IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNASAND PROPAGATION, VOL. AP-27, NO.

6 , NOVEMBER 1979 853

tennaandradiatesanomnidirectionalpattern.The design I. INTRODUCTION

equations developed produce numerical results that agree well The area of antennas printed on a thin and grounded sub-
with experiment at least for the antenna discussed. The OMA strate is becoming increasingly important. Such antennas pre-
retains the property of a quarter-wave resonant circuit in that sent many advantagesas they are very light, they occupy a very
itpresentsa resistive inputimpedancewhich is directly small volume, and they can be integrated with microstrip cir-
matched by common coaxial lines and can be constructed at cuitry on flash-mounted configurations on airplanes and space-
any frequency. craft. The radiation characteristicsof printed antennas have re-
REFERENCES ceived very little attention in general. In particular, the micro-
R. E. Munson. "Conformal microstrip antennas and microstrip phaJed strippatchelementhas received someattentionby semi-
arrays,"l€EE Truns. Antennus Propugor.. vol. AP-22. p. 74. Jan. 1974. empiricaltechniques [ 11 or as aradiatingresonator [ 21,
S. A. Schelkunoff and H. T. Friis, Anrenms: Theup urd [3]. Furthermore, although the microstrip patch is an excel-
Prucrice. NewYork: Wiley, 1952. lent element for many applications, it has a major disadvantage
J. F. Scanello. D. S. Lenko, R . E. Brown. and A. D. Krall. "SPVD: A
inthatithasaverysmallbandwidth(roughly 1.1 percent).
magnetic vehicle detection system using a low power magnetometer."
lE€ETruns. Mugn.. rol. .MAG-14. Sept. 1978. Other printed elements such as microstrip dipoles merit atten-
D. H. Schaubert. A. R . Sindoris. andF. G.Farrar. "The spiral slot a tion because they inherently possess a larger bandwidth and
unique microstrip antenna," In Pro[.. /Y78 Aufennu Appfic. Sxnlp..
o j ' they are highly amenable to printed array configurations.
Univ. Illinois AllenonConf.. Oct. 1978. In this communication a method is presented which is ap-
151 H. A. Wheeler. "Transmission line properties ofparallel strips separated
by a dielectric sheet." /€€E Truns. M i c r o w w T h r o A T r c h . . w l . plicable to the study of printed antennas. The microstrip di-
MTT-13. p. 172. Mar. 1965. pole is analyzed as an example. The method relieson obtaining
161 .M. V . Schneider. "Microstrip lmes for microwave inteprated circuits," theGreen'sfunction [ 4 ] forahorizontalHertziandipole
Br//S.vsr. Tech. J . . vol. 18. p. 1121, May-June 1969. printed on a grounded substrate of thickness D and relative
171 E. Belohoubek and E. Denlinger. "Loss considerations formicrostrip permittivity E,. ThisGreen'sfunction is employedtogether
resonators." / € € E Trcrrts. :Microwcrre T h r o n Tech.. vol. MTT-23. p.
522, June 1975. with an assumed current distribution in a variational expres-
P. Troughton. "High Q factor resonators in microstrip." E k r r o n . Lerr., sion tocomputetheinputimpedance.Theassumedcur-
vol. 4. p. 510. Nov. 29. 1968. rentdistribution is sinusoidalandisbased on aquasi-static
F. Assadourian and E. Rimai. "Simplified theorq of microstrlp transverseelectromagnetic(TEM)approximation.The varia-
transmission sybterns." Pro<..IRE. rol. 40.p. 165 I . Dec. 1952.
J . 0. Welch and H. J. Pratt. "Losses in microstrip trdnsmission systems tional expression for the input impedance is given by two-di-
for MIC," NEREM Record IEEE Cat. F-70. p. 1 0 0 . 1966. mentionalimproperintegralswhicharecomputednumeri-
L. Lehin. "Radiation from discontinuities in strip line." P U J C . /E€€. cally. It is found that the real part of the input impedance is
vol. 107, part C. p, 163. Feb. 1960. a superposition of the radiation resistance (i.e., related to out-
L. J. van der Pauw, "The rddiation ot electromagnetic power b j
going space-wave energy) and of the surface-wave radiation re-
microstrip contigurdtlons." /E€€ T r u m Munncu\,e Theor?.Tedt.. vol.
MTT-1.5.p. 719. Sept. 1977. sistancewhichcorresponds
to
the
excited surface-mode
A. Presser. "RF properties of the microstrip line," Mimmuws. p. 5.3. energy.
M a r . 1968.
E. C. Jordan and K. G . Balman. E/ec.m,,nugr~rric Wurrsc r d Rudiuriyy
S~.s1enu.2nd ed. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall. 1968.p. 228. 11. GREEN'S FUNCTION FOR PRINTED ANTENNAS
The Green's function for printed antennas is derived in this
section.Inthis case it is theelectricfieldproducedbya
Hertzian dipole or current distribution:

