A theoretical study of the input impedance of a circular microstrip disk antenna

A theoretical study is presented of the input impedance of a circular microstrip disk antenna excited by a coaxial line. The theory is based on Green's function technique applied to the disk cavity with the boundary admittance at the edge. Both the feed pin size and the boundary admittance are shown to be important in deriving the analytical expression for the input impedance. The boundary admittance is obtained by considering the radiated power and the electric and magnetic stored energies in the fringe capacitance. The analytical expression for the input impedance includes the feed location, the feed pin size, the disk size and thickness, and the dielectric constant of the material, and is useful for optimizing various parameters. The calculations are compared with experimental data showing a good agreement.