Direct Numerical Inversion Methods for the Design of Surface Wave-Based Metasurface Antennas: Fundamentals, Realizations, and Perspectives

A recent synthesis paradigm for tailoring the far-field radiation of leaky wave (LW) radiating metasurface (MTS) antennas is reviewed and experimentally validated. The considered antennas are realized with electrically small patches printed on a planar grounded dielectric slab. The patch layer is modeled as an impedance sheet whose spatial variation is initially designed to provide the desired LW effect from a prespecified surface wave (SW) excitation.