The current on the thin planar structure as an element of the transversely fed electromagnetically coupled(EMC) microstrip dipole array antenna is obtained by using the integral forms of the finite difference time domain(FDTD) method. This method was applied to calculating the optimum current distribution (Doplh-Tchebyscheff distribution) of each dipole element on the feed line as a function of their offset positions for the narrow main beam width and the side beam level below -20 dB. The current on each dipole substitutes for the electric and magnetic current densities on the virtual surface of the FDTD calculation to express the far field intensity, the calculation time and the computer memeory can be reduced to about 80% and 1.3 Mbyte, respectively. The calculated radiation patterns are compared to the measured values and these are in good agreement.