OVERVIEW

The microstrip patch antenna is one of the simplest radiating structures that can be built using printed circuits. Single patch antennas and patch antenna arrays are widely used in communication systems and airborne applications because of their light weight, precise reproduction through photolithographic techniques, conformal properties, suitability to integrate with active circuits, and low cost. Although the microstrip patch antenna is not the best in terms of electrical properties, it is the preferred structure used for radiation in the vast majority of low-cost applications because of its unique properties.

The first reported study on microstrip antennas is apparently due to Deschamps, Cutton, and Baissinot in the early 1950s ^[1]. Later, Munson and his colleagues reported their work on conformal microstrip antennas and arrays in 1974 ^[2]. That work described a wrap-around strip element fed from multiple points by means of a corporate power divider, which is suitable to apply to the surface of missiles. The antenna had an omnidirectional pattern in the plane perpendicular to the missile axis. This was clearly an important step in simplifying the radiation elements, where weight and aerodynamical properties are important. During the same period, Howell published the experimental results on rectangular and circular patch antennas ^[3]. Then in 1979, Lo and his coworkers published on the cavity model for many canonical microstrip antenna shapes ^[4]. At that point, there had been enough work accumulated to set up the stage for a workshop devoted to microstrip antennas at New Mexico...