G. V. Trentini, "Partially reflecting sheet arrays," in IRE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 666-671, October 1956, doi: 10.1109/TAP.1956.1144455.

In this pioneering work, multiple reflections of electromagnetic waves between two planes were studied for the first time, and the increase in directivity resulting by placing a partially reflecting sheet in front of an antenna was investigated. Starting from such analyses, the “reflex-cavity antenna” was described as a practical example of the developed theory. This study introduced to the AP-S the concept of leaky-wave antenna based on a partially reflecting surface backed by a ground plane, being a solid basis for many works published in the successive years.

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T. T. Taylor, "Design of line-source antennas for narrow beamwidth and low side lobes," in Transactions of the IRE Professional Group on Antennas and Propagation, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 16-28, Jan. 1955, doi: 10.1109/TPGAP.1955.5720407.

Nowadays, T. T. Taylor's work from 1955, which presented a line source design that achieved an optimal balance between beamwidth and side-lobe level, is widely regarded as a classic paper in our community. In fact, it is frequently referenced in standard antenna textbooks.

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J. Kaiser, "The Archimedean two-wire spiral antenna," in IRE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, vol. 8, no. 3, pp. 312-323, May 1960, doi: 10.1109/TAP.1960.1144840

J. Kaiser introduced in 1960 equally excited two oppositely sensed Archimedean wire spiral antennas. He demonstrated that such a pair of wires (called “doublet”) can be used to generate a linearly polarized field in which the direction of polarization and phase are controlled by rotation of the spiral radiators. This work has been quite influential in the design of scanning arrays of circularly polarized antennas through mechanical (or equivalent electronic) element rotation.

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K. Yee, "Numerical solution of initial boundary value problems involving maxwell's equations in isotropic media," in IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, vol. 14, no. 3, pp. 302-307, May 1966, doi: 10.1109/TAP.1966.1138693

This classic paper introduced the use of the finite difference time domain (FDTD) method for solving Maxwell’s equations. The introduced discretization unit cell, now commonly referred to as the "Yee’s Cell" is almost synonymous to the application of the FDTD to EM forward problems.
With almost 9K citations, this paper is nowadays the second top cited publication of all times of the IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation.

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R. Harrington and J. Mautz, "Theory of characteristic modes for conducting bodies," in IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, vol. 19, no. 5, pp. 622-628, September 1971, doi: 10.1109/TAP.1971.1139999

Back in 1971, R. F. Harrington and J. R. Mautz developed a theory of characteristic modes applied to conducting bodies based on the Method of Moments. This work has proven significant in recent years for the systematic design of compact chassis antennas in cellphones and other wireless devices.

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A. Moffet, "Minimum-redundancy linear arrays," in IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, vol. 16, no. 2, pp. 172-175, March 1968, doi: 10.1109/TAP.1968.1139138.

In his work from 1968, A. Moffet described a class of sparse (“minimum-redundancy”) linear arrays achieving maximum resolution for a given number of elements by reducing the number of redundant spacings present in the layout. Later, his work has found application in interferometric sensing and it became quite relevant to recent works on MIMO radar systems.

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L. Klein and C. Swift, “An improved model for the dielectric constant of sea water at microwave frequencies,” IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, vol. 25, no. 1, pp. 104-111, Jan. 1977, doi: 10.1109/TAP.1977.1141539.

Back in 1977 the work from L. Klein and C. T. Swift introduced an improved model for the dielectric constant of sea water yielding an accuracy of at least 0.3 [K] in brightness temperature for undisturbed seas at frequencies below X-band.

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A. Ludwig, "The definition of cross polarization," in IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, vol. 21, no. 1, pp. 116-119, January 1973, doi: 10.1109/TAP.1973.1140406.

This very popular work by A. Ludwig published in 1973 represents a milestone in the complex task of having a commonly-agreed definition of (cross-)polarization in antenna measurements. His three definitions are nowadays widely adopted in both numerical and experimental far-field probing setups.

