Characteristics of switchable ferrite microstrip antennas

Switchable antennas consisting of microstrip elements with an in-plane biased ferrite cover layer are introduced. Their radiation and radar cross section (RCS) properties are examined through a full-wave moment-method analysis. For microstrip antennas with a ferrite cover layer, the presence of a decaying extraordinary wave in the ferrite layer can reduce or prohibit incident fields from reaching the antenna resulting in significant RCS reduction. For antenna radiation, most of the power will be converted into magnetostatic waves and little radiates into the air. Under such circumstances, the antennas are "off," in the sense that they are effectively absent as radiators or scatterers. The aim of this paper is, through the use of an accurate full-wave analysis, to investigate the properties of the switchable microstrip antennas. Both the cases of strip dipoles and rectangular patches are analyzed. The effects of the cover-layer thickness, bias-field strength, and the existence of both ordinary and extraordinary waves on the switchable antenna properties are discussed.