Ferrite-loaded cavity-backed antennas including nonuniform and nonlinear magnetization effects

A method of analyzing both the electromagnetic and the magnetostatic phenomena involved in ferrite-loaded cavity-backed antennas is presented. The high-frequency modeling of the antenna is based on a hybrid of the finite element method (FEM) with the method of moments (MoM). The (magnetostatic) demagnetizing process of the finite ferrite loadings is modeled with the use of a nonlinear static FEM. The results of the magnetostatic analysis are used to compute the internal field of the ferrite samples. Through the use of an appropriate ferrite permeability tensor, the nonuniform internal bias field is incorporated into the high-frequency FEM/MoM analysis. The input impedance characteristics of two different ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) antennas are presented using different ferrite models. Results for the tuning range and sensitivity are presented for different bias directions. The numerical results are also compared with experimental data.