INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ELECTRONICS AND COMMUNICATION ENGINEERING & TECHNOLOGY (IJECET)

ISSN 0976 6464(Print) ISSN 0976 6472(Online) Volume 4, Issue 1, January- February (2013), pp. 43-54 IAEME: www.iaeme.com/ijecet.asp Journal Impact Factor (2012): 3.5930 (Calculated by GISI) www.jifactor.com

International Journal of Electronics and Communication Engineering & Technology (IJECET), ISSN 0976 6464(Print), ISSN 0976 6472(Online) Volume 4, Issue 1, January- February (2013), IAEME

IJECET
IAEME

COMPENSATION OF DIELECTRIC COVER EFFECTS ON CP HEXAGONAL MICROSTRIP ANTENNA

Ravindra Kumar Yadav1, Jugul Kishor1 and Ram. Lal Yadava2 Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, I.T.S Engineering College, Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India, 2 Galgotia's college of Engineering and Technology, Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India ravipusad@gmail.com, er.jugulkishor@gmail.com and rly1972@gmail.com
1 1,2

ABSTRACT This communication describes the design and analysis of a dielectric layer loaded circularly polarized (CP) hexagonal patch antenna in the frequency range 2.4000-2.4835 GHz. The obtained results indicate that there are significant changes in the performances of the antenna. In particular the axial ratio at resonant frequency 2.43 GHz is around 1.245 dB followed by the axial ratio bandwidth around 1.41 % hence the proposed antenna confirms the circularly polarized behaviour. Therefore the change in various response parameters due to such loading is compensated by introducing an air gap between the ground plane and the substrate of patch antenna. The thickness of the air gap is chosen such that the shifted responses are brought in the desired range. Due to air gap, the resonant frequency of dielectric loaded antenna shifted from 2.39 GHz to 2.44 GHz which is within the operating range of antenna and other performance characteristics of the antenna like input impedance, VSWR, return loss etc. also get improved, and the impedance bandwidth improved up to around 1.51 %. INDEX TERM - Hexagonal Patch Antenna, Circular Polarization, Superstrate loading I. INTRODUCTION In any communication system, matching the polarization in both the transmitter and receiver antennas is very important in terms of decreasing transmission losses. The use of circularly polarized antennas presents an attractive solution to achieve this polarization match which allows more flexibility in the angle between transmitting and receiving antennas. It also reduces the effect of multipath reflections and enhances weather penetration. Circular
43

International Journal of Electronics and Communication Engineering & Technology (IJECET), ISSN 0976 6464(Print), ISSN 0976 6472(Online) Volume 4, Issue 1, January- February (2013), IAEME

polarization is beneficial because current and future commercial as well as military applications require the additional design freedom of not requiring alignment of the electric field vector at the receiving and transmitting locations. Single feed circularly polarized antennas are currently receiving much attention, because it allows a reduction in the complexity, weight and the RF loss of any antenna feed and is desirable in situations where it is difficult to accommodate dual orthogonal feeds with a power divider network. Circularly polarized microstrip antennas have the additional advantage of small size, weight, suitability in conformal mounting and compatibility with microwave and millimeter wave integrated circuits, and monolithic microwave integrated circuits (MMICS) [1-3]. A single patch antenna can be made to radiate circular polarization if two orthogonal patch modes are simultaneously excited with equal amplitude and 90o out of phase with the sign determining the sense of rotation. A patch with a single point feed generally radiates linear polarization, however in order to radiate CP, it is necessary for two orthogonal patch modes with equal amplitude and in phase quadrature to be introduced. This can be accomplished by slightly perturbing a patch at appropriate locations with respect to the feed. Designing a circularly polarized microstrip antenna is challenging; as it requires a combination of design steps. The first step involves designing an antenna to operate on a given frequency. However in the second step circular polarization is achieved by either introducing a perturbation segment to a basic single fed microstrip antenna, or by feeding the antenna with dual feeds equal in magnitude with 90 physical phase shift. The shape and dimensions of the perturbation have to be optimized to ensure that the antenna achieves an axial ratio < 3 dB at the desired design frequency. Various perturbation techniques for generating CP have been reported in the literatures, which operate on the same principle of detuning degenerate modes of a symmetrical patch by perturbation segments. A well-known method of producing a single feed circular polarization operation of the square microstrip antenna by truncating a pair of patch at two opposite corners has also been presented. It is also found that this method can also be applied to a modified square microstrip patch with four semi-circular grooves along the four edges of the patch of equal dimensions to achieve a CP operation with compact design along with relaxed manufacturing tolerances. The compactness of the proposed CP design is achieved due to the semicircular grooves at the patch edges of the square patch. It was also found that the required size of the truncated corners of CP operation increases with increasing antenna size reduction. This behavior gives the proposal of designing a relaxed manufacturing tolerance for achieving a compact circularly polarized microstrip antenna [4-6]. On the other hand an additional dielectric layer on top of the microstrip patch may occur as a result of physical condition changes such as snow and ice or may be directly introduced as a radome in the manufacturing stage for the purpose of protection from the environmental hazards. The performance characteristics of the antenna structure may be adversely affected if relative permittivity and thickness of the dielectric substrate are not chosen properly. It has been also observed that the resonant frequency of the microstrip antennas is shifted to a lower value as a result of dielectric shielding on the antennas. In such cases, this shift may cause unexpected changes in the behavior of the antenna structure and, hence the operations of the supporting electronic circuitry are also affected. So the resonant frequency shift needs to be compensated without disturbing the original configuration and degrading its performances. In a study, the dielectric layers of different thickness were loaded on the square-ring microstrip antenna and found that the antenna performances such as centre frequency; bandwidth and radiating efficiency are reduced. The axial ratio data show that material with
44

