the dimension of b (the number of mesh the sets of coefficients a and b for methods of order one through four,
faces) [2], [3]. We demonstrate through computational experiments in as originally computed by Ruth [15] and Candy [19].
Section V that high-order symplectic methods do work when applied to
system (2) and correctly reproduce the previously mentioned features
of stability, high accuracy, and no nonphysical dissipation. Algorithm 1: General Symplectic
Integration Algorithm
input : , the order of the method
IV. GENERAL SYMPLECTIC ALGORITHM
and , two functions and ,
We now present the general symplectic integration algorithm used in two sets of coefficients and , the
our experiments. The algorithm is valid for ODE systems of the form initial conditions and , initial and
(5), such as (2). The inputs, procedure and outputs of the method are final time , the time step to use
presented in Algorithm 1. Numerical methods for the integration of a output : and , the fields at time
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004 2193

Compute the number of time steps:

tn 0 t0
nstep =
1t
Set initial conditions:
p1 F0
q1 G0
Begin loop over time steps:
for to do

Begin integration method update :

pin pi
qin qi
for j = 1 to order do
Fig. 3. Global phase error at each time step for the first-order symplectic
Compute the jupdate
01
time for this step : integration method.

tj= i 3 1 t + ak 3 1 t
k=1
Update the eld values :
pout = pin + bj 3 1t 3 F (qin ; tj )
qout = qin + aj 3 1t 3 G(pout )
pin pout
qin qout

