Analytic Model, Design of Waveguide-fed Metasurface Antennas and Applications to MIMO Communication Systems

Abstract

This dissertation focuses on the analytic model and design of waveguide-fed meta- surface antennas using the coupled-dipole method. In particular, it is demonstrated that the coupled-dipole method can be combined with models of waveguide feeds via network theory such that the self-consistency of the model of waveguide-fed metasurfaces is maintained. Thus, the proposed approach of modeling the meta- surface antennas allows the computation of key antenna parameters for practical design and considerations. It is also demonstrated that the proposed method allows direct implementation of optimization techniques to accelerate the design process of waveguide-fed metasurfaces. Design examples with various metasurface configu- rations, including printed cavity-backed metasurface, shared aperture metasurface, cylindrical conformal metasurface, are provided to confirm the utility of the proposed approach as an efficient design tool. Given the studies on the models and physics of waveguide-fed metasurface antennas, their applications to MIMO wireless commu- nication systems are explored in later chapters. The benefits of using metasurface antennas in various propagation channels are studied, showing that MIMO systems using metasurface antennas can improve channel capacity by utilizing flexibility in pattern synthesis offered by the metasurfaces.