Notched/diagonally fed twin electric microstrip dipole antennas

DETAILED DESCRIPTION The twin electric microstrip dipole antennas are a family of new microstrip antennas.
The twin electric microstrip dipole antennas consist of thin, electrically-conducting rectangular shaped elements formed on both sides of a dielectric substrate.
The element on one side of the substrate is the mirror image of the element on the other side of the substrate and each of the elements act, in effect, as a ground plane for the other.
The elements can be photo-etched simultaneously on the substrate by techniques used in making printed circuits.
The thickness of the substrate to a large extent determines the bandwidth of the antenna.
The length of the conducting elements on both sides of the substrate determines the resonant frequency.
The twin electric microstrip antennas are very useful in co-linear type arrays, such as stacked or stand-up type antennas and can be used on buoys, towers, boats, aircraft, etc.
This family of microstrip antennas differ from earlier families of microstrip antennas in that both conducting strips are excited to radiate.
In the previous microstrip families, the ground plane being larger than the radiating element could not be excited at the same resonant frequency as the radiating element.
However, in the case of the twin electric microstrip antenna both elements are efficiently excited.
The bandwidth of the twin antennas is dependent upon the thickness of the substrate and width of the elements, i.
e.
, overall width of the antenna.
Twin electric microstrip antennas with widths as narrow as the thickness of the substrate have been constructed and operated with satisfactory results.
There are a number of different twin microstrip antennas described herein each having different electrical characteristics and feed systems.
These are: Notched Fed Electric Twin Microstrip Antennas; End Fed Electric Twin Microstrip Antennas; Offset Fed Electric Twin Microstrip Antennas; Asymmetrically Fed Electric Twin Microstrip Antennas; Diagonally Fed Electric Twin Microstrip Antennas; Notched/Diagonally Fed Electric Twin Microstrip Antennas; and Asymmetrically Fed Magnetic Twin Microstrip Antennas