Conformal Antennas

Mechanical design requirements often dictate that antennas should be conformal to a curved surface, e.g.:

• Integrated antennas in mobile devices
• Aerospace designs (aircraft fuselage, missile nose cone) where aerodynamic drag considerations take precedent

Designers are typically interested in simulating actual conformal antenna performance (radiation patterns, efficiency, input impedance, etc.) and to optimise antenna parameters to perform well in the presence of the body it is mounted on. FEKO offers a range of features for the modelling of conformal antennas, including:

• Special MoM solver for planar, multi-layer dielectrics which is applicable to microstrip antennas
• MoM solver based on the Surface Equivalence Principle (SEP) for which allows the modelling of arbitrarily shaped, finite-sized dielectric regions
• In all cases, metal part can be conformal, interior or exterior to dielectric regions
• A CAD interface with powerful features for the modelling of conformal antenna models, e.g. lofting of curves to create surfaces, projection of points or lines onto surfaces, local coordinate systems
• A variety of feed techniques for conformal antennas, e.g. probe feeds, stripline feeds, electromagnetically coupled feeds