| The rectangular dielectric resonator antenna (DRA) is investigated for potential use in broad band L-Band applications. This thesis presents experimental verification of the existing theory and implementations of the rectangular DRA as a linearly, dual linearly or circularly polarized antenna. A novel modification, edge-grounding, to the rectangular dielectric resonator antenna is proposed for increasing the bandwidth of a compact DRA. Experimental and analytic work on the novel edge-grounded DRA is presented. The edge-grounded technique applied to the broad band multi-segment DRA, several stacked layers of material with different dielectric constants, results in an antenna element with a bandwidth similar to the multi-segment DRA, but with a significantly more compact geometry. The results presented on the existing and novel broad band performance of the compact rectangular dielectric resonator antenna demonstrate that it has potential for application in the new L-band personal and satellite communication services. |