International Journal of Electronics and Communication Engineering & Technology (IJECET), ISSN 0976 6464(Print), ISSN 0976 6472(Online) Volume 4, Issue 1, January- February (2013), IAEME

lower dielectric constant is more preferable if thicker dielectric is chosen for design [7]. However, in order to compensate the shielding effects on the resonant characteristics of a microstrip ring structure, air-gap tuning is used and found that in order to avoid degradation in the operating performances, air-gap thickness must be adjusted by taking the geometrical parameters of both substrate and dielectric layers into consideration. In addition, it is also found that there is the possibility of controlling the bandwidth of antennas useful in the space-communication applications specially to minimize the interference caused. The proposed approach will also be useful in the biomedical, geophysical, and millimeter wave integrated circuit applications providing flexibility in the adjustment of the desired characteristics without altering the original structure and not adding nay new components [8]. Therefore in this paper, an attempt has been made to achieve CP radiation from the hexagonal microstrip antenna as well as to compensate the dielectric cover effects on the performances of the antenna. The selection of such antennas leads to the advantages of compact structure and, ease of designing and a simple feeding technique as well.
II. DESIGN SPECIFICATIONS Design parameters of proposed hexagonal patch antenna are as follows; Feeding technique : Coaxial feed Substrate material : RT Duroid Relative permittivity of the substrate ( : 2.32 Operating frequency range : 2.4-2.4835 GHz Thickness of dielectric substrate : 1.575 mm Elemental side : 26.94 mm Feed location (x, y) : (-4.3 mm, -4.3 mm) Inner radius a : 0.635 mm Outer radius b : 2.0445 mm

Fig. 1a. HFSS geometry of hexagonal patch antenna

Fig. 1b. Fabricated Hexagonal patch antenna 45

International Journal of Electronics and Communication Engineering & Technology (IJECET), ISSN 0976 6464(Print), ISSN 0976 6472(Online) Volume 4, Issue 1, January- February (2013), IAEME

However the Figures 1a & b show the geometry of the hexagonal patch antenna. The reason behind selecting the hexagonal microstrip antenna that, it has smaller size compared to the square and circular microstrip antennas, as well as better impedance bandwidth over rectangular and square microstrip antennas for a given frequency. Therefore, authors have designed a coaxial fed hexagonal patch antenna and circularly polarized radiation has been achieved by adjusting the position across the antenna. Since a circular disc is the limiting case of the polygon with large number of sides, the resonant frequency for the dominant as well as for the higher order modes can be calculated from the formula of the circular disc by simply replacing radius a by equivalent radius

(1)

Where are the zeros of the derivative of the Bessel function Jn(x) of the order n. The equivalent radius is determined by comparing areas of a regular hexagon and a circular disk of radius or (3) Thus the resonant frequency of a hexagonal element may be written:

(2)

(4)

For the lowest order mode

(5)

Using above design parameters and design expressions, the proposed antenna has been designed and performances are examined using HFSS, and the obtained results are described in the following sections.
0 -2 -4 -6 -8 -10 -12 -14 -16 -18 -20 1 1.5 2 2.5 Frequency(GHz) 3 3.5

Fig. 2. Return loss of the hexagonal microstrip antenna The resonant frequency of the conventional hexagon antenna of side length of 26.94 mm, is found to be 2.43 GHz with a return loss around -18.52 dB as shown in Figure 2. Whereas the value of VSWR is 2.068 at 2.43 GHz, and corresponding values of VWSR with frequency is plotted is Figure 3.
46

dB(Return loss)

International Journal of Electronics and Communication Engineering & Technology (IJECET), ISSN 0976 6464(Print), ISSN 0976 6472(Online) Volume 4, Issue 1, January- February (2013), IAEME 60 50 VSWR 40 30 20 10 0 0 1 2 Frequency (GHz) 3 4

