1.1 General Design Guidelines of Resonant Antennas: Mathematical and Physical Models
In the classical antenna theory, an arbitrary resonant antenna (e.g., electric dipole, slot, loop, microstrip patch antenna, etc.) under investigation should use its principal resonant mode for radiation only, with an external excitation applied at that can be mathematically emulated by the Dirac delta function . Physically, the Dirac delta function should be expanded into the Fourier series and matched to the antenna on its surface in terms of its resonant modes, i.e., the eigenfunctions (Zhang 1982, Collin 1991), which implies that the antenna system with external feed network should operate under multi-mode resonance. Therefore, a multi-mode resonant antenna design approach based upon the “one radiator, multiple resonant modes” idea and “multi-mode matching” concept should be rigorously advanced and depicted by a general mathematical model. Once such model is readily available, practical examples of dipole, slot, loop, and microstrip patch antennas (MPAs) will be employed to validate its correctness, effectiveness, and generality.
The problem of simultaneously exciting multiple resonant modes within a single resonator or an antenna can be generally described in the perspective of eigenvalue equation and the interior Green’s function of , which is corresponding to the antenna’s surface field/current distribution. In this regard, the “interior Green’s function” should be distinguished from the “Green’s functions” in free space, open space, or half-open space that have been widely discussed in traditional electromagnetic radiation and scattering problems. The “multi-mode resonance problem” discussed herein should be quite similar to the classical guided wave problem (Rayleigh 1897, Barrow 1936) by solving homogenous or inhomogeneous wave equations under closed interval, finite closed cross section or closed cavity with specific boundary conditions. As extensively formulated in many classical textbooks, this is a boundary value problem of Helmholtz’s equation under specific finite-range, closed boundary conditions (Zhang 1982, Collin 1991).
Generally, suppose that the resonator or antenna under investigation should have an arbitrary size with a source of excitation at , thus the interior problem can be mathematically defined on a closed, finite interval of V with homogeneous boundary conditions on its smooth, twice continuous differentiable bounded surface ∂V, such that
(1.1a)
where ns denotes the direction of the outer normal vector of the bounded surface ∂V. Correspondingly, the homogeneous equation and boundary condition of the resonator/antenna’s eigenmodes should satisfy
(1.1b)
where is the full, discrete set of accordingly defined eigenfunctions,...