Computational Tools for Antenna Analysis and Design

Abstract: Many engineers and scientists prevalently use computational tools in electromagnetics, which is also the predominant case for antennas. The ever-increasing number of applications and technologies that employ antennas create a constant demand to improve and extend existing tools and develop new ones. This dissertation investigates computational tools for antenna analysis and design. Antenna current optimization is used to determine the theoretical performance bounds on antennas above a ground plane. The results add insight to the performance of patch antennas and can thereby benefit antenna designers. Moreover, the limits are used to design antennas in method of moments (MoM) and genetic algorithm (GA) solvers. The matrices used to compute characteristic modes, that is a generalized eigenvalue problem, are analyzed. Numerical issues of the calculation are circumvented, and the computational complexity is decreased with the use of spherical vector waves. A macro basis function (MBF) and adaptive cross approximation (ACA) algorithm framework is employed to simulate vast endfire arrays. Convex optimization is used to synthesize endfire patterns with improved matching performance. Furthermore, the performance of two techniques that are used in the MBF method to model interconnected arrays is investigated in the endfire mode.