Fig. 3. VSWR of the hexagonal patch antenna

Fig. 4. Radiation pattern of the hexagonal antenna The radiation pattern of the antenna shows that it is omni-directional as well as linearly polarized with small levels of cross polarization as shown in Figure 4.. The gain for the optimized antenna is 5.861 dB, and shown in Figure 5, however the input impedance of the antenna is 46 at 2.43 GHz (Figure 6). Axial ratio with respect to frequency is shown in Figure 7, and found that axial ratio at the resonant frequency (2.43 GHz) is around 1.245 dB and axial ratio bandwidth is about 1.41 %.

dB(gain)

10 5 0 -100 -5 0 -10 -15 -20 -25 theta(deg) 100 200

-200

Fig. 5. Gain of the proposed antenna

47

International Journal of Electronics and Communication Engineering & Technology (IJECET), ISSN 0976 6464(Print), ISSN 0976 6472(Online) Volume 4, Issue 1, January- February (2013), IAEME 60 Impedence(ohm) 50 40 30 20 10 0 0 1 2 3 Frequency(GHz) 4

Fig. 6. Impedance response of the proposed antenna

10 dB(axial ratio) 8 6 4 2 0 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 Frequency(GHz) 3.5

Fig.7. Axial ratio plot of the proposed antenna III. HEXAGONAL MICROSTRIP ANTENNA WITH DIELECTRIC COVER The geometry of a dielectric loaded hexagonal patch antenna is shown in Figure 8, where Plexiglas, ) have been used as dielectric covers and the effects on the different antenna parameters are analyzed and shown in Figures 9-13.

Fig.8. Structure of proposed antenna with dielectric cover

48

International Journal of Electronics and Communication Engineering & Technology (IJECET), ISSN 0976 6464(Print), ISSN 0976 6472(Online) Volume 4, Issue 1, January- February (2013), IAEME

0 -5

S11 (dB)

-10 -15 -20 1.5 2 2.5 Frequency(GHz) 3

Fig.9. Return loss of proposed antenna with dielectric cover

60 50 VSWR 40 30 20 10 0 0 1 2 Frequency(GHz) 3 4

Fig.10. VSWR of the proposed antenna with dielectric cover

60 Impedence(ohm) 50 40 30 20 10 0 0 1 2 3 Frequency(GHz) 4

Fig.11. Impedance of proposed antenna with dielectric cover

49

International Journal of Electronics and Communication Engineering & Technology (IJECET), ISSN 0976 6464(Print), ISSN 0976 6472(Online) Volume 4, Issue 1, January- February (2013), IAEME

Fig.12. Radiation pattern of proposed antenna with dielectric cover

10 5 0 -200 dB -100 -5 0 -10 -15 -20 -25 Theta(degree) 100 200

Fig.13. Gain of proposed antenna with dielectric cover Figures 9-13 show the performance characteristics of the proposed antenna with a dielectric cover of thickness 0.5 mm. The Figure 9 indicates that the return loss of the antenna is -17.24 dB at 2.39 GHz. However Figure 10 shows that the VSWR is nearly equal to 2. The Figure 11 shows the magnitude of the input impedance of the antenna. The radiation pattern and gain of the antenna are shown in Figures 12 and 13 respectively.
IV. COMPENSATED HEXAGONAL PATCH ANTENNA

As reported in reference [9], we know that due to dielectric loading, capacitance of the antenna system increases, which decreases the overall performances of the antenna such as resonant frequency, impedance bandwidth and radiating efficiency. Therefore, in order to compensate dielectric loading effect, one should/decrease change the capacitance of the antenna system. Hence in this work, to achieve the original capacitance of the antenna, an air gap is created between ground plane and substrate of the antenna. Due to such air gap the capacitance of the antenna system further decreases causing significant improvements in overall performances of the antenna system.

50

International Journal of Electronics and Communication Engineering & Technology (IJECET), ISSN 0976 6464(Print), ISSN 0976 6472(Online) Volume 4, Issue 1, January- February (2013), IAEME 0

dB(Return loss)

-5 -10 -15 -20 1.5

Frequency(GHz)

2.5

Fig.14. Return loss of compensated hexagonal patch antenna In particular, we inserted an air gap of 0.1mm between the substrate and the ground plane. As we have seen that using a 0.5mm thick dielectric cover over the patch causes the shifting of resonant frequency from 2.43 GHz to 2.39 GHz which is beyond the operating range of antenna (i.e. 2.4-2.4835 GHz) and hence the performance of antenna get deteriorated. When we create an air gap between the ground plane and the substrate, the resonant frequency of dielectric loaded antenna shifted back from 2.39 GHz to 2.44 GHz which is within the operating range of the antenna. The obtained compensated performance characteristic impedance bandwidth, input impedance, VSWR, return loss etc. are shown Figure 14-19. In particular, return loss with the dielectric cover decreased from -18.52 dB to -17.2407 dB, again improved to around -18 dB.
60 50 impedence(ohm) 40 30 20 10 0 0 1 2 3 Frequency (GHz)) 4

