IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ELECTROMAGNETIC COMPATIBILITY, VOL. 56, NO.

1, FEBRUARY 2014 83
A SPICE Model of Rectangular Microstrip Antennas
for Receiving
Xiang Gao, Student Member, IEEE, and Zhengwei Du
AbstractThis paper presents a SPICEmodel for calculating the
coupling voltages of a rectangular microstrip antenna illuminated
by plane waves. A receiving model based on Th evenins theorem is
rst established in which the ideal voltage source is calculated by
the reciprocity theory and the impedance is calculated by the cavity
model. Then, by using the method of vector tting, the obtained
receiving model is approximated by rational functions, which can
be directly converted to RLC circuits. The proposed SPICE model,
which allows the incorporation of either time-varying or nonlinear
loads, can be applied to both frequency-domain and time-domain
analyses. The proposed SPICE model was veried by several nu-
merical examples.
Index TermsCavity model (CM), electromagnetic coupling,
microstrip antenna, SPICE model, vector tting (VF).
I. INTRODUCTION
I
N recent years, the susceptibility of electronic systems
threatened by electromagnetic pulses (EMPs) has received
signicant interest and attention from researchers [1], [2]. The
effects of electromagnetic interference (EMI) could lead elec-
tronic systems to be upset or even permanently damaged. The
requirement of protecting electronic devices from EMI has trig-
gered studies on the susceptibility of electronic systems.
EMPs can interact with electronic systems via front-door cou-
pling and back-door coupling [1]. Front-door coupling refers to
the EMP coupling to electronic systems intended to communi-
cate with the external environment. Back-door coupling refers to
the EMP coupling to electronic systems through imperfections
in an electromagnetic shield.
When EMI occurs, electronic devices are more vulnerable to
being upset or damaged by front-door coupling than by back-
door coupling, because most electronic devices have antennas
Manuscript received February 28, 2013; revised May 8, 2013; accepted June
21, 2013. Date of publication July 15, 2013; date of current version January
27, 2014. This work was supported in part by the National Basic Research
Program of China under Grant 2009CB320205, in part by the National Science
and Technology Major Project of the Ministry of Science and Technology of
China under Grant 2012ZX03003002-004, in part by the National Natural Sci-
ence Foundation of China under Grant 60971005, in part by the National High
Technology Research and Development Programof China (863 Program) under
Grant 2007AA01Z284 and Grant 2006AA01Z265, and in part by the Project
9140A33020411JW27.
The authors are with the State Key Laboratory on Microwave and Dig-
ital Communications, Tsinghua National Laboratory for Information Sci-
ence and Technology, Department of Electronic Engineering, Tsinghua
University, Beijing 100084, China (e-mail: gaoxiangmax@hotmail.com;
zwdu@tsinghua.edu.cn).
Color versions of one or more of the gures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identier 10.1109/TEMC.2013.2271587
for transmitting and receiving, while the other parts of electronic
devices are placed in shielding boxes. Much effort has been de-
voted to analyze the effects of back-door coupling such as aper-
tures [3][5] and cables [6], [7]. As for front-door coupling,
many studies have dealt with the equivalent circuit of the in-
put impedance of an antenna such as dipole [8], ultra-wideband
(UWB) small antenna [9], microstrip patch antenna [10], and
arrays [11]. However, few of them have looked into the equiv-
alent circuit of the receiving model of an antenna, from which
we can get the coupling voltages on the antenna load.
Knowing the waveforms of the coupling voltages is of
paramount importance in evaluating the susceptibility of elec-
