Numerical investigation of beaming from simple sources in grounded wire-medium slabs

Radiation features of horizontal electric dipole sources embedded in a grounded wire-medium slab are numerically investigated, first with a homogenized model and then with a full-wave approach. The homogenized model, which takes into account anisotropy and spatial dispersion of the medium, demonstrates the possibility to excite a dominant leaky wave propagating isotropically along the slab, which radiates a directive omnidirectional pencil beam pointing at broadside. A two-element array of such dipoles can be used to obtain nearly-omnidirectional conical scanned beams by varying the operating frequency. These features are confirmed by full-wave calculations of the far field based on the use of reciprocity theorem in conjunction with the method of moments employing a suitably-accelerated periodic Green’s function.