1996 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 51, NO.
8, AUGUST 2003
Numerical Analysis of Stacked Dielectric Resonator
Antennas Excited by a Coaxial Probe for Wideband
Applications
Ahmed A. Kishk, Fellow, IEEE, Xiao Zhang, Allen W. Glisson, Fellow, IEEE, and
Darko Kajfez, Life Senior Member, IEEE
Abstract—The objective of the present study is to improve the
bandwidth of the dielectric resonator antenna (DRA) excited by a
coaxial probe by using a stacked DRA configuration above an infi-
nite ground plane. The DRA is axisymmetric and a coaxial probe
is placed off the antenna axis to excite the HEM
11 mode in the
DRA, resulting in a broadside radiation pattern. A surface integral
equation formulation and the method of moments are used for the
numerical analysis. The input impedance and the far field radia-
tion patterns have been computed and the effects of different pa-
rameters on the antenna performance have been investigated. With
the proper excitation and selection of the resonator parameters, a
bandwidth of 35% has been achieved for the stacked DRA config-
uration based on a 10 dB reflection coefficient on a 50 -trans-
tation purposes [1]. Their results showed that a cylindrical DRA
mission line. An equivalent circuit model is postulated to describe
the dual-resonance behavior of the stacked antenna system.
Index Terms—Dielectric resonator antennas (DRA), dual reso-
nance, stacked antennas.
I. INTRODUCTION
T HE dielectric resonator antenna (DRA) became attractive
to antenna designers about 20 years ago [1]. DRAs are
small, they have high radiation efficiency since there is little or
no loss due the presence of metals, they are inherently wideband
structures, and they may enhance design flexibility through ad-
ditional geometrical shape parameters and the availability of
microwave materials with wide range of permittivities. A va-
riety of different feeding mechanisms are also available, in-
cluding excitation by probes, slots, microstrip lines, dielectric
image guides, and coplanar lines, and the various antenna char-
acteristics such as input impedance, bandwidth, and radiation
patterns can be controlled through different choices for the pa-
rameters and feed mechanism. All these features make dielec-
tric resonator antennas potentially useful as antenna elements,
especially in the application frequencies beyond the usual mi-
crowave band and around the millimeter-wave region, where the
conduction losses in radiating metallic patch antennas, such as
microstrip antennas, become significant.
The radiation properties of different types of dielectric res-
onators have been studied previously [1]–[11]. Different res-
onant modes have distinct electromagnetic field distributions
Manuscript received October 19, 2001; revised May 31, 2002. This work was
supported in part by The Army Research Office under grant DAAG55-98-0308.
The authors are with the Department of Electrical Engineering University
of Mississippi, University, MS 38677 USA (e-mail: ahmed@olemiss.edu;
eedarko@olemiss.edu.).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2003.814735
0018-926X/03$17.00 © 2003 IEEE
within the DRA, and each mode may provide a different radia-
tion pattern. The radiation Q factor, , can be used as a mea-
surement of the possible bandwidth and radiation efficiency of a
particular mode. A lower corresponds to a wider bandwidth
and higher radiation efficiency of a DRA operating in that par-
ticular mode. For an isolated dielectric radiator, the lowest
is associated with the mode. Long et al. investigated
experimentally the radiation patterns and input impedance for
structures of various geometrical aspect ratios, dielectric con-
stants, and sizes of coaxial feed probes that were used for exci-
could provide efficient radiation in the direction normal to its
ground plane. For their theoretical computations, they used an
approximate model for the DRA. Around the same time, rig-
orous numerical techniques based on surface integral equation
models were being employed to determine the resonant frequen-
cies, Q factors, and field distributions of cylindrical open di-
electric resonators [3], [4]. Subsequently, the radiation patterns
of the cylindrical DRA were numerically computed by Kishk
et al. using the moment method [5]. The data obtained in [5]
was found to be in good agreement with the experimental re-
sults provided in [1]. Much additional work on the DRA has
been reported since that time. The most popular shapes studied
for practical antenna applications have been the cylindrical [1],
[5]–[8], rectangular [2] and spherical shapes [9]. Since each dif-
ferent shape may have many resonant modes, the excitation and
evaluation of different modes have also been reported [8], [10],
[11]. A stacked DRA has also been tested [6], with a resulting
increase in bandwidth that is much wider than the bandwidth
of the microstrip antenna. No rigorous analysis of the stacked
DRA configuration has yet been reported, however, so in this
work the stacked DRA is studied using a rigorous numerical so-
lution procedure.
A parametric analysis of the probe-excited cylindrical DRA
placed above a conducting ground plane is carried out using
a computer code for bodies of revolution [8]. The geometrical
configuration investigated here is that of a “stacked” DRA com-
prising two cylindrical DRAs with different permittivities that
are stacked one on top of the other, with both having the same
rotational axis of symmetry as shown in Fig. 1. The coaxial
probe shown in Fig. 1 may be located anywhere within the lower
cylinder. It is found that the probe position and length have a sig-
nificant effect on the input impedance, resonant frequency, and
bandwidth of the DRA. Changing the dimensions of the two
coupled dielectric resonators may also significantly affect the
KISHK et al.: NUMERICAL ANALYSIS OF STACKED DIELECTRIC RESONATOR ANTENNAS 1997

