Compact Lightweight Polymeric-Metallic Resonator Antennas Using a New Radiating Mode

A new approach is introduced to show that bulk polymers with metallic plates/strips can be employed to design compact lightweight resonator antennas. A new fundamental mode is excited inside the polymer, based on the special boundary conditions enforced by the metallic plates and strip. By properly adjusting the physical parameters (e.g., the gap between metallic plate and strip), the mode is excited in an appropriate shape and significant miniaturization along with good radiation performance is achieved. An antenna structure is fabricated using acrylic (εr= 3) and the measured results are compared with the results of other compact antennas, which can be realized using very high-permittivity materials. Besides over 70% reduction in weight, outstanding antenna features such as 10% impedance bandwidth, 5.7 dBi gain, over 90% efficiency, and dimensions smaller than λ/6, make the proposed approach more suitable for designing compact lightweight antennas.