Ways to improve the radiation pattern of a LPFSA

In this paper, we propose an alternative method for improvement the radiation properties of an LPFSA. Specifically, it is shown that the increased width of the side slots in the folded element amounts to the proper phasing conditions resulting in a stable pattern and a 2 dB average increase in peak gain. The impedance bandwidth is somewhat reduced, but over an octave broadband operation is attained. To fully assess the performance of the proposed structure, a thorough study and design of an LPFSA with and without the phasing slot is performed and all structures are compared. A design of experiments (DoE) technique with the method of moments code, Ansoft Designerreg, are utilized for the design and optimization