antenna-theory.com

[Melgoza831]

I need some advice for my introduction to microwave engineering class project. For the final project we have a choice in designing any type of antenna, waveguide,etc on HFSS. For example, one of the teams is making a evanecent mode filter.

As a group project we want to challenge ourselves and design something meaningful. We were thinking of making a 3x3 patch antenna but alot of the teams are picking the same project. Is their anything we can do to the patch antenna to make it more interesting? Is their any other more worthwhile project design?

[k3nnw]

How about

(1) a patch array with an intentional squint i.e.. boresight is not perpendicular to the plane of the array but looks to the left or right in azimuth, or up /dow in elevaation, by e.g. 30 degrees to suit a specific look angle)

(2) patch array with compromised ground plane i.e. the GP isn't large compared with the array and is asymmetric too (e.g. long and thin rather than square)

(3) path array which is inproximity to dielectrocs or uman body or anything which is a nearby radome/ influence etc.

(4) Maybe investigate wideband antennas which have dual feeds which themselves exhibit high isolation i.e. S21 is better than 20 dB isolation or some similar yardstick.

(5) Look at using metamaterials to isolate antennas in an "array" i.e. the opposite of arraying them to gether - you're trying to keep them apart! In other words, you might want to have two patches close together with overlapping passbands but use some form of MM to keep them isolated.

(6) Look at an array and make it circularly polarised rather than linearly polarised

(7) Spend half an hour looking at IEEEexplore and see what's popular at the moment, then bend it to suit. If everyone's doing n x n panar patches, look at doing something which is on a conformed surface = not planar! Maybe on the belly of an aircraft fuselage or the curve of a racing car.

Note that these are just some ideas - not necessarily very good ones - and also I have only worked on a couple of arrays and I think others are far better equippped to comment than I!