end
Update eld values for this time step :
pi+1 pout
qi+1 qout
end
V. NUMERICAL EXAMPLES
We now present some computational examples using the symplectic
integration algorithm in conjunction with high-order finite element ma-
trices for the spatial discretization of Maxwell’s equations. The com-
putational domain for these examples is a unit cube subject to either a
PEC (Dirichlet) or a natural zero flux (Neumann) boundary condition.
The Ampere-Faraday system is discretized in space using a very coarse
eight element hexahedral mesh in conjunction with high-order vector
basis functions of polynomial degree p =4
In each of the following examples, the time integration schemes are
subject to a stability condition. This stability condition is based on
the spectral radius of the amplification matrix which is applied to the
system at every time step in an update method of the form (6). For the
discrete Maxwell equations of system (4), there exists an upper bound
on the largest stable time step given by [11]
1t  2 :
MaxEig(A01 K T DK )
(9)
We have found that about 0.95 times the upper bound of this constraint
is sufficient for symplectic methods of order one through three; higher
order methods require a smaller time step to remain stable. For ex-
ample, we have found that for the fourth-order method from Table I,
about 0.70 times the upper bound is sufficient for stability.
In addition, for each of the following examples, evaluation of the
function F during the update phase requires that a linear system in-
volving the matrix A must be solved. To simplify this process, we per-
form the linear solve using a diagonally scaled Conjugate Gradient al-
gorithm. However, this process could be made more efficient by using
a sparse direct solver.
Fig. 4. Global phase error at each time step for the third-order symplectic
integration method.
A. Example 1
In this example we demonstrate the growth of global phase error for
the time integration of (2) using two different methods. We begin by
solving the general eigenvalue problem
Sx = Ax (10)
subject to a zero flux boundary condition [20]. Here, S is the one-form
stiffness matrix (i.e the Curl – Curl matrix) and this system represents
the resonant modes of the unit cube. We locate the first nonzero eigen-
value of this system (representing the first resonant mode of the cavity)
and its corresponding eigenvector. Using basis functions of polynomial
degree p =4 on a coarse eight element mesh, the first resonant mode
is computed to an accuracy of 04 . We then use the computed eigen-
10
vector as the initial condition for the electric field in (2), the magnetic
field will have a zero value initial condition. System (2) is then propa-
gated forward in time for a total of 300 s (using a value of unity for the
speed of light). The resulting computed electric field will be an oscil-
latory cosine wave with a frequency equal to the first resonant mode of
the cube. We compare the global phase error in the computed solution
against the exact value using both a first and third-order symplectic
integration method. The first-order method is integrated using a time
1 = 0 005 s
step of t : yielding a total of 60,000 time steps while the
third-order method is integrated using a time step of t 1 = 0 015 s
:
yielding a total of 20 000 time steps. The resulting computations there-
fore require the same total amount of CPU time to complete. The re-
sulting global phase errors are shown in Figs. 3 and 4. Note that in both
cases, the maximum global phase error grows linearly at each time step,
but the third-order method yields a much slower rate of growth with a
2194
Fig. 5. Numerical energy at each time step for the first-order method.
Fig. 6. Numerical energy at each time step for the third-order method.
maximum global phase error two orders of magnitude smaller than the
first-order method for roughly the same computational cost.
Figs. 5 and 6 show the computed value of the numerical energy from
(3) at each time step for both the first and third-order methods (for
visual clarity, only values for the last 50 s are shown). Note that for both
cases the numerical energy oscillates around the exact value, but for
the third-order case, the amplitude of this oscillation is several orders
of magnitude smaller than for first-order method, again for roughly the
same computational cost.
B. Example 2
In this example we compute the resonant modes of the cubic cavity
subject to a PEC boundary condition using two different integration
methods. We do this by creating an oscillating electromagnetic field in-
side the cavity by applying a time dependent current source to a random
sampling of the interior degrees of freedom. The simple current source
has a temporal profile equal to the second derivative of a Gaussian
pulse. Setting the speed of light equal to unity, we let the simulation run
for a physical time of 300 s, then Fourier transform the resulting field
amplitude to obtain both the transverse electric and transverse mag-
netic resonant modes of the cavity [21]. The errors for the first five
excited modes of the cavity are computed using both a first-order and
