Shorted elliptical patch antennas with reduced surface waves on two frequency bands

In this paper, a study on the surface waves emission of a shorted annular elliptical patch (SAEP) antenna is presented. This radiator is constituted of an annular elliptical patch having the inner border shorted to the ground plane. The surface wave field excited by the SAEP antenna has been evaluated considering an equivalent magnetic current distribution flowing onto the outer boundary of the patch. It will be demonstrated that the dimensions of the outer elliptical contour can be chosen in such a way that the excitation of the TM₀ surface wave mode is suppressed on two frequencies. This characteristic makes possible the design of SAEP antennas with reduced surface wave (RSW) emissions on two frequency bands. To validate this result both numerical simulations and measurements will be presented. In particular, it will be shown that when the RSW-SAEP is considered the field strength within the substrate undergoes a faster decay resulting in a reduced mutual coupling in dual band array applications. Furthermore, the effective reduction of the surface waves power minimizes the scattering from the ground plane edges leading in smoother radiation patterns.