Notched/diagonally fed electric microstrip antenna

A notched/diagonally fed electric microstrip dipole antenna having low physical profile and conformal arraying capability, comprising:

• a. a thin ground plane conductor;
• b. a thin rectangular radiating element for producing a radiation pattern being spaced from said ground plane;
• c. said radiating element being electrically separated from said ground plane by a dielectric substrate;
• d. said radiating element having an optimum feed point located along a diagonal line of the element between the outer edge and the center point of said element;
• e. said radiating element having a notch extending into said element from the outer edge thereof along said diagonal line of the element to said optimum feed point;
• f. the resonant frequency of the antenna being determined primarily by the length of said radiating element;
• the width of said notch having a slight effect on the resonant frequency, as the notch width is increased the resonant frequency being increased slightly, and vice versa;
• g. the antenna input impedance being variable to match most practical impedances as said feed point is moved along said diagonal line;
• h. the antenna bandwidth being variable with the width of the radiating element and the spacing between said radiating element and said ground plane, said spacing between the radiating element and the ground plane having somewhat greater effect on the bandwidth than the element width;
• i. said radiating element being operable to oscillate in two modes of current oscillation, each of said two modes being orthogonal to the other;
• j. antenna polarization being linear when the radiating element length and width are equal, and the antenna polarization being circular when the phase difference between the two modes of oscillation are in quadrature due to differences between the length and width of the antenna.