Radiation Propertiesof Microstrip Dipoles

printed o n a grounded dielectric s u b s t r a t e of thickness D and
N. K. UZUNOGLU,N.G . ALEXOPOULOS, MEMBER, IEEE,
AND J. G . FIKIORIS relative permittivity E,, as showninFig. 1. The symbol T =
2; + $ j is the idemfactor or unit dyadic. The Green's function
satisfies the wave equation
Abshc#-The fundamental problem of printed antennas is addressed.
The printed or microstrip dipole is considered, and its radiation charac-
teristics are investigated.The Green's function to the problem is obtained
in dyadic form by solving the problem of a Hertzian dipole printed on a
grounded substrate.Input impedance computations are presented, and the
numerical solution for the Sommerfeld integralsis discussed. where p o is the permeability of vacuum, the suppressed time
dependence is exp {-iwt}, and k 2 ( r ) is given by
Manuscript received June 6, 1978; revised May 22,1979.This
work was supported in part by the US. Army Research Office under k2er, O<z<D
Contract DAAG29-79C-0050.
N. K. Uzunoglu and J . G . Fikioris are with the Chair of Wireless z>D
andLongDistanceCommunication,Department of Electrical Engi-
neering, National Technical University of Athens, Athens 147, Greece.
N. G. Alexopoulos is with the Department of Electrical Sciences and with k beingthefree-spacewavenumber. By consideringa
Engineering, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90024. generalization of Sommerfeld's method [ 4 ] , the Green's func-

0018-926X/79/1100-0853$00.75 0 1979 IEEE

854 IEEE TRANSACTIONS O N ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. AP-27, NO. 6 , NOVEMBER 1979

-nk -k nh

Fig. 1. Coated perfect conductor geometry. Fig. 2. Complex A geometry.

plane

tion can be written in a plane-wave spectrum formulation as

where d x = dh,dhy, U = m, and U d = V r . numerically by using a Newton-Raphson quadrature. By con-

Also, = k,; + x,?, k2 = x-x = Ax2 + ;=& +Y?, sidering the behavior of d m , h coth, and h tanh, the
and i' = x'? + ~ ' 9 The
. dyadic Green's function given by (3) number of the roots can be shown to be
corresponds to the case where both the source as well as the
field
points
are
on
the
substrate, i.e., z = z' = D . In
addition, 0; for t < 7112
theintegrationin(3) is performed in polarcoordinates,i.e., IV,, =
I . \ n; (n-$)n<t<(n+*~), ~=1,2,3;.*
= tan-1 ..):( and

The contour Ck for the h integration is shown in Fig. 2. The

ATTM = { n + 1, nz < t < (n +It, n = 0, 1, 2, .-.
branch cuts for the branch pointsh = *k are defined as
It is noted that the dominant TM mode has a zero cutoff fre-
h =k * iT, (0 < 7 < m), (4) quency.

and they are also shown in Fig. 2. Obviously, since the inte- 111. INPUT IMPEDANCE FOR MICROSTRIP DIPOLES
grand is. an even function for U d , h = * k G are not branch
points. In this section the input impedance for center-fed dipoles is
The denominator in the integrand of (3) definesthesur- considered. If the dipole current J(fi is known, then the input
face-wave modes. These modes (TE and TM) are determined impedance is given by the variational expression[ 51
by the roots of the equations

z.
m
=-
/A 1J(i) E( i / i f )*y(i')d i d i '
(9)
[I(O)l
where A represents the dipole area, andI ( 0 ) is the total feeding
current of the antenna.
By consideringthedipoleorientedalongthedirectionit
is possible t o consider a quasi-static approximation for micro-
strip transmission lines [ 61, which can be shown to yield for
the antenna current distribution

and
where k , is the effective phase constant. By substituting (3)
tanh +h = 0. (8)
and ( 10) into (9)
Itdemonstrated
be
can roots
the
that of (7) and (8)real
are 2H

forreal E,, andtheyarelocatedinsidethesegment k <h < . =-irL-

Z In hd h i C(h, 4) d @
&k. Thedetermination of therootscan be performed
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. AP-27, NO. 6, NOVEMBER 1979 855

results, where and

1920k,
r=-
k7-r sin2 (keZ)'
and
/ ( k 2 - h x Z ) u , tanh (UdD) + (k2i, - h,

Obviously, Ri, consists of a radiation resistanee R , due to the

space wave and a resistance due to surface-wave modes.

