Experimental Verification of the 2-D Rooftop Approach for Modeling Microstrip Patch Antennas

Radiation pattern and input impedance measurements for a rectangular microstrip patch are used to establish the accuracy of a general moment method approach. The approach uses two-dimensional (2-D) rooftop basis functions to model arbitrarily shaped, three-dimensional (3-D) composite, conductor-dielectric structures. The numerical results show agreement with the measurements. However, both the experimental and theoretical results show considerable differences when compared with previously published analysis using pulse-basis functions. These differences and others that are pointed out cast serious doubts on the validity of using pulse basis functions to ndal scattering of radiation from composite structures. © 1991 IEEE