ANALYSIS OF INFINITE ARRAYS OF SUBSTRATE-SUPPORTED METAL STRIP ANTENNAS

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