Using Mathematica in microstrip antenna education

This paper discussed the usage of the software Mathematica/spl trade/ as an auxiliary tool in microstrip antenna education. For the undergraduate courses and employing the empirical model, the Mathematica/spl trade/ package has been used for analyzing and designing elementary geometries and simple array configurations. For the first graduated discipline, a semiempirical model has been shown to be an excellent tool for derivation of an exact Green's function related to multilayered structures. Examples for a short dipole printed on a grounded biased ferrite were presented. Then, a linear array of three collinear nonuniform slots was discussed. Moreover, a directivity function for a printed flat half-wavelength dipole was also plotted. For both cases, excellent agreement between commercial package (IE3D/spl trade/ and Ensemble/spl trade/) simulations and Mathematica/spl trade/ prediction were observed. It can be concluded that the usage of the Mathematica/spl trade/ is a very effective way to introduce the microstrip antenna concepts in undergraduate and graduate courses.