Fig. 1. Geometry of ground plane backed, coaxial probe fed, stacked DRA.

Fig. 3. Computed antenna impedance (circles) and equivalent circuit

impedance (crosses).

Fig. 2. Equivalent circuit for dual resonance.

antenna performance, not only because of the resulting possible

change in resonant frequency, but also because of the change
in the coupling factor between the two resonators and the ex-
citation probe. An impedance bandwidth up to 35% has been
found for the stacked DRA by varying the parameters mentioned
above. Results are presented in the following sections to show
the effect of changes in these parameters on the antenna perfor-
mance.
The traditional method of determining the resonant frequen-
cies and the radiation Q factors by a search on the complex fre- (a)
quency plane [3] is a very slow process, because of the very low
values of the radiation Q factors (typically less than 9), and has
not been used here. Instead, we developed an equivalent circuit
model to determine the Q factors and the resonant frequencies
of the system.

II. EQUIVALENT CIRCUIT FOR DUAL RESONANCE

The frequency behavior of the stacked DRA suggests that

the antenna supports a dual resonant mode. This can be seen
by observing that the input reflection coefficient indicates two
close valleys, the size and position of which can be manipulated
by changing the dimensions and the material properties of the
antenna.
An equivalent circuit, which describes such a dual resonance,
is shown in Fig. 2. It consists of two parallel resonant circuits (a)
with resonant frequencies and , and the (unloaded) Q fac-
Fig. 4. Input impedance and reflection coefficient for a stacked DRA with
tors and . The input impedance of the equivalent circuit a = 7 mm, h = 4:2 mm, a = 4 mm, h = 2:5 mm, ` = 4 mm,
is denoted , and the input reflection coefficient is specified " = 4:5, and " = 10:5, and for different values of  .
1998 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 51, NO. 8, AUGUST 2003

TABLE I
EQUIVALENT CIRCUIT PARAMETERS VERSUS 

(a)
(a)

(b)
Fig. 5. Radiation pattern of the stacked DRA with a = 7 mm, h = 4:2 mm,
a = 4 mm, h = 2:5 mm, " = 4:5, " = 10:5 and (a)  = 2:5 mm,
f = 8 GHz, (b)  = 2:5 mm, f = 11 GHz, respectively.
(b)
Fig. 6. Radiation pattern of the stacked DRA with a = 7 mm, h = 4:2 mm,
a = 4 mm, h = 2:5 mm, " = 4:5, " = 10:5 and (a)  = 4 mm,
f = 8 GHz, (b)  = 4 mm, f = 11 GHz, respectively.
with being the center frequency

for the characteristic impedance . The impedance of each res- (3)

onant circuit is described by
Similarly, the reactance of the series capacitance is

(1) (4)

The equivalent circuit is therefore specified by eight parame-

with 1 or 2. The quantity is called the coupling coefficient ters: , , , , , , , and . As mentioned
of the th mode. before, the antenna impedance is evaluated by a numerical pro-
The series inductance is described by a reactance cedure [8]. The corresponding equivalent circuit parameters are
then obtained by curve fitting to the antenna impedance over
the frequency range of interest, a procedure similar to the one
(2) described in [12].
KISHK et al.: NUMERICAL ANALYSIS OF STACKED DIELECTRIC RESONATOR ANTENNAS 1999

TABLE II
EQUIVALENT CIRCUIT PARAMETERS VERSUS `

(a) (a)

(b) (b)
Fig. 7. Input impedance and reflection coefficient of a stacked DRA with a = Fig. 8. Input impedance and reflection coefficient of a stacked DRA with
7 mm, h = 6 mm, a = 4 mm, h = 2:5 mm,  = 2 mm, " = 4:5, h = 4:2 mm, a = 4 mm, h = 2:5 mm,  = 2 mm, ` = 4 mm,
" = 10:5, and for different values of ` . " = 4:5, " = 10:5, and different values of a .

