Electromagnetic simulation of microstrip patch antennas

Discusses the use of a general purpose CAD tool, the IE3D Electromagnetic Simulation and Optimization Package, in analysis and design of microstrip patch antennas. The simulator is based upon a full-wave integral equation formulation. It has the capability of simulating planar and 3D printed structures of arbitrary shape in microwave and millimeter-wave integrated circuits (MMIC), microstrip antennas and other high frequency and high speed applications. The authors describe the simulator´s application in modeling a multi-layered coupled antenna, a probe-fed circular patch antenna and an edge-fed rectangular antenna The simulator is not limited to the demonstrated examples. It can be used to model microstrip antennas of other shapes. Simulation results on the IE3D are compared to the measured results and other simulation results on literature.<>