tronic systems, because signals with different spectrums would
have different effects on the electronic devices. Also, captur-
ing the waveform dispersion of a coupling voltage can help
to equalize or compensate the signal at the receiver, or to nd
a strategy to prevent the receiver from electromagnetic distur-
bances. However, it is difcult to analytically obtain a transient
response from an antenna illuminated by plane waves, because
it needs to calculate the unit pulse response of an antenna [12].
Although it is possible to obtain the coupling voltages by full-
wave analysis, it is computationally inefcient when the electri-
cal size of an electronic system is large or the parameters of an
electronic device change frequently. Also, it is time-consuming
when evaluating the receiving characteristics of an antenna,
because it needs to calculate the responses of the antenna il-
luminated by a plane wave with different waveforms, incident
angles, and polarizations. Furthermore, full-wave analysis is not
fully compatible with commercial circuit solvers, which are of-
ten used to analyze the electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) of
a system.
This paper presents a SPICE model for calculating the cou-
pling voltages of an antenna illuminated by plane waves. The
proposed SPICE model which allows the incorporation of either
time-varying or nonlinear loads is much more efcient than the
full-wave analysis simulator. Also, the proposed SPICE model
combined with a commercial circuit simulator can be used for
system-level EMC simulations in both the frequency and time
domains. A rectangular microstrip antenna is selected and mod-
eled to demonstrate the idea, as it is a typical antenna which is
widely used in many electronic devices [13], [14]. To illustrate
the validity of the proposed SPICEmodel, several incident plane
waves are used for the calculation of the coupling voltages of
the antenna. The results are compared with those obtained by
the full-wave analysis simulator CST [15]. These results show
the validity and reliability of the model.
The paper is organized as follows. In Section II, a SPICE
model of an antenna for receiving is established. In Section III,
0018-9375 2013 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
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84 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ELECTROMAGNETIC COMPATIBILITY, VOL. 56, NO. 1, FEBRUARY 2014
Fig. 1. Th evenin equivalent circuit of the receiving model.
the input impedance and the far eld of rectangular microstrip
antennas are analyzed by the cavity model (CM) [14]. In
Section IV, numerical experiments are carried out to verify
the proposed SPICE model. Finally, the conclusion is drawn in
Section V.
II. PLANE WAVE COUPLING TO AN ANTENNA
In this section, a receiving model of an antenna illuminated
by incident plane waves is rst established. Then, by using the
method of vector tting (VF), the receiving model is approxi-
mated by rational functions which can be directly converted to
a SPICE model.
A. Receiving Model of an Antenna
Consider an electronic device in a shielded box with an an-
tenna for receiving. The antenna is illuminated by a linearly
polarized plane wave.
When dealing with the electromagnetic eld penetration into
a shielded box via an antenna, which is connected to the re-
ceiver inside the box, the reciprocity theory is used to relate
the far eld to the open-circuit voltage in the transmission line.
If the incident angle and the polarization of an incident plane
wave are specied, the receiving model can be determined by a
Th evenin equivalent circuit shown in Fig. 1, where Z
in
is the in-
put impedance of the antenna and V
s
is the ideal voltage source
in the Th evenin equivalent circuit. The ideal voltage source V
s
is elaborated in [16]
V
s
=
r
e
jkr
4[E
inc
E
1
(r)]
jk
0

