Design of cavity-backed slot antennas using the finite-difference time-domain technique

A cavity-backed slot antenna is thought to be one of the most suitable elements for the wireless transmission of microwave energy. A design technique is developed for the cavity-backed slot antenna using the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method. The technique is effective in characterizing antenna performance such as the input impedance and the far-field pattern since it takes into account the geometry of the feeder as well as the cavity. We present a method that overcomes difficulties when the FDTD method is used to design the antenna. Moreover, we discuss how to determine the calculation parameters used in the FDTD analysis. Several numerical results are presented, along with measured data, which demonstrate the validity, efficiency, and capability of the techniques. The paper proposes a new prediction method for the frequency characteristics of the cavity-backed slot antenna, which applies computational windows to time-sequence data. It is emphasized that windowing the slow decaying signal enables the extraction of accurate antenna characteristics. We also discuss how to estimate the antenna patterns when we use a sinusoidal voltage excitation.