Fig. 3 shows the input impedance of the DRA that corre-
sponds to the numerical data subsequently presented in Fig. 4
of this paper, for a specific value mm. The Smith
chart shows 17 points: those marked by circles denote the
antenna impedance obtained by the moment method, and those
marked by crosses denote the circuit impedance obtained by
data fitting. It can be seen that the equivalent circuit provides
a reasonably good description of the antenna behavior as a
function of frequency. The effective distance between the
crosses and the circles is nominally 1.6% of the Smith chart
radius.
In computing the antenna impedance, the only significant loss
mechanism is the radiation from the antenna. Therefore, it is jus-
tified to interpret and as being the radiation Q factors of
2000 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 51, NO. 8, AUGUST 2003

TABLE III
EQUIVALENT CIRCUIT PARAMETERS VERSUS a

(a) (b)

(c) (d)
Fig. 9. Radiation patterns of the stacked DRA with h = 4:2 mm, a = 4 mm, h = 2:5 mm,  = 2 mm, " = 4 :5 , " = 10:5 and (a) a = 5 mm at
f = 8:5 GHz, (b) a = 5 mm at f = 10 GHz, (c) a = 8 mm at f ) = 8:5 GHz, (d) a = 8 mm at f = 10 GHz.

the two modes that form the dual resonance. The significance of
the equivalent circuit is that it enables one to quantify the values
of the individual resonant frequencies, radiation Q factors, and
their relative couplings to the antenna terminals.
III. NUMERICAL RESULTS
In this section, we present results of the parametric studies
for the stacked DRA shown in Fig. 1. Results obtained using
the Fortran computer code described in [8] are presented for the
input impedance and the reflection coefficient as functions of
frequency. The radiation patterns are also shown for some se-
lected parameters and frequencies. The effects of different pa-
rameters of the DRA are then investigated. It is found that the
position of the probe on the x axis , the length of the probe
, and the dimensions of the two dielectric disks ( , , ,
) all have significant effect on the input impedance and the
reflection coefficient of the DRA.
The initial dimensions of the DRA system are chosen so that
the resonant frequencies of the mode for the two indi-
vidual resonators are centered at about 10 GHz, with the lower
resonator having about 10 % higher resonant frequency than
the upper one. Approximate analysis, using the FOAM program
[13], for a single resonator with 7 mm, 4.2 mm,
4.5, placed on a ground plane, with an open space above
the resonator, yields the resonant frequency 10.9 GHz. The other
resonator was selected with a higher relative dielectric constant
of 10.5, so that it is smaller, namely 4 mm and
2.5 mm. The resonant frequency of the mode for the
latter resonator alone would be 9.8 GHz. In reality, the two res-
onators form a coupled system so that the size of one influences
also the resonant frequency of the other. These dimensions serve
KISHK et al.: NUMERICAL ANALYSIS OF STACKED DIELECTRIC RESONATOR ANTENNAS 2001

(a) (b)
Fig. 10. Input impedance and reflection coefficient of Stacked DRA with a = 7 mm, h = 4:2 mm, h = 2:5 mm,  = 2 mm, ` = 4 mm, " = 4:5,
" = 10:5, and different values of a .