a third-order symplectic integration method. The exact values and the
computed Fourier spectrum for the case of the third-order method are
shown in Fig. 7. The results for both calculations are summarized in
Table II. Again, note that for roughly the same computational cost, the
third order method gives results that are more accurate than the first
order method. We know from eigenvalue computation of Example 1
that the high-order spatial discretization is capable of computing the
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
Fig. 7. Computed resonant modes of cubic cavity using a third order
symplectic method. Vertical lines represent exact values.
TABLE II
COMPARISON OF RESULTS FOR TWO INTEGRATION METHODS
modes to an accuracy of 1004 , and the data in Table II clearly shows
this same accuracy can be achieved in the time domain only if a higher
order time integration is used.
VI. CONCLUSION
The results of this paper are twofold. First, we have demonstrated
that high-order time integration methods used in conjunction with high-
order spatial discretizations can yield more accurate numerical results
for roughly the same computational cost as a low-order method. Sec-
ondly, we have presented a general symplectic method for the integra-
tion of the time dependent Maxwell equations. Symplectic time inte-
gration methods have been developed for Hamiltonian systems such as
those that arise in astrophysics and molecular dynamics, where very
long time integration is required. We show that these methods can be
successfully applied to a finite element discretization of Maxwell’s
equations, resulting in higher order and energy conserving integration.
The higher order symplectic methods used in this paper are no more
complicated or expensive than traditional Runge–Kutta methods.
REFERENCES
[1] J. M. Sanz-Serna and M. P. Calvo, Numerical Hamiltonian Prob-
lems. London, U.K.: Chapman and Hall, 1994.
[2] I. Saitoh, Y. Suzuki, and N. Takahashi, “The symplectic finite difference
time domain method,” IEEE Trans. Magn., vol. 37, pp. 3251–3254, Sept.
2001.
[3] I. Saitoh and N. Takahashi, “Stability of symplectic finite-difference
time-domain methods,” IEEE Trans. Magn., vol. 38, pp. 665–668, Mar.
2002.
[4] T. Hirono, W. W. Lui, and K. Yokoyama, “Time-domain simulation of
electromagnetic field using a symplectic integrator,” IEEE Microwave
Guided Wave Lett., vol. 7, no. 9, pp. 279–281, 1997.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004
[5] T. Hirono, W. W. Lui, K. Yokoyama, and S. Seki, “Stability and
numerical dispersion of symplectic fourth-order time-domain schemes
for optical field simulation,” J. Lightwave Tech., vol. 16, no. 10, pp.
1915–1920, 1998.
[6] O. C. Zienkiewicz, The Finite Element Method in Engineering Sci-
ence.. London, UK.: McGraw-Hill, 1971.
[7] J. C. Nédélec, “Mixed finite elements in R3,” Numer. Math., vol. 35, pp.
315–341, 1980.
[8] D. A. White, “Numerical modeling of optical gradient traps using the
vector finite element method,” J. Comput. Phys., vol. 159, no. 1, pp.
13–37, 2000.
[9] R. Rieben, D. White, and G. Rodrigue, “Improved conditioning of fi-
nite element matrices using new high-order interpolatory bases,” IEEE
Trans. Antennas Propagat., 2004, to be published.
[10] J. Dao and J. Jin, “A general approach for the stability analysis of the
time domain finite element method for electromagnetic simulations,”
IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 50, pp. 1624–1632, Nov. 2002.
[11] G. Rodrigue and D. White, “A vector finite element time-domain
method for solving Maxwell’s equations on unstructured hexahedral
grids,” SIAM J. Sci. Comp., vol. 23, no. 3, pp. 683–706, 2001.
[12] P. Thoma, “Numerical stability of finite difference time domian
methods,” IEEE Trans. Magn., vol. 34, pp. 2740–2743, Sept. 1998.
2195
[13] F. L. Teixeira and W. C. Chew, “Lattice electromagnetic theory from a
topological viewpoint,” J. Math. Phys., vol. 40, no. 1, pp. 169–187, 1999.
[14] S. D. Gedney and J. A. Roden, “Numerical stability of nonorthog-
onal FDTD methods,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 48, pp.
231–239, Feb. 2000.
[15] D. Ruth, “A canonical integration technique,” IEEE Trans. Nucl. Sci.,
vol. NS-30, pp. 2669–2671, Aug. 1983.
[16] E. Forest and D. Ruth, “Fourth-order symplectic integration,” Physica
D, vol. 43, no. 1, pp. 105–117, 1990.
[17] A. M. Stewart and A. R. Humphries, Dynamical Systems and Numerical
Analysis: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
[18] H. Yoshida, “Symplectic integrators for Hamiltonian-systems – Basic
theory,” in Proc. IAU Symposia (152), The Netherlands, 1992, pp.
407–411.
[19] J. Candy and W. Rozmus, “A symplectic integration algorithm for seper-
able Hamiltonian functions,” J. Comput. Phys., vol. 92, pp. 230–256,
1991.
[20] D. A. White and J. M. Koning, “Computing solenoidal eigenmodes of
the vector Helmholtz equation: A novel approach,” IEEE Trans. Magn.,
vol. 38, pp. 3420–3425, Sept. 2002.
[21] C. Balanis, Advanced Engineering Electromagnetics. New York:
Wiley, 1989, vol. 75.
2196 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 52, NO. 8, AUGUST 2004