0
V (0)
Z
in
(1)
where the linearly polarized incident electric eld is
E
inc
= E
inc
p. (2)
E
inc
is the amplitude of the incident electric eld, p is a
unit vector indicating the polarization of the incident electric
eld, E
1
(r) is the radiation eld of the antenna, and V (0) is the
voltage at the reference plane.
It should be noted that the assumptions made in the above
model are the TEM mode of a transmission line and the far-
zone approximation. These two assumptions greatly simplify
the analysis of the receiving model.
With this receiving model, one can obtain the coupling volt-
ages of an antenna illuminated by plane waves in the frequency
domain.
Fig. 2. Topology of Fp(s).
B. SPICE Model of an Antenna for Receiving
In the above discussion, the input impedance and the ideal
voltage source in the Th evenin equivalent circuit are computed
in the frequency domain. However, if a SPICE-compatible
model is needed, the frequency-domain response of the ideal
voltage source and the input impedance should be approximated
by rational functions, because rational functions can be directly
converted to a SPICE model.
The rational approximation of a transfer function F(s) is
written as [17]
F(s) =
N

n=1
c
n
s a
n
+d +sh (3)
where a
n
is the nth pole, c
n
is the nth residue, d and h are
optional parameters, and s = j is the complex frequency.
The residues and poles cannot be accurately obtained by solv-
ing linear equations for the Vandermonde matrix is highly ill-
conditional. However, the VF technique which is based on it-
eratively relocating an initial pole is suitable to extract residues
and poles. The details of the VF method can be found in [17].
Considering pairs of complex and conjugate residues
(res
1
, res
2
) and poles (p
1
, p
2
), the corresponding transfer func-
tion Fp(s) is [18]
Fp(s) =
res
1
s p
1
+
res
2
s p
2
. (4)
One of a lumped circuit topology synthesizing a complex
pole pairs can be obtained by comparing Fp(s) with the input
impedance of the circuit shown in Fig. 2. The values of the
lumped elements are [18]
C =
1
res
1
+ res
2
G
2
=
1
R
2
=
1
res
1
+ res
2

_
res
1
p
2
+ res
2
p
1
res
1
+ res
2
p
1
p
2
_
G
1
=
1
R
1
= G
2

p
1
p
2
res
1
p
2
+ res
2
p
1
L =
1
C (res
1
p
2
+ res
2
p
1
) G
1
. (5)
Because the transfer function F(s) is composed of many pairs
of residues and poles, the topology of F(s) is a series of RLC
circuits in cascade.
GAO AND DU: SPICE MODEL OF RECTANGULAR MICROSTRIP ANTENNAS FOR RECEIVING 85
(a) (b)
Fig. 3. SPICE model of an antenna for receiving. (a) SPICE model of the ideal
voltage source V
s
. (b) SPICE model of an antenna.
The ideal voltage source V
s
in (1) can be divided into two
parts
V
s
= E
inc

r
e
jkr
4[ p E
1
(r)]
jk
0

0
V (0)
Z
in
(6)
where E
inc
is the rst part and the rest is the second part. Each
part can be modeled by a SPICE model element.
As shown in Fig. 3(a), the rst part is modeled by a current
source E
in
(t), the second part is modeled by a series of RLC
circuits in cascade, where Rs
1i
, Ls
i
, Rs
2i
and Cs
i
are the com-
ponents in the equivalent circuit. Thus, the ideal voltage source
V
s
is the voltage between nodes 1 and 0.
After obtaining the SPICE model element of the ideal voltage
source V
s
, the nal SPICE model of an antenna for receiving
is shown in Fig. 3(b), where V
s
is the voltage between nodes
1 and 0. The circuits between nodes 2 and 3 are the equiva-
lent circuits of the input impedance Z
in
of the antenna, where
R
1i
, L
i
, R
2i
, C
i
are the components in the equivalent circuit.
The loads are placed between nodes 3 and 0 from where we can
get the coupling voltages of the antenna.
The scale of the proposed SPICE model depends on the order
of the rational functions. As the modeling frequency band of
an antenna increases, the order of the rational functions also
increases; thus, the scale of the whole model becomes larger.
The increase of the time-consumption, however, in circuit sim-
ulations is not signicant.
So far, a SPICE model of an antenna for receiving has been
established. The proposed SPICEmodel is composed of an ideal
voltage source and the input impedance of the antenna.
With this model, one can obtain the coupling voltages of an
antenna illuminated by linearly polarized plane waves in both
time and frequency domains.
The accuracy of the proposed SPICE model is based on the
input impedance and the far eld of an antenna. As long as
these two parameters are accurate, the model can give excellent
results. However, analytic solutions of these two parameters are
difcult to obtain for most antennas.
Thus, the proposed SPICE model is limited to the antenna of
which the input impedance and the far eld can be calculated
analytically. Also, the frequency range of an excitation signal
should be within the modeling frequency range; otherwise, the
model may not give a good result.
Fig. 4. Geometry of a rectangular microstrip antenna.
III. ANALYSIS OF RECTANGULAR MICROSTRIP ANTENNAS
In this Section, the input impedance and the far eld of rect-
angular microstrip antennas are analyzed.
There are many methods that can be used to analyze mi-
crostrip antennas. The simplest method is the transmission line
model proposed in [19], but this model is limited to cases when
the elds in the antenna are uniform along the antenna width
and no currents are transversed to the length of the antenna.
A more accurate model is the CM which can be used to ana-
lyze plane structures in various forms, but it is limited to the
analysis of thin antennas [14]. The most rigorous method is the
integral equation method based on full-wave theory [20]. It can
be used to analyze all forms of microstrip antennas, but it is
time-consuming. Some other methods such as Greens function
approach [21] and multiport network approach can also give
credible results [22].
The CM is chosen to analyze the microstrip antenna in this
paper considering both efciency and accuracy.
A. Input Impedance
Consider a rectangular microstrip antenna of length a and
width b over an innite ground with a substrate of thickness
h as shown in Fig. 4. The relative dielectric constant of the
substrate is
r
. The loss tangent of the substrate is tan and
all metals are lossless. The antenna is fed by a coaxial probe at
(x
0
, y
0
).
Suppose the height of the antenna is less than a few per-
centage of the wavelength in the substrate and there only exists
E
z
component of the electric eld in the cavity. By using the
mode-expansion technique, the electric eld in the cavity can
be represented by the superposition of a series of TM
mn
modes
with the coefcient of B
mn
.
The input impedance of the microstrip antenna Z without
considering the effects of the fed probe is calculated by the
complex ratio of the voltage to the current at the feed [14]
Z = j
0
k
0
h

