Reduced-Surface-Wave-Inspired Circular Microstrip Antenna for Concurrent Improvement in Radiation Characteristics

Classical microstrip patch antenna fabricated on a dielectric substrate suffers from poor gain, efficiency, and high cross polarization due to the automatic excitation of TM
₀
surface wave. It also radiates strong fields along the horizon which is susceptible to multiple-input–multiple-output (MIMO) or array configurations. In view of this, a separate class of circular microstrip antenna known as the reduced surface wave (RSW) circular patch antenna has been proposed with a pair of shorting strips. Unlike earlier RSW-inspired antennas that mainly confirmed their ability for the successful reduction in the mutual coupling between array elements, here, and the enhancement of radiation properties is considered.