What Is a Microstrip Antenna?

A microstrip antenna is on a thin dielectric substrate. One side is attached with a thin metal layer as a ground plate, and the other side is made into a metal patch with a certain shape by photolithography. Antenna composed of patch feed. There are two types of microstrip antennas: The patch shape is a slender strip, which is a microstrip antenna. When the patch is an area unit, it is a microstrip antenna. If the ground plate is engraved with a slot, and when a microstrip line is printed on the other side of the dielectric substrate, the slot is fed with a microstrip slot antenna.

Microstrip antennas are widely used because they have the advantages of small size, light weight, simple manufacturing process, and easy conformity. A microstrip antenna can be equivalent to a resonant cavity, which has a high value near its resonance frequency, that is, in the operating frequency band. Although the research and application of microstrip antennas are very mature at present, there are still many issues worthy of research on the analysis and study of electromagnetic scattering characteristics of microstrip antennas. So far, there has not been found a very ideal way, not only can reduce the antenna scattering but has no effect on its radiation characteristics. ^[1]

Microstrip antenna is a new type of antenna that has gradually developed in the past 30 years. The concept of a microstrip antenna was proposed as early as 1953, but has not attracted the attention of the engineering community. In the 1950s and 1960s, there were only a few sporadic studies.

Microstrip antennas are generally used in the frequency range of 1 to 50 GHz, and special antennas can also be used for tens of megahertz. Compared with common microwave antennas, it has the following advantages:

(1) Small size, light weight, low profile, can conform to the carrier (such as aircraft)

(2) Diversified electrical performance. Different designs of microstrip elements, whose maximum radiation direction can be adjusted from the side shot to the end shot; easy to get various polarizations

(3) Easy to integrate. Can be integrated with active devices and circuits into a unified component. ^[2]

There are many kinds of patch shapes. In practice, due to some special performance requirements and restrictions on installation conditions, other shapes of microstrip patch antennas must be used. For example, a certain type of foreign artillery fuze antenna requires hemisphere coverage.

Radar scattering cross section (RCS) is an important parameter to measure the scattering characteristics of a target. For the research on the reduction of RCS of microstrip antennas, scholars from various countries have proposed many methods, which can be summarized as follows:

When designing a microstrip antenna, the antenna's performance parameters (such as pattern,

Microstrip antennas are commonly used in microwave radar sensors in civil applications, such as: 24GHz radar sensors. Compared with traditional horn antennas, the sensors have small size, good directivity, and easy use ^.