Anten'it: A Hardware-Based Antenna Design and Training Kit [Testing Ourselves

Abstract

This article describes a new method for designing, training, and building antennas. Unlike methods used in conventional antenna designs, this new method involves attaching antenna hardware cells to each other like brick pieces. Antenna cells include both metal and dielectric cells. Computational electromagnetics (CEM) software programs discretize the solid structure into pieces called mesh cells. This new technique uses hardware mesh cells that enable designers to build and iterate their design directly in front of a network analyzer. This article explains the hardware mesh cell-based antenna design and training concept.