DESIGN OF PLANAR ARRAYS COMPOSED BY AN ACTIVE DIPOLE ABOVE A GROUND PLANE WITH PARASITIC ELEMENTS

In this paper, several simple antenna designs based on the use of an active dipole placed above a ground plane with an array of parasitic dipoles are presented. The parasitic dipoles are used to modify the pattern of the active dipole yielding a pencil beam of moderate gain. The use of one active element provides a very simple feeding network that reduces the complexity of the antenna. The proposed technique optimizes the geometry and configuration of both active and parasitic elements. It is shown that the performance of the designed antennas is considerably better than that of a similar antenna without parasitic elements.