0m

0n
ab

m=0

n=0
cos
2 mx
0
a
cos
2 ny
0
b
k
2
ef f
k
2
mn
G
mn
(7)
86 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ELECTROMAGNETIC COMPATIBILITY, VOL. 56, NO. 1, FEBRUARY 2014
where
G
mn
= j
0
_
md
x
2a
_
j
0
_
nd
y
2b
_
(8)
k
ef f
= k
0

r
_
1 j
_
tan +
1
Q
r
+
1
Q
sw
__
, (9)
G
mn
stands for the current distribution on the coaxial fed probe,
j
0
is the Bessel function of the rst kind, (x
0
,y
0
) is the coordinate
of the fed probe,
0
is the intrinsic free-space impedance, I
0
is
the amplitude of the input current, k
mn
is the wavenumber of
the TM
mn
mode, k
0
is the wavenumber in the free space, d
x
d
y
is the cross section of the probe,
0p
= 1 when p = 0 and
0
= 2
when p = 0, p stands for mor n, k
e
is the effective wavenumber
in the substrate, tan , Q
r
, and Q
sw
are the losses caused by the
substrate, radiation and surface wave, respectively.
The cavity mode did not take account of the inductance of
the coaxial fed probe, so the obtained input impedance should
be xed with an additional inductance X
p
[14]
X
p
=

0

r
tan
_
2h

_
(10)
where is the wavelength of the substrate.
Thus, the input impedance Z
in
of the microstrip antenna is
Z
in
= Z +jX
p
. (11)
B. Far-Field Radiation
The far eld of the microstrip antenna is based on the Huygens
principle which is a rigorous method.
By integrating the magnetic currents on the radiating edges
of the cavity, the component and component of the electric
eld in the far zone are [13]
_

_
E

=
4k
0
hB
mn

0
r
e
jk
0
r
e
j(
u+m
2
+
v+n
2
)
sin
u +m
2
sin
v +n
2
_
a
2
u
2
(m)
2
+
b
2
v
2
(n)
2
_
sin sin cos
E