Corrections_________________________________________________________________________________
Corrections to “Phased Arrays Based on Oscillators be S and the symbol S appearing in Section C of the Appendix should
Coupled on Triangular and Hexagonal Lattices” be A. Lastly, in equation (15), the symbol  in the argument of the sine
functions and the p13 appearing in front of each sine function should
Ronald J. Pogorzelski be deleted.

In [1], three lines above (11), the symbol I should be i. Also, the
symbol A appearing in (A3), (A4), and (A6) of the Appendix should
REFERENCES
Manuscript received April 29, 2004.
The author is with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Tech- [1] R. J. Pogorzelski, “Phased arrays based on oscillators coupled on trian-
nology, Pasadena, CA 91109 USA (e-mail: pogp@jpl.nasa.gov). gular and hexagonal lattices,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 52,
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2004.832315 pp. 790–800, Mar. 2004.

0018-926X/04$20.00 © 2004 IEEE

Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2004.835172
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2004.835173
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2004.835174
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2004.835175
 IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation

Editorial Board

A. W. Glisson, Editor-in-Chief Sharon W. Martinez, Editorial Assistant

aptrans@olemiss.edu
662.915.3931 (voice)
662.915.7231 (fax)

Yahia M. M. Antar Cynthia Furse Karl J. Langenberg Antoine G. Roederer

Jorgen Bach Andersen Stephen D. Gedney Krzysztof A. Michalski Kamal Sarabandi
Jennifer T. Bernhard George Hanson Eric Michielssen Ari H. Sihvola
Trevor S. Bird Michael A. Jensen Michal M. Okoniewski Rainee N. Simons
Filippo Capolino Leo C. Kempel Hsueh-Yuan Pao Kathleen L. Virga
Lawrence Carin Chi Chung Ko Sembiam R. Rengarajan Parveen F. Wahid
Christos Christodoulou

