Electromagnetic Band Gap Structures: Practical Tips and Advice for Antenna Engineers

In this paper we discuss the use of electromagnetic band gap (EBG) structures in antenna engineering from a practical point of view. Our aim is to point out the most common mistakes and myths related to design, analysis and application of EBGs in the field of antennas. The paper could be helpful for beginners giving a short course on designing EBGs but also will bring novel findings for experts, investigating the effect of different number of unit cells on radiation characteristics of a planar antenna. An important part of the paper is the experiments showing the surface wave distribution over an EBG board and over the fabricated antennas with and without the periodic structure.