Effect of a Finite Ground Plane on Radiated Emissions from a Circular Loop Antenna

A thin-wire circular loop antenna located above a perfectly conducting square plate is analyzed by a Physical Optics (PO) method. The Electric Field Integral Equation (EFIE) is solved using the method of moments to compute the current on the loop in the presence of an infinite ground plane whereby the edge effects of the plate on the loop current are neglected. The current distribution on the loop is obtained from a full-wave Fourier series analysis which requires no matrix inversion. We then use Physical Optics to compute the current induced on the plate in terms of the incident magnetic-field intensity. Our aim is to compare the PO solution with results obtained from a mixed wire-patch MOM code and explore its accuracy as a function of plate size and loop height. The benefits are considerable reduction in analytical and computational efforts and much less CPU time.