(a) (b)

(c) (d)
Fig. 11. Radiation pattern of the stacked DRA with a = 7 mm h = 4:2 mm, h = 2:5 mm,  = 2 mm, " = 4:5, " = 10:5 and (a) a = 3 mm at
f = 9 GHz, (b) a = 3 mm at f = 11 GHz, (c) a = 4:5 mm at f = 8 GHz, (d) a = 4:5 mm at f = 10:5 GHz.

only as starting values for a rigorous numerical study that fol- reflection coefficient of the stacked DRA for different values of
lows. Nevertheless, the parametric study indicates that the base , and with 7 mm, 4.2 mm, 4 mm,
resonator is consistently associated with the higher, while the 2.5 mm, 4 mm, 4.5, and 10.5. It is found
upper resonator is associated with the lower of the two resonant that the antenna has two close resonant frequencies around 9
frequencies. GHz when the probe is close to the antenna axis. Thus, it seems
that only one resonant mode is excited, which should be close
A. Effect of the Excitation Position to the mode. Then when reaches 2.5 mm, the res-
The stacked DRA in Fig. 1 is investigated first by changing onant frequencies of the two disks are clearly separated from
the excitation position . Fig. 4 shows the input impedance and each other with one resonance at around 8.2 GHz and the other
2002 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 51, NO. 8, AUGUST 2003

TABLE IV
EQUIVALENT CIRCUIT PARAMETERS VERSUS a

(a) (b)
Fig. 12. Input impedance and reflection coefficient of stacked DRA with a = 7 mm, h = 4:2 mm, a = 4 mm,  = 2 mm, ` = 4 mm, " = 4:5,
" = 10:5, and different values of h .

at 10.8 GHz, and the 10 dB bandwidth reaches its maximum of
about 3 GHz. As gets larger, the separation between the two
resonant frequencies becomes clearer, and the coupling of the
wire to one disk decreases while that to the other disk increases.
The results for the equivalent circuit analysis are summarized in
Table I. For 1 mm, the equivalent circuit cannot fit the data,
because only one resonance is noticeable. As is increased to
2.2 mm and beyond, drops slightly (from 5.7–5.2), but
rises considerably (from 3.5–9.5). At the same time, drops
(from 0.51–0.33) and grows (from 0.78–1.32). The two res-
onant frequencies remain essentially unchanged (about 8.2 and
11.0 GHz). The reflection coefficient is matched to better than
10 dB over a broad frequency range for smaller than 2.5
mm, as can be verified in Fig. 4. However, for higher values of
, the match is good only in a narrow frequency range, because
first, the radiation Q of the higher mode is large and second, the
coupling to the lower frequency mode is too weak.
We note that the values of resulting from data fitting pro-
cedure as shown in Table I are either very small, or sometimes
even negative. This signifies that the dominant series reactance
is capacitive. It is believed that this reactance is mainly gov-
erned by the manner in which the source gap is modeled in the
moment method.
Fig. 5 shows the radiation patterns of the stacked DRA at
two different frequencies with 2.5 mm, while the other
geometrical parameters are unchanged from those of Fig. 4. It
can be seen that the DRA mode that radiates in the broadside
direction has a stronger effect than the other higher order modes.
Fig. 6 shows the radiation patterns of the same antenna at two
different frequencies with 4 mm. Also, when the probe is
close to the surface, one finds that the E plane pattern is more
symmetric than it is when the probe is near the center for the
stacked geometry, and that the probe position has little effect on
the H plane pattern. The unsymmetrical nature of the radiation
pattern is due to the influence of the higher order modes.
B. Effect of the Excitation Probe Length
The length of the excitation source probe also affects the
overall radiation characteristics of the antenna considerably.
Fig. 7 shows the input impedance and reflection coefficient of
the stacked DRA with different values of , and with 7
mm, 6 mm, 4 mm, 2.5 mm, 2 mm,
4.5, and 10.5. One can notice that a short probe couples
weakly to the bottom resonator and displays almost no coupling
to the upper disk. As the probe length increases, the coupling
increases to both disks and considerable change of the resonant
frequencies is observed by the movement of the input resistance
peaks with the frequency. As the probe becomes longer than 4.6
mm, the coupling to the lower disk starts decreasing while the
coupling to the upper disk increases considerably. For this case,
no radiation patterns are given because the radiation patterns
are not sensitive to the probe length.
KISHK et al.: NUMERICAL ANALYSIS OF STACKED DIELECTRIC RESONATOR ANTENNAS 2003

TABLE V
EQUIVALENT CIRCUIT PARAMETERS VERSUS h

(a) (b)

(c) (d)
Fig. 13. Radiation pattern of the stacked DRA with a = 7 mm h = 4:2 mm, a = 4 mm,  = 2 mm, " = 4:5, " = 10:5 and (a) h = 2 mm at
f = 8:5 GHz, (b) h = 2 mm at f = 10:5 GHz, (c) h = 4 mm at f = 8:5 GHz, (d) h = 4 mm at f = 10:5 GHz.

