Impedance control of microstrip antennas using reactive loading

It is shown that it is possible to change the input impedance of a microstrip antenna over a wide range without affecting its resonant frequency by moving short circuits along prescribed loci. This theory has been verified by experiment; specifically, it is shown that the resonant frequency of the mode is left relatively unchanged by the appropriate placement of the short circuit loads. The experiment also shows that the agreement between the predicted and observed input impedance is quite reasonable in most cases. There was qualitative agreement between theoretical antenna patterns and measured antenna patterns although the measured cross-polarized components in the double-loaded element were higher than expected from the theory. A single load, varying in position, was seen to provide a reasonable range of impedance variation while retaining a very nearly constant resonant frequency, although the resulting asymmetries in the magnetic current distribution caused a high level of cross-polarized fields. The use of two loads, instead, produced an even greater range of possible impedances, with reduced cross-polarization levels as well.<>