On the employment of edge basis functions to improve the analysis of polygonal patches

A new set of entire domain basis functions has been recently proposed in the literature for analyzing microstrip antennas with convex polygonal patches through a Method of Moment (MoM) numerical procedure. These basis functions represent a complete set of orthogonal functions, but they do not take into account the singular behavior of the tangential component of the current density at the patch edges. This property indeed limits the efficiency and accuracy of the analysis and only some particular geometries can be well described. When more accurate analyses are needed, the singular behavior of the current should be considered and the introduction of new auxiliary basis functions to ¬ x the current behavior at the patch edges is a mandatory task. The aim of this paper is to present a new set of edge basis functions, suitable for a MoM analysis of convex polygonal patch antennas, to be used in conjunction with the entire domain basis functions already presented by the authors, in order to improve the overall accuracy of the method. Some examples showing the capabilities of the new functions are proposed.