FDTD METHOD APPLIED TO THE STUDY OF RADAR CROSS-SECTION OF MICROSTRIPPATCH ANTENNAS

Because of their indisputable advantages, microstrip patch antennas ha ve been implemented these last several years especially in aerospace a pplication. Unfortunately, these antennas become bright points detecte d by radars causing observed Res to increase significantly particularl y at microwave frequencies. As a consequence, a major research effort is focused on RCS reduction. This paper introduces numerical tools bas ed on the finite difference time domain method enabling computation of the RCS of a microstrip patch antenna over a very large bandwidth. Th is method is then validated, results are given, and a simple method fo r reducing Res is proposed.