=
4k
0
hB
mn

0
r
e
jk
0
r
e
j(
u+m
2
+
v+n
2
)
sin
u+m
2
sin
v+n
2
_
a
2
cos
2

u
2
(m)
2

b
2
sin
2

v
2
(n)
2
_
sin cos
(12)
with
u = k
0
a sin cos
v = k
0
b sin sin (13)
where
0
is the wavelength in the free space, and r is the dis-
tance between the observation point and the phase center of the
antenna.
In the above analysis, it is assumed that the antenna is over an
innite ground. Ground size has a pronounced effect on the far
eld [23], [24]. Anite ground size leads to scattered radiation in
the backward direction, because the outer edges of the ground
plane diffract electromagnetic waves in all directions. These
diffracted waves will introduce ripples into the radiation pattern
over a wide range of angles.
If the ground size is larger than a few wavelengths, then the
present SPICE model will give a reasonably accurate result for
wide angle calculations. In order to improve the accuracy of the
model when a ground is nite, the far eld should be xed with
diffracted waves [25].
Based on the input impedance and the far eld, a SPICE
model of microstrip antennas for receiving can be established.
IV. NUMERICAL EXAMPLES
In this section, the proposed SPICE model is validated by
several examples. The coupling voltages of a rectangular mi-
crostrip antenna illuminated by plane waves are given by using
the model and the CST simulator. Also, in order to test the
accuracy of the model, the delity of the coupling voltages is
calculated. In this paper, it is assumed that the results calculated
by the full-wave simulator CST are correct and reliable.
Consider a rectangular microstrip antenna of length a =
46 mm and width b = 31 mm over an innite ground with a
substrate of thickness h = 1 mm. The relative dielectric con-
stant
r
of the substrate is 2.25 and its loss tangent tan is
0.0018. The antenna is fed by a coaxial probe with its di-
ameter 1.27 mm. The location of the coaxial fed probe is
(x
0
, y
0
) = (23 mm, 25.5 mm).
In the following, the modeling frequency range is from
200 MHz to 5.5 GHz in which sufciently intense electro-
magnetic signals can cause damage or upset to electronic
systems [26].
A. Reection Coefcient and Radiation Patterns of the
Rectangular Microstrip Antenna
As explained in Section III, the electric eld in the cavity
is the superposition of all possible TM
mn
modes. However,
most modes could be cut off without signicantly increasing
the analysis error. Accordingly, choosing a few modes near the
computed frequency point will give a good approximation. In
this paper, the electric eld in the cavity at a given frequency
point is expanded into three modes.
If the antenna is connected to a 50 resistive load, then
the reection coefcient S
11
of the antenna calculated by the
CM and the CST simulator are obtained, as shown in Fig. 5.
The result by the CM model agrees well with that by the CST
simulator except for the frequency shift in the higher band.
FromFig. 5, one can nd that three modes are excited at 2.95,
4, and 4.95 GHz which correspond to TM
01
mode, TM
20
mode,
and TM
21
mode, respectively. The radiation patterns of these
modes calculated by the CST simulator are shown in Fig. 6.
When dealing with the response of an antenna illuminated by
plane waves, plane waves incident angles and polarizations are
important in calculating the coupling voltages.
In this paper, polarization ratio (Pora) is used to describe the
ratio of the component of the incident electric eld to the
component of the incident electric eld of a linear polarized
incident plane wave in the spherical coordinate
Pora =
|E
inc

|
|E
inc

|
. (14)
GAO AND DU: SPICE MODEL OF RECTANGULAR MICROSTRIP ANTENNAS FOR RECEIVING 87
Fig. 5. S
11
calculated by the CM and the CST simulators.
The relationship between |E
inc

|,|E
inc

|, and the polarization

vector p of the incident electric eld is
p = (|E
inc

| sin |E
inc

| cos cos ) x
+ (|E
inc

| cos |E
inc

| cos sin ) y
+ (|E
inc

| sin ) z (15)
where x, y, and z denote the unit vectors along x, y, and z
directions in Fig. 4, respectively.
When the Pora is 0, the electric eld vector is perpendicular to
the incident plane. In contrast, when the Pora is , the electric
eld vector is parallel to the incident plane.
B. Coupling Voltages on the 50 Resistive Load
of the Antenna
In this section, two types of incident plane waves are used by
the proposed SPICE model to calculate the coupling voltages
on the 50 resistive antenna load.
1) Gaussian-Modulated Sinusoidal Pulse Plane Wave:
Gaussian-modulated sinusoidal pulse is used as the plane wave
excitation rst, for its spectrum can cover a wide frequency
band.
The time-domain function of a Gaussian-modulated sinu-
soidal pulse is
f = sin(2f
0
t)e
4 ( t t
0
)
2

