Landstorfer Antenna Structure Shaping Based on Parameterized Parallel Curves

This paper shows a novel method to model a Landstorfer antenna based on the shaping of the constitutive antenna elements obtained from profile curves generated by controlled smoothed mathematical step functions. The parallelism concept of profile curves supports forming a reflector and director. An antenna prototype operating at 904 MHz is optimized and built on a dielectric-characterized FR-4 substrate and measured as a proof of concept of the proposed structure. Measurements show good agreement with simulations. The antenna prototype performs similarly to the original Landstorfer idea but with a more straightforward antenna elements profiling procedure design. The simulated radiation characteristics of the antenna are a directivity of 11.3 dBi, a side-lobe level of −10.6 dBi, and a front-back ratio of 18.7 dB. Furthermore, the structure has an overall length of 0.75λ0. The results verify the excellent performance of the parallelism approach. Limitations and range of utilization for the method are given as well.