Wideband conformal metamaterial apertures

This paper introduces a concept of concatenating miniaturized antenna elements to realize wideband arrays. When such arrays are placed conformally, the resulting equivalent circuit (corresponding to each antenna element) is identical to that employed in modeling left-handed transmission lines. Overall, the array emulates propagation within anisotropic media. Such anisotropy introduces added degrees of freedom employed herewith to cancel the reactive loading associated with the ground plane, necessary to achieve wideband performance with a 2:1 VSWR greater than 10:1. A key aspect of the design is the introduction of reactive element along coupled lines forming the antenna element. This presentation will introduce the concept of wideband conformal apertures, their equivalent circuits and specific design demonstrations.