2
(16)
where corresponds to the pulse duration, t
0
is the time instant
needed for the amplitude to reach its maximum, and f
0
is the
center frequency of the signal.
Fig. 7(a) shows the time-domain waveform of the Gaussian-
modulated sinusoidal pulse with characteristic parameters of
f
0
= 3 GHz, t
0
= 2 ns, and = 0.7. Fig. 7(b) shows its
spectrum.
The minimum bandwidth of the signal can be obtained by
solving [26]
_
f
h
f
l
|V (j)|
2
d
_

0
|V (j)|
2
d
= 0.9 (17)
(a)
(b)
(c)
Fig. 6. Radiation patterns of the microstrip antenna : (a) T M
01
mode.
(b) T M
20
mode. (c) T M
21
mode.
where V (j) is the spectrum of the pulse. As for the pulse
in Fig. 7(a), we have f
h
5 GHz and f
l
1 GHz, so the
percentage bandwidth is 133.3%. The wide spectrum of the
pulse ensures that the antenna can receive substantial energy
from an incident plane wave in each mode.
a) Incident angle (0

, 0

): When the incident angle is

(0

, 0

), TM
01
mode will receive most of the energy as shown
in Fig. 6. For TM
01
mode, the worst case of polarization mis-
match is when the Pora is innite, and when the Pora is zero,
it means that polarization totally matches. Using the proposed
SPICE model, the coupling voltages are calculated when the
88 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ELECTROMAGNETIC COMPATIBILITY, VOL. 56, NO. 1, FEBRUARY 2014
(a) (b)
Fig. 7. Gaussian-modulated sinusoidal pulse: (a) Time domain waveform.
(b) Spectrum.
Poras are 0 and 1 as shown in Fig. 8. The results calculated by
the proposed SPICE model agree well with those obtained by
the CST simulator.
Comparing the peak voltages between Fig. 8(a) and (b), the
decreasing of the coupling voltage, as shown in Fig. 8(b), is due
to the polarization mismatch. The corresponding ideal voltage
sources of the above two gures are shown in Fig. 9(a) and (b).
b) Incident angle (30

, 50

): Once the incident angle of

the incident plane wave is changed from (0

, 0

) to (30

, 50

),
the receiving characteristics of the antenna are altered. Not only
the fundamental mode TM
01
will receive energy from the inci-
dent plane wave, but also the higher modes can receive a certain
amount of energy as shown in Fig. 6.
Fig. 10(a) and (b) show two ideal voltage sources when the
Poras are 0 and 2, respectively. When the Pora is changed from
0 to 2, TM
01
mode receives less energy, while TM
21
mode
receives more energy. TM
20
mode receives almost the same
amount of energy.
The corresponding coupling voltages on the antenna load
are shown in Fig. 11(a) and (b). The results from the pro-
posed SPICE model agree well with those obtained by the CST
simulator.
2) Rectangular Pulse Plane Wave: The time-domain wave-
form of the rectangular pulse used in this paper is shown in
Fig. 12(a); the rise and fall time of the pulse is 0.1 ns, and the
pulse width is 0.5 ns.
When compared to the Gaussian-modulated sinusoidal pulse,
the low-frequency components of the rectangular pulse are more
signicant, as shown in Fig. 12(b).
Fig. 13 gives the coupling voltage when the incidence angle
is (0

, 0

) and the Pora is 1. The result by the proposed SPICE

model agrees well with that obtained by the CST simulator.
In this example, the low-frequency components of the pulse
do not couple into the antenna, because there is no resonant mode
for the frequency band below2.9 GHz in the above antenna. The
(a)
(b)
Fig. 8. Coupling voltages on the 50 resistive load of the microstrip antenna
for (, ) = (0

, 0

) : (a) Pora = 0. (b) Pora = 1.

(a) (b)
Fig. 9. Ideal voltage sources of the proposed SPICE model for (, ) =
(0

, 0

) : (a) Pora = 0. (b) Pora = 1.

