Full wave analysis of arbitrary shaped microstrip antennas by triangular finite element method

The authors present an efficient numerical analysis technique, based on triangular finite elements, for analyzing arbitrarily shaped microstrip antennas. The method is based on full-wave analysis, which includes radiation and surface wave effects as well as coupling between the feed line and patch antenna. For the purpose of checking the validity of the numerical model, results are derived for a rectangular patch antenna with a microstrip feed line. They are calculated using both the conventional rectangular basis function model and the proposed triangular finite-element model. The agreement of the results obtained by these two techniques is excellent.<>