Modelling the effect of 3D conformity on single and multi-band patch antennas

Abstract

Two patch antennas were modeled when they are conformed to the shape of a sphere using a technique for drawing unusual shaped antennas and commercially available MoM electromagnetic modeling software. First, a simple L-band printed circular patch atenna on a square groundplane was modeled with the theoretical results showing good agreement with those obtained experimentally. Next, a circular patch antenna conforming to a sphere was studied. Theoretical input reflection coefficent and polar radiation plots were produced showing the effect of curvature. Next, an "E" shaped PIFA triple band antenna etched on a thin piece of copper foil designed for the GSM and PCS frequencies of 900, 1800 and 1900MHz was modeled on a spherical host for differing radii producing reasonable results. The S11 and polar radiation plots have shown very little influence of curvature.