Establishment of a fabrication and measurement capability for aperture-fed stacked patch microstrip antennas at the Air Force Institute of Technology

A study was conducted to provide the Air Force Institute of Technology with the capability to fabricate and readily measure aperture-fed stacked patch microstrip antennas. It was determined that available facilities and equipment at the Cooperative Electronics and Materials Laboratory designed for photo-etching silicon wafers can be used to successfully etch microstrip antenna components. A small anechoic chamber dedicated to antenna pattern measurements was constructed. Measurement emphasis was placed on the antenna´s principal plane radiation patterns, as well as on its VSWR bandwidth. Although the fabricated antenna did not operate optimally due to under-cutting during the etching process, the measurement results clearly show the broader bandwidth characteristic of the stacked patch design