discuss of CONFORMAL ANTENNAS

chinese conformal antennas

the conformal antennas has widely used . but it is difficult in anlysis compared with plannar antennas.

i have intrested in it. Can discuss in here with someone ? And share with our oppinions and results? thanks!

Conformal antennas require different solvers than full planar structures. There are quite a few solvers commercially available: CST, WIPL-D and HFSS are well known. If you look around on the web using google you can even find open source FDTD and FEM codes for solvers and meshers. It is also possible to calculate/simulate a large number of structures even in multi-layered configuration with or without feed probe analytically and semi-analytically. A good reference about the calculation of conformal antennas is the book: Design of nonplanar microstrip antennas and transmission lines written by Kin-Lu Wong.

Regards.

This topic has been widely discussed. Personally, I use FEKO, IE3D and CST Microwave Studio to simulate the antennas before building them. All 3 software gives very close fit to real life measured results.

FEKO and IE3D uses MoM (Method of Moments) where CST MWS is FIT based (similar to FDTD) Depending on what kind of conformal antennas you are designing and if there are any other bodies that may be of interest in the determinateion of the antenna performance, there are a wide choice of commercial simulation software available.

The below is not based on any published papers but what I feel about the different simulation methods in designing conformal antennas:

If you are designing something at very high frequencies FEKO uses UTD and PO, CST MWS can't do anything to reduce simulation effort. For resonance and below resonance frequencies MoM and FIT work equally well, If you have mainly metallic surfaces, wires or homogeneous dielectric regions, the MoM is typically more efficient. However if you have a structure which has highly heterogeneous bodies with many different materials then FIT is superior.

Maybe you will like to tell what is the application for your conformal antennas?

Cheers,
Element7k

microstrip said:

the conformal antennas has widely used . but it is difficult in anlysis compared with plannar antennas.

i have intrested in it. Can discuss in here with someone ? And share with our oppinions and results? thanks!

Click to expand...

question to Element7k: in MWS, is it possible/easy to set up an arbitray source (e.g. probe to patch) which isnot parallel with any of the axis? Thanks!

The local co-ordinate (W,U,V) come in handy. Rotate the local co-ordinate to whatever angle your probe is at then set up a waveguide/discret port depending on application. The edit --> parameter might help vary angle of probe easily later if you find that your simulated result is not satifatory.

Hope this is useful.

Cheers,
Element7k

loucy said:

question to Element7k: in MWS, is it possible/easy to set up an arbitray source (e.g. probe to patch) which isnot parallel with any of the axis? Thanks!

Click to expand...

hello microstrip

there is a book "Design of Nonplanar Microstrip Antennas and
Transmission Lins" from JHON WILEY & SONS, INC. PUBLICATION

RGZ