A study on Q of printed antennas as radiators and as reflectarray elements

Q of a patch, and its meander-line based miniaturized version, resonating at about 13.3 GHz, is examined in this paper by using simulations and experiments. This examination is done with the printed structures employed in two configurations as radiators and as reflectarray elements. While impedance Q is considered for the radiators, it is reflection phase Q that is considered for reflectarray elements. In either configuration, the Q of the miniaturized antenna is observed to be larger compared to that of the patch. Both the printed structures offer similar bandwidths in either of their configurations.