GAO AND DU: SPICE MODEL OF RECTANGULAR MICROSTRIP ANTENNAS FOR RECEIVING 89
(a) (b)
Fig. 10. Ideal voltage sources of the proposed SPICE model for (, ) =
(30

, 50

): (a) Pora = 0. (b) Pora = 2.

(a)
(b)
Fig. 11. Coupling voltages on the 50 resistive load of the microstrip antenna
for (, ) = (30

, 50

): (a) Pora = 0. (b) Pora = 2.

(a) (b)
Fig. 12. Rectangular pulse : (a) Waveform. (b) Spectrum.
Fig. 13. Coupling voltage on the 50 resistive load of the microstrip antenna
for (, ) = (0

, 0

) and Pora = 1.
Fig. 14. Th evenin equivalent circuit of the receiving model with nonlinear
loads.
coupling voltage is relatively weak compared with the Gaussian-
modulated sinusoidal pulse plane wave excitation.
C. Coupling Voltage on the Nonlinear Loads of the Antenna
Since the proposed SPICE model allows the incorporation
of nonlinear loads, a 50 resistive load cascaded with an ideal
diode is used as the nonlinear load, as shown in Fig. 14.
90 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ELECTROMAGNETIC COMPATIBILITY, VOL. 56, NO. 1, FEBRUARY 2014
(a) (b)
Fig. 15. Damped sinusoid: (a) Time-domain waveform. (b) Spectrum.
The ideal diode is described by the IV curve functions:
_
I
d
= G
s
U
d
U
d
< 0
I
d
= I
0
(e
e
0
k T
U
d
1) U
d
> 0
(18)
where I
d
is the diode current, k is the Boltzmann constant,
e
0
is elementary charge, T is the absolute temperature of the
p-n junction, I
0
is the reverse bias saturation current, and G
s
is the conductivity of the diode when blocked. In this exam-
ple, I
0
= 1 10
14
, T = 300K, and G
s
= 0 are chosen as the
characteristic parameters of the ideal diode.
Suppose an incident plane wave is at an incident angle of
(30

, 50

), and the Pora of the incident wave is 2.

A damped sinusoid is used as the excitation signal
f = Asin(2f
0
t)e

(19)
where Ais the amplitude of the signal, f
0
is the center frequency,
and corresponds to the damping rate.
Fig. 15(a) shows the damped sinusoid waveform with the
characteristic parameters of A = 1000, f
0
= 2.93 GHz, and =
0.5. Fig. 15(b) shows its spectrum.
After performing the simulations in the CSTand the proposed
SPICE model, the waveform of the coupling current through
the ideal diode and its spectrum is shown in Fig. 16(a) and (b),
respectively. The results of the proposed model agree well with
those obtained by the CST simulator. In the aforementioned
results, one can nd that there is no reverse current through the
ideal diode. Also, the second and the third harmonics appear
because of the nonlinear characteristics of the diode, and the dc
components appear because of the rectication characteristics
of the diode.
D. Analysis of the Fidelity
The accuracy of a SPICE model is important in evaluating
the susceptibility of electronic systems, for a distorted signal
may introduce unwanted frequency components in the circuit
simulation.
In order to test the accuracy of the proposed SPICE model,
the delity of the coupling voltages is calculated by estimating
(a)
(b)
Fig. 16. Current through the diode when (, ) = (30

, 50

) and Pora = 2:
(a) Waveform of currents through the diode. (b) Spectrum of the current.
the errors between the results obtained by the proposed SPICE
model and those obtained by the full-wave analysis simulator
CST.
In this paper, the delity takes account of both the shape and
the energy errors of the coupling voltages.
The correlation coefcient is computed rst to determine how
well the shape of a coupling signal obtained by the proposed
SPICE model ts the one obtained by the CST simulator [27]
F =
_
+

