A brief review of metamaterials and their applications to antenna systems is given. Artificial magnetic conductors and electrically small radiating and scattering systems are emphasized. Single negative, double negative, and zero-index metamaterial systems are discussed as a means to manipulate their size, efficiency, bandwidth, and directivity characteristics.

Several broad bandwidth, electrically small, non-Foster element-augmented antennas have been designed, analyzed and measured. Both electric loop (protractor) and electric dipole (Egyptian axe) structures have been selected as the near-field resonant parasitic (NFRP) elements for these antenna designs. In order to increase their instantaneous 10dB bandwidth, negative impedance convertor (NIC)-based capacitor and inductor elements have been designed accordingly to be incorporated internally into those NFRP elements. Proper design and analysis procedures for these systems are introduced. The simulated performance characteristics of the resulting non-Foster element-augmented protractor and Egyptian axe dipole antennas are presented. Favorable comparisons with their experimentally measured values are demonstrated.

There have been significant advances in computational electromagnetics (CEM) in the last decade for a variety of antennas and propagation problems. Improvements in single frequency techniques including the finite element method (FEM), the fast mulitipole moment (FMM) method, and the method of moments (MoM) have led to significant simulation capabilities on basic computing platforms. Similar advances have occurred with time domain methods including finite difference time domain (FDTD) methods, time domain integral equation (TDIE) methods, and time domain finite element (TD-FEM) methods. Very complex radiating and scattering structures in the presence of complex materials have been modeled with many of these approaches. Many commercial products have been made available through the efforts of many individuals. The CEM simulators have enabled virtual EM test ranges that have led to dramatic improvements in our understanding of antennas and propagation in complex environments and to the realization of many of their important applications.