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E. Jakeman and P. Pusey, "A model for non-Rayleigh sea echo," in IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, vol. 24, no. 6, pp. 806-814, November 1976, doi: 10.1109/TAP.1976.1141451.

E. Jakeman and P. N. Pusey proposed in 1976 a mathematical model for non-Rayleigh microwave sea echo explicitly describing the dependence of statistical properties of the radar cross section (RCS) on the area of sea surface illuminated by a microwave radar.

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R. Schmidt, "Multiple emitter location and signal parameter estimation," in IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, vol. 34, no. 3, pp. 276-280, March 1986, doi: 10.1109/TAP.1986.1143830.

This work by R. O. Schmidt addressed in 1986 the problem of sensors with arbitrary locations and arbitrary directional characteristics (gain/phase/polarization) in a noise interference environment. Procedures were introduced based on the multiple signal classification (MUSIC) algorithm to provide asymptotically unbiased estimates of (i) number of incident wave-fronts, (ii) directions of arrival (DOAs), (iii) strengths and cross correlations among the incident wave-forms, and (iv) noise/interference strength.
This paper is the most cited work of all times in the history of the IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation.

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S. Rao, D. Wilton and A. Glisson, "Electromagnetic scattering by surfaces of arbitrary shape," in IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, vol. 30, no. 3, pp. 409-418, May 1982, doi: 10.1109/TAP.1982.1142818.

This classic 1982 paper by S. Rao introduced a set of special subdomain-type basis functions defined on pairs of adjacent triangular patches to yield a current representation free of line or point charges at subdomain boundaries in the MoM. These basis functions are nowadays widely known as the Rao-Wilton-Glisson (RWG) basis functions.
Currently, this paper is the third most cited work of all times of this Journal.

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L. Griffiths and C. Jim, "An alternative approach to linearly constrained adaptive beamforming," in IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, vol. 30, no. 1, pp. 27-34, January 1982, doi: 10.1109/TAP.1982.1142739.

This 1982 work by L. J. Griffiths and C. W. Jim introduced an alternative approach to linearly constrained adaptive beam-forming. In their paper, the authors presented a beam-forming structure to implement a wide variety of linearly constrained adaptive array processors, suitable for arrays which have been time-delay steered. Their adaptive array was demonstrated to be very versatile and capable of performing side-lobe canceling (among other desirable features).

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S. D. Gedney, "An anisotropic perfectly matched layer-absorbing medium for the truncation of FDTD lattices," in IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, vol. 44, no. 12, pp. 1630-1639, Dec. 1996, doi: 10.1109/8.546249.

S. D. Gedney introduced in his paper from 1996 a perfectly matched layer (PML) absorbing medium composed of a uni-axial anisotropic layer for the truncation of FDTD lattices.

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D. M. Pozar, S. D. Targonski and H. D. Syrigos, "Design of millimeter wave microstrip reflectarrays," in IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, vol. 45, no. 2, pp. 287-296, Feb. 1997, doi: 10.1109/8.560348.

Back in 1997, M. Pozar, S. D. Targonski, and H. D. Syrigos introduced the theoretical modeling and practical design of millimeter-wave reflectarrays using microstrip patch elements of variable size. The critical parameters of millimeter wave reflectarray design, such as aperture efficiency, phase errors, losses, and bandwidth were also discussed, besides an experimental assessment of four reflectarray examples at 28 GHz and 77 GHz.

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R. L. Haupt, "Thinned arrays using genetic algorithms," in IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, vol. 42, no. 7, pp. 993-999, July 1994, doi: 10.1109/8.299602.

This paper by R. L. Haupt from 1994 presented how to optimally thin large arrays using genetic algorithms (GAs). It demonstrated that the GA can effectively determine which elements are turned off in a periodic array to yield the lowest maximum relative sidelobe level.

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J. Robinson and Y. Rahmat-Samii, "Particle swarm optimization in electromagnetics," in IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, vol. 52, no. 2, pp. 397-407, Feb. 2004, doi: 10.1109/TAP.2004.823969.

? OPEN ACCESS until December 31, 2023!

