Substrate Edge Antennas

Electromagnetic (EM) radiation from dielectric substrate edges of a printed circuit board (PCB) is very poor, which is usually treated as an ideal open circuit at low frequencies. However, when the operating frequency moves to higher ones, the radiation from substrate edges cannot be ignored and even can be intentionally used to design antennas. This chapter first reviews the state-of-the-art substrate edge antennas (SEAs) and then introduces the impedance matching techniques for the SEAs to enable the EM waves efficiently radiating out over wide frequency bands. This chapter then presents several techniques to enhance the aperture efficiency by integrating the SEA with a lens. Last, this chapter introduces a dispersion reduction method to produce a fixed radiation beam direction over a broad frequency band, enriching the applications of leaky-wave antennas, such as for wideband point-to-point wireless communications.