Scattering and radiation from cylindrically conformal antennas

Microstrip patch antennas offer considerable advantages in terms of weight, aerodynamic drag, cost, flexibility, and observability over more conventional protruding antennas. Two hybrid finite element methods are presented and are used to examine the scattering and radiation behavior of cylindrically conformal patches. In conjunction with a new divergence-free cylindrical shell element, the finite element-boundary integral method is shown to have low computational and memory requirements when compared with competing approaches. This method uses an efficient creeping wave series for the computation of the dyadic Green's function and a uniform surface mesh so that a fast Fourier transform may be used to reduce the computational and memory burden of the method. An alternative finite element-absorbing boundary condition approach incorporates a new conformal vector condition which minimizes the computational domain. The latter method is more flexible than the former because it can incorporate surface coatings and protruding antennas. Guidelines are established for minimal ABC displacement from the aperture. These two hybrid finite element methods are used to study the scattering, radiation, and input impedance of typical conformal antenna arrays. In particular, the effect of curvature and cavity size is examined for both discrete and wraparound antenna arrays.