IV. FAR-FIELD COMPUTATION

For microstrip antennas the radiation field is directed to-

wardsthepositive z axis(seeFig. 1). If z % D thenthe
Green'sfunctioncanbecomputedbythestationaryphase
integration approach. Without going into details, the electric
field is obtained in the far field as

The expression for r indicates that the expression for the cur-
rent distribution is assumed t o be valid for k,Z $ n, where n =
1, 2, 3, e-..The contour C, is obtained by deforming C k (as
shown inFig. 2). The integration along C, is performed by
computing the Cauchy- value of the integrals around the sur-
face-mode roots. By assuming that the surface-mode roots con-
stitute an ordered setas (vj/j = 1, -, n}, ( 1 8) can be written as

where (R,8 , qj) are the spherical coordinates ofi and

(cos 8 - idn - sin2 0 tan ( k w n - sin2 e))

It should be noted that F(Q, e)

is independent of the printed-
The second term in (13) is due to surface pole singularities. By circuit antenna, so the effect of the grounded dielectric on the
separating Zin(s) into its real and imaginary parts the following radiation pattern is described by F(6, $1. For a dipole antenna
results are obtained: with a current distribution as in ( 1 0 ) the radiation field can be
computed easily as
,ikR
E o ( 0 , Q) = 60ik -COS @Ixx
where R
&k R
E@@,Q) = -60ik -sin QZx,
R

cos (k sin 6' cos Q) - cos (k,Z)

Zxx = -k, w2, for k w < 1.
k 2 sin2 B cos Q - k e 2
856 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. AP-27, NO. 6, NOVEMBER 1979

0 2.i kml
200

a
W
2
+ 0 3.1
G I00
2
a
V 04.1
0 -0 44.f

-100

- 200

W
\ I
>
F - 300
u
3
n
z Fig. 5. NormalizedE-field patterns for @ = 0" and @ = 90" planes.
- 400 Dipole is oriented along X direction. D = 0.1 cm, er = 9.9, f = 10
GHZ,I = 0.75 cm, w = 0.05 cm.
- 500 \ i
2.0
0.75.h
- 600 1.9

1.8

I. 7
Fig. 3. Zi, complex plane for f = 10 GHz, D = 0.3048 cm, el. = 3.25, W '0.05 an
w = 0.05 cm. I E

I 5

1.4

1.3
IT
\
=- 12
IT
c
1.0

0.8
E, =9.9
W =0.05cm
D =O.Zcm
0.6

0.4
0.2 0.4 06
1 k m ) ANENNA HALF LENCTH

Fig. 6 . Efficiency of dipoles due to surface-wave launching.

terns for several casesarealsopresented. In Fig. 5 the nor-

V. NUMERICAL COMPUTATIONS
By employinganautomaticRomembergcheckNewton-
Cotes quadrature the integrals given by relations ( 1 5 ) 4 17) can
be evaluated numerically (see Appendix). In Figs. 3 and 4 Zi,
is shown in the complex plane for two microstrip geometries.
Both cases show that for a certainZ/h ratio we have X = 0, i.e.,
a resonance for the reactance of the antenna. Radiation pat-
malized radiation patterns for two cases are shown. It is ob-
served that the basic characteristics of the radiation pattern
are similar to those of horizontal dipoles over a perfect con-
ductor. In Fig. 6 the ratio Q = RJR, of radiation to surface-
moderesistance is shown.Theradiationefficiency is seen
t o increase with the length 1. In all of the computed microstrip
cases in this communication only one TM surface-wave root is
involved.
In order to investigate the accuracy of the computer code
the following procedure has been adopted. The input imped-
ance of a printed dipole is computed by using transmission line
theoryforopen-circuitedprintedtransmission lines. (This
comparison is valid only when the substrate dielectric thick-
ness is very small compared to the wavelength, Le., D <h.)
The end effect [ 71 is also taken into account, so that the cor-
rect electrical length of the open-circuited microstrip transmis-
IEEE TRANSACTIONS O N ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. AP-27, NO. 6, NOVEMBER 1979 857

TABLE I

u(cm) D(cm) E 9.(cm) f(GHZ) Zl1[T.L.T.) Zll(T.C.P.)

