A Numerical Modelling Study of a Planar Holographic Antenna

Abstract

Planar holographic antennas composed of printed dipole or conducting ring elements offer the promise of both low-profile and freedom from the losses associated with conventional printed beamforming networks at Ka-band frequencies and above. While some advances have been made, the aperture efficiencies achieved thus far have been unexpectedly low. These antennas are electrically quite large and materially inhomogeneous, which has prevented their rigorous analysis using computational electromagnetic (CEM). In this thesis we use CEM to study their operation, and point to several (and possibly unavoidable) reasons for the above-mentioned low aperture efficiency.