Development of FDTD Antenna Model.

[Kwadwo Nyameadom Asare]

Hello everyone, 
I am currently working on a project that requires me to use a MALA 2.3GHz antenna. However, I observed that only the 1.2 GHz antenna for MALA was added as part of the gprMax package. I wouldn't like to use the normal Gaussian pulse with the Hertzian dipole. I would like to use a "2.3GHz-like" Mala Antenna model. In that case, do I have to go through the whole Taguchi optimization method again to determine all five unknown parameters, or can I just make changes to the excitation frequency and leave the others constant in the code provided for the "MALA 1.2GHz antenna" in the gprMax package?
How do you recommend I go about this? I would appreciate your responses.

Thank you.

[Craig Warren]

Its unlikely that you can just change the excitation frequency of the 1.2GHz MALA antenna model to 2.3GHz and that it will perform in a similar way to the real antenna. Most likely you will have to build the antenna model from scratch with correct geometry and material properties etc.... as we did for the 1.2GHz model. We used Taguchi's optimisation method to find unknown parameters in the antenna model, but there are many other optimisation tools now that can also help with that. The basic process of developing the antenna model is explained in my thesis and subsequent papers which are linked on the gprMax website.

Kind regards,

Craig