Textured surface slot antenna with reduced radar cross-section

Provided is experimental verification that a textured surface slot antenna is capable of producing usable far-field radiation patterns with preferential radiation into the forward half-space, at better than - 16 dB return loss. In addition, it is shown that the antenna when connected to a 50 Q load yields a backscattered return of only - 17 dB compared to a matched slot antenna constructed on a perfectly conducting (PEC) ground plane, which returns -3 dB. The gain of the textured slot antenna structure was measured to be 3.35 dBi at 4.77 GHz.