Design of Periodic Antenna Arrays With the Excitation Phases Synthesized for Optimum Near-Field Patterns via Steepest Descent Method

We present the design and realization of a microstrip patch array antenna, which is operated at 24 GHz band, and can be used in the applications of vital-sign detection with a higher resolution. The design uses the steepest descent method (SDM) to synthesize the excitation phases of the array such that the radiation has an optimum near-field pattern in the desired area. Both theoretical development of SDM formulations and experimental validations over the antenna prototype are presented.