0.05 0.079 2.06 0.5 10 O + i 156.9 0.304ri 153.5

0.05 0.079 2.06 0.6 10 0 - i 25.0 1.69-i 26.0

sion line is accounted for. The comparison between the trans-

missionlinetheory(TLT)andtheresultsobtainedbythe
theory and computational procedure (TCP) described in this
communication are shown in Table I (D < x).
As observed in
Table I, the agreement is very good given the fact that micro- I 4 --\i
Y
/(u-d)2-A:

strip data used in the TLT method for the end effect and line
characteristic impedance are accurate to within five percent.
It should also be mentioned that for arbitrary substrate thick- Fig. 7. Region of integration in Ax - A>' plane.
ness, the assumed sinusoidal current distribution is valid pro-
vided that the printed dipoleis of resonant length [ 91. or by using Cartesian coordinates

VI. CONCLUSION

Theradiationproperties of printed(microstrip)dipoles
have been analyzed. The developed method relies on employ-
fV-6 .-m
ing a dyadic Green's function for a Hertzian dipole printed on
agroundedsubstratetogetherwithanassumedcurrentand
distribution.Theinput-impedancecharacteristicsofsuch di-
poles have been computed. For the assumed current distribu-
tiontheaccuracyhasbeenfoundtobeverygoodfor self-
impedance calculations when the substrate thickness is much
smaller than the wavelength in the dielectric and for arbitrary
thickness when the printed dipole isof resonant length. The
efficiency of themicrostripdipoledueto the excitation of
surface-wavemodeshasbeenshown to be a
function of the JO
antenna dimensions.
In order to compute(3) numerically it is recast in the form

APPENDIX
COMPUTATION O F Zi,
F o r a single-polecase
written
"principal
in a
theexpressionfor
value" form
&(s) canbe
flu-' dhx\Mo
&+6'2-A,2
dh, COX, x,>

where 6 and fila are approximation parameters (6 -+ O+, MO +

By considering the Cartesian coordinates h, = h cos 0, h, =
X sin 0, and the fact that C(h, 0) = C(h,, A), = C(-X,, h,) =
C(h,, -A,) = C(-h,: - A y ) , it is readily seen that (1) can b e
rewritten as
m). Exhaustive numerical checks have been employed by de-
creasing 6 and increasing M o . The numerical integration rou-
tine used is aself-check(Romenbergprocedure)Newton-
Cotes algorithm [ 81 which requires a five-figure accuracy. Nu-
merical
convergencechecks
showthat 6 = and M o =
1O4 yield excellent accuracy. Also, it must be noted that prior
to the computationof Zi, the value of v (i.e., the surface-wave
pole) is obtained with an accuracy to seven significant figures.
The accuracy of v is of paramount importance in the correct
evaluation of the Cauchy integral. Fig. 7 shows the region of
the two-dimensional numerical integration in the first quadrant
of the X,, h, plane.
858 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. AP-27, NO. 6, NOVEMBER 1979

