Experimental study of parasitically steered, fixed beam microstrip patch arrays

Abstract

The linearly polarised single feed point Yagi microstrip patch array was previously developed from the concept of the thin wire Yagi-Uda array. It is possible to build either vertically polarised or horizontally polarised arrays. Both feed points of an array can be excited with the correct amplitude and phasing to produce circular polarisation. A Yagi microstrip patch array produces a mainlobe away from the zenith, and has the advantage of being planar for applications such as wireless office. The aim of this paper is to investigate the influence of various characteristics of the dielectric substrate upon array performance and to access the effects of reduction of the array size upon its behaviour. The collected experimental data will be useful for comparison to numerical simulations in future work. The linear polarised measurements were undertaken in the anechoic chamber at the University of Manitoba.