Analysis of probe-fed conformal microstrip antennas on finite grounded substrate

A method based on the volume-surface-wire integral equation and precorrected-fast Fourier transform (FFT) method is presented for accurate analysis of probe-fed microstrip antennas on arbitrarily-shaped, finite-sized ground plane and substrate. The method of moments (MoM) is used to solve the integral equation. Three triangular-type basis functions are used to represent the unknown currents in the substrates, on the conducting surfaces, and probes respectively. The connection of a vertical probe feed to the patch is rigorously modeled by an attachment mode at the junction. The precorrected-FFT method is applied to reduce the memory requirement and computational cost of the traditional MoM to facilitate analysis of large antenna arrays.