The element values from the equivalent circuit are shown in quencies as the radius of the base disk continues to increase.
Table II. It should be noted that the resonant frequency of the The coupling of the wire to both disks at their resonance fre-
bottom resonator is tuned with higher rate that for the top disc. quencies increases initially. The maximum 10 dB bandwidth
The coupling to the top disc becomes very strong as the probe occurs when reaches 7 mm. Then, the coupling to the lower
becomes very close to its surface. That means the first reson- mode begins to drop, while that to the higher mode is increasing,
aance is associated with the top disc. as can be seen in Table III. Both resonant frequencies decrease
with increased , so that the operating frequency range of the
C. Effect of the Radius of the Base Disk antenna moves down. As moves rapidly (from 12.15–9.62
The radius of the base disk of the DRA also has a strong ef- GHz) and moves more slowly (from 8.81–7.89), one con-
fect on the bandwidth of the antenna. Fig. 8 shows the input cludes that the first equivalent resonator is associated with the
impedance and reflection coefficient of the stacked DRA for dif- top disc. Of interest are the very low radiation Q values:( is
ferent values of , and with other parameters fixed at 4.2 smaller than 6, and is smaller than 4).
mm, 4 mm, 2.5 mm, 2 mm, 4 mm, Fig. 9 shows the radiation patterns of the stacked DRA with
4.5, and 10.5. With a small radius of the base 4.2 mm, 4 mm, 2.5 mm, 4 mm,
disk of less than 5 mm, only one resonant mode is visible 4.5, 10.5, and with different at different frequencies.
at approximately 9.5 GHz. As increases, this resonant fre- At high frequencies, the symmetry of the radiation pattern is
quency of the DRA shifts lower in the frequency range, and deformed due to the presence of the upper disc and the coupling
a second mode moves in, which then shifts toward lower fre- of high order modes.
2004 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 51, NO. 8, AUGUST 2003

(a)

(a)

(b)

Fig. 15. Radiation pattern of the stacked DRA with a = 6:9 mm h =

4:7 mm, a = 4:3 mm, h = 2:5 mm  = 2:3 mm, ` = 4:5 mm, " = 4:5,
and " = 10:5 at (a) f = 7:5 GHz, and (b) f = 10:5 GHz.