INFORMATION FOR AUTHORS

MANUSCRIPTS should be specially prepared for publication in this TRANSACTIONS and submitted electronically at the Manuscript Central website. The preferred format
of the manuscript is single-spaced with figures and captions included within the text. Text should use an 11-point or larger font and figures should be easily viewed on a
computer screen. Color should be avoided unless the paper is intended to be published with color figures at extra cost. Use large lettering and label axes carefully in figures.
Fonts that might not be on reviewers’ computers should be embedded in the PDF file. If you are unable to submit the manuscript electronically and must send paper, send your
manuscript to the Editor-in Chief, Prof. Allen W. Glisson, Dept. of Electrical Engineering, 302 Anderson Hall, The University of Mississippi, P.O. Box 1848, University, MS
38677-1848 USA. Telephone: +1 662 915 3931. Fax: +1 662 915 7231. Two typewritten copies with two sets of copies of the illustrations are required. Original illustrations
will be called for if the paper is accepted. For details see “Information for Authors,” available from IEEE Publications/Administration, 445 Hoes Lane, P.O. Box 1331,
Piscataway, NJ 08855-1331.
ELECTRONIC SUBMISSION of manuscripts is required for both initial review and for publication. To submit your manuscript electronically for review go to the Manu-
script Central website. For additional information about the electronic submission process and creating files for electronic submission, visit the AP Transactions website at:
http://aps.ee.olemiss.edu
COPYRIGHT: It is the policy of the IEEE to own the copyright to the technical contributions it publishes on behalf of the interests of the IEEE, its authors, and their
employers, and to facilitate the appropriate reuse of this material by others. To comply with the U.S. Copyright Law, authors are required to sign and submit an IEEE Copyright
Form before publication. This form, a copy of which appears in the January issue, returns to authors and their employers the full rights to reuse their material for their own
purposes. Authors must submit a signed copy of this form before their manuscript can be published. The copyright form, in PDF format, may also be downloaded from the
AP Transactions website.
PAGE CHARGES: All Authors are requested to honor page charges of $110 per printed page for the first eight pages of a Paper and for the first four pages of a Communication.
Payment of page charges for this IEEE TRANSACTIONS, like journals of other professional societies, is not a necessary prerequisite for publication. The author will receive
100 free reprints (without covers) only if the page charge is honored. Detailed instructions will accompany the proofs. A Page Charge Form must be completed and returned
to the Editor before a manuscript can be published. The page charge form, in PDF format, may be downloaded from the AP Transactions website.
CHARGES FOR EXCESSIVE LENGTH: A mandatory EXCESSIVE PAGE LENGTH charge of $200 per page is required for Papers longer than eight (8) printed pages
and Communications longer than four (4) printed pages. If the author will not agree to pay mandatory charges, the author will be required to reduce the manuscript to eight
printed pages or less (four printed pages for Communications) prior to final acceptance and scheduling for publication. This reduction will occur after technical review of the
manuscript. The above policy has no relationship to requests by the Editor to reduce very long manuscripts prior to technical review.
PAPERS may be any length from one to about 25 typewritten double-spaced pages and are subjected to review by the Editor, Associate Editors, and their staff of reviewers.
Each paper must have an abstract of about 150 words. Authors should allow approximately 12 weeks for the initial review cycle. Authors are encouraged to make their initial
submission as short as possible. Because of limited space available in the TRANSACTIONS and the difficulty in finding reviewers for very long papers, manuscripts (either
single or multiple-part papers) that exceed 40 pages of double-spaced text and figures will not be considered. Upon being informed that your paper has been accepted for
publication, be sure that the final version is accompanied by a disk or CD. The electronic form of the paper should match the hard copy exactly and should include the
references, biographies, footnotes, and figure captions. Most popular IBM-PC-compatible, Macintosh, and UNIX formats are acceptable. A more complete IEEE authors’
electronic guide or an IEEE\LaTeX style file can be obtained by email at “help@ep.ieee.org” or by fax at +1 732 562 0545.
COMMUNICATIONS are typically narrower in scope and shorter than papers. Their manuscript length should not exceed about 12 typewritten double-spaced pages including
figures. Communications are subjected to the same rigorous review process used for papers.
COMMENTS are brief notes containing remarks (and Authors’ replies) as well as corrections on previously published manuscripts. Usually, they are reviewed only by the
Editor, and are published at his discretion.
REVIEWS AND TUTORIALS are full length papers which need not contain original work. They primarily review the state of the art and developments leading thereto.
Please contact the Editor prior to undertaking preparation of a review or tutorial.
ILLUSTRATIONS should be kept to a minimum. Figures and photos should be original proofs and not Xeroxes. Photos must be glossy prints with no screens. Laser prints are
not acceptable in place of photos or where gray scale graphics are involved. All line drawings and photos should be in black and white unless specifically requested. Letters
and symbols should be large enough to be readily legible when the drawing is reduced to a one-column width as much as 4:1 reduction from the original. Materials should
be no larger than 22 28 cm (8 11"). For final versions, electronic graphics must be provided as separate files.
PAGE PROOFS are sent to each principal author just prior to publication of the paper. Minor and typographical errors should be noted and corrected according to the instruc-
tions enclosed with the proofs. Major changes required to correct errors in the author’s manuscript will not, in general, be permitted. In order to avoid the need for a major
change, the author should proofread his manuscript very carefully.
PUBLICATION POLICY: The author must ascertain that any clearance, company or foundation release, necessary for publication of the paper in this TRANSACTIONS has
been obtained. If the paper or any modification of it has been published in the public literature, the author must indicate this in the letter of transmittal accompanying the
submitted paper.
NEWS ITEMS concerning the Society members and activities should be sent to the AP Magazine Editor-in-Chief, Dr. W. R. Stone, Stoneware Limited, 1446 Vista Claridad,
La Jolla, CA 92037. Telephone: +1 619 459 8305.

Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2004.835170

 INSTITUTIONAL LISTINGS
The IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society is grateful for the assistance given by the firms listed above and invites applications for Institutional Listings from
other firms interested in the field of Antennas and Propagation.

The charge for an Institutional Listing is $50 per issue or $250 for six consecutive issues. Agency fee is not granted on Institutional Listings. Applications
for Institutional Listings, camera-ready artwork, and checks (made payable to The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc.) should be sent to IEEE
Technical Activities, Finance Department, 445 Hoes Lane, P. O. Box 1331, Piscataway, NJ 08855-1331.

Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2004.835171