REFERENCES Attheupperfrequencythedielectricconstantofthecen- ~

P. K. Agrawal and M . C. Bailey. "An analysis technique for microstrip tral dielectric rod of the partially filled corrugated guide can
antennas." IEEE Truns. Antennus Propagut.. voi. AP-25. no. 6 . pp. be suitably selected to give symmetrical radiation patterns, and
756759. No\. 1977. atthelowerfrequencythecorrugatedguideprovidessym-
R. E. Munson, "Conformal microstrip antennas and microstrip phased metrical patterns. It is shown that the effect of this corrugated
arrays." IEEE Truns. Antennus Propugor.. vol. AP-22. no. I. pp.
7L7X. Jan. 1971. sleeve is neghgible at the upper frequency.
J . Q . Howell. " M i c r o s t r i p a n t e n n a s . " f € E E ~ r u n s . A t r f e r l n c r s P r r ~ ~ u , ~ ~ t . .
vol. AP-14. pp. W 9 3 . Jan. 1975. ANALYSIS
A. Sornmerfeld. Purrid Differenrid Equuriotls o f P h ~ s i c s . New York:
Thedielectricloadedcorrugatedstructurewasanalyzed
Academic. 1949.
R. E. Collin. Field Theov of Guided Wuves. Ne& York: McGras- based on the space harmonics as well as on the assumption
Hill. 1961. thattheslotsarecloselypackedinordertodeterminethe
E. J . Denlinger. "A frequency dependent solution for microstnp Udns- number of slots/free-spacewavelengththat are required in
mission lines." /&E€ Trum. Microwore Theor?. Tech.. vol. MTT-19, practice to obtain good pattern symmetry. Propagation of the
pp. 30-39, I97 I .
D. James and S. H. Tre. "Microstrip endeffects." E/cctron. Left.. vol. dominant mode (HEl1) was assumed in the dielectric and the
X. pp. 46-47.1972. annularregions,andradialTEand TM modes in the slot
H. O'Hara and F. J. Smith. "The evaluation of definite integrals by region,forspaceharmonicanalysis;fornonspaceharmonic
interval subdivis~on."Cotnpur. J . . vol. 12. pp. 179-82. 1969. analysisonly TMon modeswereassumed in the slot region,
I . E. Rana "On the theory ofprinted wire antennas." Ph.D. dissertation.
Umv. California. Los Anpeles. 1979.
thisbeing a valid assumptionwhenthe slots areclosely
packed.Thecharacteristicequationswereformulatedsub-
sequently, and eigenvalues were obtained for the fast hybrid
modeswhichare of interest. The radiation pattern was ob-
tained by conventional aperture integration.
Propagation and Radiation Characteristics of Dielectric Anexcellentagreement was noticedbetweenthespace
Loaded Corrugated Dud-Frequency Circular Waveguide harmonicandnonspaceharmonicpatterns even forthree
Horn Feeds harmonicsthatwerechosen(sevengrooves/free-space wave-
lengthwerechosenforthecalculations).Thus it wascon-
M. S. NARASIMHAN, SENIOR MEMBER, IEEE, AND cludedthatassmall as sevengrooves/freespacewavelength
M. S. SHESHADRI will give excellent radiation symmetry as well as sidelobe sup-
pression.
Abstiact-Based on a systematic analysis the design and experimental DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS
studies on a composite dual-frequencyfeed witha single radiating aperture
are presented. The criterion for selecting the ratio of the diameter of the Theaperturefields in a circulardielectricrod(ofradius
corrugated guide excited at the lower frequency in the dominant mode to "a") located in free space were calculated for different values
of the relative permittivity E , , with a/h as a parameter. It was
that of the dielectricrod, axially located withinthe guide and excited at the
higher frequency in the dominant made, is discussed.
The constructional
features of a typical dual-frequency feed designed for operation at S and X
foundthatas
more pronounced,
E , increases,deviationof
and hence
polarizationpuntyof
the
IEp I from I is k
,
bands (with 2.M GHz and 9.375 GHz as center frequencies, respectively) radiation pattern is impaired. Therefore, a dielectric constant
are outlined. The measured radiation patterns show good symmetry and (E,) of 1.08 was selected in the design of the composite feed.
sidelobe suppression over 24-percent bandwidth inSandX bands and are in Further, when E, = 1.08, calculations show that
good agreement with calculated patterns.

INTRODUCTION
Thedual-frequencyfeedfiidswideapplicationincom-
munications satellites and phase signature radars [ 1 ] . Several
where p is the radial distance and a = 1.S A. Thus locating the
methods of realizingdual-frequencyoperationhavebeen
corrugated sleeve at a radius p = 3.Sa will not have any adverse
studied in the past with their inherent limitations 121 -1 71.
effect on the pattern of the feed at X band. Thus one obtains
In thepresentcommunication a newtechnique is evolved
a partially filled corrugated guide operating at two frequencies
using a partially filled corrugatedcircular waveguide. The
with a ratio of 3.5. The groove depth of the corrugated cylin-
salient features of this dual-frequency feed are as follows:
drical sleeve for realizing a balanced hybrid mode of operation
a) good pattern symmetryin both the bands of operation, at the lower frequency band is selected based on the solution
b) low sidelobe levels, of the characteristic equation derived from impedance bound-
c) simultaneous operation in the two frequency bands, ary conditions.
d) easyadjustabilityoftheratios of thetwofrequency The constructional features of the composite feed may be
bands, summarized as follows. The corrugated sleeve was constructed
e)freedom in adjustingthebeamwidthsatthetwofre- by stacking (aluminium) metallic rings into a (brass) cylinder.
quencies independently. The thickness of the ring was 0.5 mm. There were seven cor-
rugations per free-space wavelength, and in all there were 21
Manuscript received December 20, 1977; revised April 11, 1979. corrugations. The corrugated guide thus formed was connected
The authors arewith the Centre for SystemsandDevices,Indian t o an S-band circular waveguide through a transformer which
Institute of Technology, Madras 600 036, India. transformed the impedance of the corrugated guide to that of

0018-926X/79/1100-0858$00.75 0 1979 IEEE