Analysis of microstrip antennas on a curved surface using the conformal grids fd‐td method

With the development of mobile communication, active research is being done on the small-sized antennas such as microstrip antennas (MSAs). Moreover, MSAs normally are placed on spherical or cylindrical surfaces as a conformal antenna. Conformal MSAs are expected to have different characteristics compared to planar structure. In this case, numerical analysis is needed before the actual experiment. The method of analysis which has wide applications may be considered as efficient for this purpose. One such method is the conformal grids finite-different time-domain method (FD-TD method). In this paper, an MSA on a curved surface is analyzed using the conformal grids FD-TD method. Moreover, comparison with the experimental values also is performed. The experimental results and the analytical results are in close agreement which shows the validity of the method of analysis. As a result, it is confirmed that in the range of this paper, the input impedance and radiation pattern varies from their values for the planar patch when the patch surface is curved.