In 2004, this work by J. Robinson and Y. Rahmat-Samii introduced the Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm to the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society. Similar to the GA, the PSO is a stochastic global optimization algorithm belonging to the family of evolutionary algorithms (EAs), but more suitable to the exploration of real-valued multi-dimensional search spaces. It has been widely adopted to solve many optimization problems in electromagnetics, including antenna synthesis and inverse scattering.

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Fan Yang and Y. Rahmat-Samii, "Microstrip antennas integrated with electromagnetic band-gap (EBG) structures: a low mutual coupling design for array applications," in IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, vol. 51, no. 10, pp. 2936-2946, Oct. 2003, doi: 10.1109/TAP.2003.817983.

Back in 1997, M. Pozar, S. D. Targonski, and H. D. Syrigos introduced the theoretical modeling and practical design of millimeter-wave reflectarrays using microstrip patch elements of variable size. The critical parameters of millimeter wave reflectarray design, such as aperture efficiency, phase errors, losses, and bandwidth were also discussed, besides an experimental assessment of four reflectarray examples at 28 GHz and 77 GHz.

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A. P. Feresidis, G. Goussetis, Shenhong Wang and J. C. Vardaxoglou, "Artificial magnetic conductor surfaces and their application to low-profile high-gain planar antennas," in IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, vol. 53, no. 1, pp. 209-215, Jan. 2005, doi: 10.1109/TAP.2004.840528.

Artificial Magnetic Conductor (AMC) surfaces and their application to antennas were investigated by A. P. Feresidis et al. in this work published in 2005. Planar AMCs were used for the first time as the ground plane in a high-gain microstrip patch antenna with a partially reflective surface (PRS) as superstrate, achieving a significant reduction of the antenna profile.

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T. S. Rappaport, F. Gutierrez, E. Ben-Dor, J. N. Murdock, Y. Qiao and J. I. Tamir, "Broadband Millimeter-Wave Propagation Measurements and Models Using Adaptive-Beam Antennas for Outdoor Urban Cellular Communications," in IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, vol. 61, no. 4, pp. 1850-1859, April 2013, doi: 10.1109/TAP.2012.2235056.

The top cited research paper from the last decade (2012-2022) is dated 2013 and is co-authored by T. S. Rappaport et al. This article was the first to provide propagation measurements to characterize the use of millimeter waves for communications using beam steerable antennas, in both azimuth and elevation, at both transmitter and receiver locations. These measurements suggested that, in a dense urban environment, millimeter waves may work best within a micro-cell with a radius below 200 m, thus leading the way to further studies about the use of millimeter waves. The paper provided early 38 GHz radio propagation channel data for outdoor systems capable of implementing antenna beam steering. Based on this data, practical recommendations were made for base-station and receiver antenna placement and steering

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J. Brady, N. Behdad and A. M. Sayeed, "Beamspace MIMO for Millimeter-Wave Communications: System Architecture, Modeling, Analysis, and Measurements," in IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, vol. 61, no. 7, pp. 3814-3827, July 2013, doi: 10.1109/TAP.2013.2254442.

This 2013 work by J. Brady et al. presented a framework for physically-accurate computational modeling and analysis of continuous aperture phased MIMO (CAP-MIMO) systems. Their paper reported measurement results on a discrete lens array (DLA)-based prototype for multi-mode line-of-sight communication. The prototype-based measurement results closely matched the theoretical predictions, validating the CAP-MIMO theory and illustrating the utility of the developed model.

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F. Costa and A. Monorchio, "A Frequency Selective Radome With Wideband Absorbing Properties," in IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, vol. 60, no. 6, pp. 2740-2747, June 2012, doi: 10.1109/TAP.2012.2194640.

This work by F. Costa and A. Monorchio presented a novel design of a frequency selective radome which is able to absorb impinging EM signals above the operating band of an antenna. The proposed structure, unlike the usual low RCS radome design totally reflecting the incoming power out of the antenna operating band, provides a tangible reflectivity reduction without compromising the in-band performance.

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