A look at field manipulation and antenna design using 3D transformation electromagnetics and 2D surface electromagnetics

Abstract

While many techniques have been developed for the design of different types of antennas, such as wire antenna, patch antenna, lenses, and reflectors, these cannot be said general-purpose strategies for the synthesis and design of antennas to achieve the performance characteristics specified by users. Recently, there has been an increasing need for the development of antenna design techniques because of the advent of 5G and a variety of space, defense, biological, and similar applications, for which a robust and general-purpose design tool is not to be developed. The main objective of this study is to take a look at antenna design from the field manipulation point of view, which has the potential to partially fulfill this need. We review the existing field manipulation techniques, including field transformation methods based on Maxwell’s and wave equations, point out some limitations of these techniques, and then present ways to improve the performance of these methods. Next, we introduce an alternative approach for field manipulation based on two-dimensional (2D) metasurfaces, and present laws of the generalized reflection and refraction that are based on 2D surface electromagnetics. Then, we explore how to overcome the limitations of conventional reflection and refraction processes that are strictly bounded by the critical angle. Finally, we provide some application examples of field manipulation methods in the antenna design, with a view on developing a general-purpose strategy for antenna design for future communication.