Comprehensive Array Design System for Printed-Circuit Antennas

Printed-Circuit antennas offer the potential for high gain, efficient, compact, light-weight, conformal antenna array systems. We propose to develop a Design Automation system consisting of design, simulation and synthesis tools targeted at Printed-Circuit array antenna development. We will seamlessly integrate the system into our existing, low-cost layout editor L-Edit and an electromagnetic simulation tool currently in development, and we will support industry standard geometry fields for capturing existing designs. We will enhance graphics and tabular display modules to display input impedance, radiation patterns, gain and efficiency. To facilitate design entry, we will develop library elements for commonly-used antenna and feed elements, in a multi-layered environment. Where appropriate, we will offer parameterized elements to support tuning, sensitivity analysis, synthesis and self-adaptation algorithms. The user-interface will be layered, with options, and technology- specific parameters set to reasonable, default values for use by the novice designer, but configurable for customization by the expert designer. We will deliver a functional prototype system at the end of Phase I. During Phase II, we will enhance the system with an antenna/array synthesis capability, technology mapping, and an enhanced electromagnetic simulation capability based on additional application-specific Green's functions.