f(t)
_
_
+

|f(t)|
2
dt
r(t)
_
_
+

|r(t)|
2
dt
dt (20)
where f(t) and r(t) are the two signals for comparison.
Then, the relative energy error (REE) is dened to measure the
energy error per nanosecond of a coupling voltage obtained by
the proposed model when it is compared with the one obtained
by the CST simulator
REE =
1
(T
stop
T
start
)
_
T
s t a r t
T
s t o p
|f
spice
(t) f
cst
(t)|
2
dt
_
T
s t a r t
T
s t o p
|f
cst
(t)|
2
dt
(21)
GAO AND DU: SPICE MODEL OF RECTANGULAR MICROSTRIP ANTENNAS FOR RECEIVING 91
TABLE I
CORRELATION COEFFICIENT AND REE BETWEEN SPICE MODEL AND CST
Signal Type Incident angle Pora F REE loads
Gaussian (0

, 0

) 0 0.99 2.1%
Modulated 1 0.98 2.2% 50
Sinusoidal (30

, 50

) 0 0.97 2.9%
Pulse 2 0.97 3.4%
Rectangular (0

, 0

) 1 0.95 3.8% 50
Pulse
Damped (30

, 50

) 2 0.96 3.1% 50
Sinusiod +Diode
where f
spice
(t) is the signal calculated by the SPICE model and
f
cst
(t) is the signal calculated by the CST simulator. T
start
and
T
stop
are the starting time and the stopping time of the signal,
respectively.
Considering two signals, by changing the amplitude of one
signal while keeping its shape unchanged, the correlation coef-
cient would not change. Also, by changing the shape of one
signal, the REE may not be changed. Thus, an accurate result
calculated by the proposed SPICE model should satisfy these
two criterions. One is the correlation coefcient which should
be close to 1, and another is the REE which should be small
enough.
Table I gives the correlation coefcients and REEs between
the results obtained by the proposed SPICE model and the
CST simulator when T
start
= 0 ns and T
stop
= 10 ns. The table
shows that all the correlation coefcients are close to 1 which
means that the shapes of both signals are almost the same.
REEs are less than 4% which indicate that the energy error per
nanosecond is signicantly small.
V. CONCLUSION
We have proposed a SPICEmodel for calculating the coupling
voltages of microstrip antennas illuminated by plane waves.
Using several examples, the model has been veried by the
full-wave analysis simulator CST. The model which allows the
incorporation of either time-varying or nonlinear loads can be
applied to both frequency-domain and time-domain analyses.
Using the proposed SPICEmodel, one can study the receiving
characteristics of a canonical antenna interfered by electromag-
netic waves. The model can also help to equalize or compensate
the signal at the receiver or to nd a strategy to prevent electro-
magnetic disturbances. Furthermore, when the other parts of an
electronic system are modeled, the combination of the proposed
SPICE model with those parts can be used for system-level
EMC simulations.
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92 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ELECTROMAGNETIC COMPATIBILITY, VOL. 56, NO. 1, FEBRUARY 2014
Xiang Gao (S13) received the B.E. degree in elec-
tronic science and technology from the University
of Electronic Science and Technology of China,
Chengdu, China, in 2011. He is currently work-
ing toward the Ph.D. degree in Tsinghua University,
Beijing, China.
His research interests include antenna modeling
and electromagnetic compatibility/electromagnetic
interference.
Zhengwei Du was born in Sichuan Province, China,
on August 21, 1971. He received the B.Sc., M.Sc.,
and Ph.D. degrees in engineering from the Uni-
versity of Electronic Science and Technology of
China, Chengdu, China, in 1992, 1995, and 1998,
respectively.
Since 1998, he has been with Tsinghua University,
Beijing, China, as a Postdoctoral Fellow (February
1998 to October 1999), Research Assistant (Novem-
ber 1999 to July 2000), Associate Professor (August
2000 to December 2006), and currently a Full Pro-
fessor. His main research interests include ultra-wideband/short-pulse electro-
magnetic, antenna, propagation, analysis of microwave/millimeter wave planar
structures, photonic bandgap (electromagnetic bandgap) circuits, and electro-
magnetic compatibility/electromagnetic interference.