E. Effect of the Height of the Top Disk

(b)
The height of the top disk is investigated here to see how it
Fig. 14. Input impedance and return losses obtained using the BOR code and affects the input impedance of the stacked resonator antenna.
triangle patch code with a = 6:9 mm h = 4:7 mm, a = 4:3 mm, h =
2:5 mm  = 2:3 mm, ` = 4:5 mm, " = 4:5, and " = 10:5. Fig. 12 shows the input impedance and reflection coefficient of
the stacked DRA with changing , and with 7 mm,
4.2 mm, 4 mm, 2 mm, 4 mm, 4.5,
D. Effect of the Radius of the Top Disk and 10.5. The input resistance shows a flat response with
the frequency indicating that the probe is coupling to both res-
Although the upper disk is less coupled to the wire than is onators, but with both resonant frequencies close to each other
the base disk, the radius of the top disk still has an effect on the when is less than 1 mm. When reaches 3 mm, the max-
input impedance bandwidth of the antenna. Fig. 10 shows the imum 10 dB bandwidth of about 2.7 GHz is reached.
input impedance and reflection coefficient of the stacked DRA The equivalent circuit parameters for this case are shown in
with changing , and with 7 mm, 4.2 mm, 2.5 Table V, where one observes that as continues to increase, the
mm, 2 mm, 4 mm, 4.5, and 10.5. It is bandwidth increases because decreases while remains
found that the antenna has only one resonant frequency around essentially unchanged. However, at 4 mm the coupling
11 GHz when is less than 3 mm. The resonant frequency ini- to the lower mode becomes too weak for an effective 10 dB
tially decreases as increases. After that, the coupling effect match at the low end of the frequency range. Fig. 13 shows the
on the top disk becomes obvious around 8 GHz, and the pres- radiation patterns of the stacked DRA with 7 mm,
ence of the two resonant frequencies makes the 10 dB band- 4.2 mm, 4 mm, 2 mm, 4 mm, 4.5,
width increase. When reaches 4.5 mm, the maximum 10 10.5, and with different heights for the upper disk.
dB bandwidth occurs. Then the coupling of the wire to the top
disk decreases while that to the base disk remains close to the F. Best of the Stacked DRA Cases
original condition when reaches 6 mm. Fig. 11 shows the ra-
diation patterns of the stacked DRA with 7 mm, 4.2 The input impedance and reflection coefficient for the best
mm, 2.5 mm, 4 mm, 4.5, 10.5, 2 case of the stacked DRA is shown in Fig. 14. For this configu-
mm and different upper disc radius at different frequencies. The ration, with 6.9 mm, 4.7 mm, 4.3 mm,
results of the data fitting procedure are shown in Table IV. 2.5 mm, 2.3 mm, 4.5 mm, 4.5, and
KISHK et al.: NUMERICAL ANALYSIS OF STACKED DIELECTRIC RESONATOR ANTENNAS
10.5, the DRA has a 10 dB impedance bandwidth of approxi-
mately 35%. The results are verified by another code using tri-
angle patches and referred to as 3DIE [14]. Fig. 15 shows sample
of the radiation patterns at two different frequencies.
IV. CONCLUSION
The stacked DRA configuration has been investigated numer-
ically in this work using the Fortran computer code developed
in [8]. The stacked DRA configuration consists of two dielectric
disks mounted on top of a perfectly conducting ground plane,
and excited by a coaxial probe inside the base disk.
The impedance bandwidth was controlled by changing the
position and length of the excitation probe, as well as by
changing the geometrical parameters of the DRA, so that a
broad bandwidth was achieved. An input impedance bandwidth
of up to 35% has been obtained. The postulated equivalent
circuit for the dual-mode operation proved to be a useful tool in
determining the individual radiation Q factors, coupling coeffi-
cients, and resonant frequencies of the individual modes. The
radiation Q factors of the two modes attain the values as low
as 4, and seldom larger than 9, demonstrating the broadband
properties of the antenna. The radiation patterns were also
computed and were found to be similar to the radiation patterns
of the mode within the entire bandwidth. High order
modes have some effect on the pattern when the probe is
close to the antenna axis for the stacked DRA case. Thus, this
study has validated numerically the concept of stacking two
resonators with different resonant frequencies on top of each
other to increase the bandwidth of the system.
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Ahmed A. Kishk (S’84–M’86–SM’90–F’98) received the B.S. degree in elec-
trical engineering from Cairo University, Cairo, Egypt, in 1977, and the B.S. de-
gree in applied mathematics from Ain-Shams University, Cairo, Egypt, in 1980,
and the M.Eng. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from, the Depart-
ment of Electrical Engineering, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada, in
1983 and 1986, respectively.
From 1977 to 1981, he was a Research Assistant and an Instructor at the Fac-
ulty of Engineering, Cairo University. From 1981 to 1985, he was a Research
Assistant and, from December 1985 to August 1986, he was a Research Asso-
ciate Fellow at the Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Mani-
toba. In 1986, he joined the Department of Electrical Engineering, University of
Mississippi, University, as an Assistant Professor where, since 1995, he has been
a Professor. He was on sabbatical leave at Chalmers University of Technology
during the 1994 to 1995 academic year. From 2001 to 2002, he was Chair of
the Physics and Engineering Division of the Mississippi Academy of Science.
He has published over 110 refereed journal articles and book chapters. He is a
coauthor of Microwave Horns and Feeds (London, U.K.: IEE, 1994; New York:
IEEE, 1994) and a coauthor of chapter 2 in Handbook of Microstrip Antennas
(Stevenage, U.K.: Peregrinus, Eds. J. R. James and P. S. Hall, Ch. 2, 1989). His
research interest include the areas of design of millimeter frequency, feeds for
parabolic reflectors, dielectric resonator antennas, microstrip antennas, soft and
hard surfaces, phased array antennas, and computer aided design for antennas.
Dr. Kishk is a Fellow of the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society and Mi-
crowave Theory and Techniques, a Member of Sigma Xi Society, Phi Kappa Phi
Society, the U.S. National Committee of International Union of Radio Science
(URSI) Commission B, the Applied Computational Electromagnetics Society,
and the Electromagnetic Academy. He received the 1995 Outstanding Paper
Award for a paper published in the Applied Computational Electromagnetic So-
ciety Journal, the 1997 Outstanding Engineering Educator Award from Mem-
phis section of the IEEE, the Outstanding Engineering Faculty Member of 1998,
the Award of Distinguished Technical Communication for the entry of IEEE
Antennas and Propagation Magazine in 2001, and Faculty Research Award for
outstanding performance in research in 2001. He was an Associate Editor of
the IEEE ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION MAGAZINE from 1990 to 1993 and is
currently an Editor. He was an Editor-in-Chief of the Applied and Computa-
tional Electromagnetics Society Journal from 1998 to 2001. He was a coeditor
of the special issue on Advances in the Application of the Method of Moments to
Electromagnetic Scattering Problems in the Applied and Computational Elec-
tromagnetics Society Journal.
Xiao Zhang was born on June 12, 1974, in Zhejing,
China. He received the B.S. degree in electrical
engineering from Shanghai University, Shanghai,
China, in 1995 and the M.S. degree in electrical
engineering from the University of Mississippi,
University, in 2000.
Currently, he is a Test Engineer working on Cable
CMTS products in the manufacturing parametric
ATE Group, Cisco Systems, San Jose, CA.
2006 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 51, NO. 8, AUGUST 2003

