Large area subwavelength cavity antenna with planar metamaterials

We present a kind of large area subwavelength cavity antenna with artificial permeability-negative metamaterials at GHz range. The antenna has the advantages of flatness, ultra-thin thickness, high gain and good directivity. The optimal receiving area of the antenna is mainly determined by the size of the radiation source. Its directivity and sidelobe cancellation mainly depend on the patterns of the patch array as the radiation source. It is found that the antenna with non-uniform distributed patch array as the radiation source has better performance than that with uniform distributed patch array patterns. Otherwise, this type of metamaterial antenna has nearly the same performance compared to that of parabolic antenna with equal radiation aperture, so it has potential applications to replace the traditional large aperture parabolic antenna.