A combined full-wave CG-FFT method for rigorous analysis of large microstrip antenna arrays

An accurate and efficient technique is presented for the analysis of large microstrip antenna arrays. The technique consists of an amalgamation of a spatially discrete scheme, consisting of the CG-FFT method and the complex discrete image (CDI) technique. The unique feature of this approach is the use of the spatially discrete CG-FFT for analyzing microstrip structures. The aliasing and truncation errors are thoroughly eliminated in this approach. In addition, the grad-div operators are transformed from singular Green's functions to differentiable expansion and testing functions by using Galerkin's procedure, thereby improving the accuracy and the rate of convergence. To show the accuracy and efficiency of this technique, a number of microstrip arrays, including a large microstrip reflectarray, have been studied. It is found that the simulations carried out using this technique are in very good agreement with measurements.