Allen W. Glisson (S’71–M’78–SM’88–F’02) re- Darko Kajfez (SM’67–LSM’98) received the degree
ceived the B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in electrical in electrical engineering (Dipl. Ing.) from the Univer-
engineering from the University of Mississippi, in sity of Ljubljana, Slovenia, in 1953 and the Ph.D. de-
1973, 1975, and 1978, respectively. gree from the University of California at Berkeley, in
In 1978, he joined the faculty of the University of 1967.
Mississippi, where he has served as Professor and Currently, he is Professor Emeritus of electrical
Chair of electrical engineering. His current research engineering at the University of Mississippi, Uni-
interests include the development and application of versity. He coedited the book Dielectric Resonators
numerical techniques for treating electromagnetic ra- (Norwood, MA: Artech House, 1986; Oxford, MS:
diation and scattering problems, and modeling of di- Vector Forum, 1990; Atlanta, GA: Noble, 1998),
electric resonators and dielectric resonator antennas. authored the three-volume graduate textbook Notes
Dr. Glisson has been actively involved in the areas of numerical modeling of ar- on Microwave Circuits (Oxford, MS: Vector Forum, 1984, 1986, 1988), and
bitrarily shaped bodies and bodies of revolution with surface integral equation the monograph Q Factor (Oxford, MS: Vector Forum, 1994). His research
formulations. He has also served as a consultant to several different industrial interests include RF and microwave measurement and analysis.
organizations in the area of numerical modeling in electromagnetics.
Dr. Glisson is a Member of Sigma Xi Research Society and the Tau Beta
Pi, Phi Kappa Phi, and Eta Kappa Nu Honor Societies. He is a Member of
several professional societies within the IEEE, Commission B of the Interna-
tional Union of Radio Science (URSI), and the Applied Computational Electro-
magnetics Society. He was a U.S. delegate to the 22nd, 23rd, and 24th General
Assemblies of URSI. He was selected as the Outstanding Engineering Faculty
Member in 1986 and again in 1996. He received a Ralph R. Teetor Educational
Award in 1989. He received a Best Paper Award from the SUMMA Foundation
and twice received a citation for excellence in refereeing from the American
Geophysical Union. Since 1984, he has served as the Associate Editor for Book
Reviews and Abstracts for the IEEE ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION SOCIETY
MAGAZINE. He has also served as an Associate Editor for Radio Science, as
the Secretary of Commission B of the U.S. National Committee of URSI, and
recently as Coeditor-in-Chief of the Applied Computational Electromagnetics
Society Journal. He is currently the Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE TRANSACTIONS
ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION. He is currently a Member of the IEEE An-
tennas and Propagation Society Administrative Committee, and currently serves
on the IEEE Press Liaison Committee, and the Board of Directors of the Ap-
plied Computational Electromagnetics Society