Fig.15. Input impedance of compensated hexagonal patch antenna

60 50 VSWR 40 30 20 10 0 0 1 2 3 Frequency(GHz) 4

Fig.16. VSWR of compensated hexagonal patch antenna

51

International Journal of Electronics and Communication Engineering & Technology (IJECET), ISSN 0976 6464(Print), ISSN 0976 6472(Online) Volume 4, Issue 1, January- February (2013), IAEME

10 5 0 Gain(dB) -200 -100 -5 0 -10 -15 -20 Theta(deg) -25 100 200

Fig.17. Gain of the compensated hexagonal patch antenna

Fig.18. Radiation pattern of compensated hexagonal patch antenna Similarly input impedance decreased from 53 to 42 , is improved back to 56 in case of compensated antenna, while VSWR is improved from 2.42 to 2.37, along with the gain improvement from 5.998 dB to 5.83 dB. The comparison of the obtained results of the proposed antenna are listed in Table 1
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 1

Axial Ratio(dB)

AxialRatio_Hexagonal Patch_Without Dielectric cover AxialRatio_Hexagonal dielectric Cover AxialRatioValue_Hexagonal compensated 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 2 2.2 2.4 2.6 with

Frequency (GHz) Fig.19. Axial ratio of hexagonal patch antenna

52

International Journal of Electronics and Communication Engineering & Technology (IJECET), ISSN 0976 6464(Print), ISSN 0976 6472(Online) Volume 4, Issue 1, January- February (2013), IAEME

Table 1 Comparison of antenna parameters With Without dielectric Antenna Compensated dielectric loading values parameters loading of 0.5 mm Resonance frequency 2.43 2.39 GHz 2.44 GHz (GHz) GHz Return loss (dB) -18.52 -17.2407 -17.931 Impedance ( ) 53 42 56 VSWR 2.068 2.42 2.376 Gain (dB) 5.861 5.998 5.8307 Impedance bandwidth 1.45% 1.30% 1.51%

V. CONCLUSIONS Thus a dielectric covered hexagonal patch antenna is designed and analyzed with the help of HFSS. And found that due to dielectric layer the resonant frequency of the antenna goes beyond the operating range; hence the performance of antenna deteriorates. In addition various parameters; return loss, input impedance, bandwidth, VSWR, gain also get altered. In addition basic antenna provides circularly polarized radiation (AR < 3dB) at the frequency 2.2 GHz. However, the dielectric loading deteriorates the circular polarization characteristics of the antenna and axial ratio values goes beyond 3dB. Therefore, the main focus has been given to compensate these changes by introducing an air gap between the ground plane and substrate of the hexagonal patch antennas. The thickness of the air gap is chosen such that the shifted responses are brought in the desired range. It is also found the proposed compensation technique does not play an effective role to get back the same circular polarization radiation. That is the compensation of superstrate loading effects on the CP antenna can be chosen for further research. ACKNOWLEDGMENT The authors express their appreciation to Dr. B. K. Kanaujia, Professor, Department of Electronics and Communication, Ambedkar Institute of Technology, New Delhi for allows us to use HFSS simulation software and experimentations. REFERENCES 1. M. Dubey, D. Bhatnagar, V. K. Saxena and J. S. Saini, Broadband dual frequency hexagonal microstrip antenna for modern communication systems, IEEE International Conference on Emerging Trends in Electronic and Photonic Devices & Systems, 2009, ELECTRO '09, pp. 303-306, Dec. 2009. 2. K. S. Arvind and J. R. Wolfgang, Spectral domain analysis of a hexagonal microstrip resonator," IEEE Tran. Microwave Theory and Techniques, Vol. 30, pp. 825-828, 1982.

53

International Journal of Electronics and Communication Engineering & Technology (IJECET), ISSN 0976 6464(Print), ISSN 0976 6472(Online) Volume 4, Issue 1, January- February (2013), IAEME

3. K. P. Ray, M. D. Pandey and S. Krishnan, Determination of resonance frequency of hexagonal and half hexagonal microstrip antenna, Micro. Optical Tech. Letter, Vol. 49, No. 11, pp. 2876-2879, 2007. 4. K. P. Ray, D. M. Suple and N. Kant, Perturbed hexagonal microstrip antenna for circular polarization, IEEE Applied Electromagnetics Conference (AEMC), pp. 1-4, Dec. 2009. 5. K. P. Ray, D. M. Suple and N. Kant, Suspended hexagonal microstrip antennas for circular polarization, International Journal of Microwave and Optical Technology, Vol.5, No. 3, pp. 119-123 May 2010. 6. A. K. Verma and Nasimuddin, Analysis of circular microstrip patch antenna as an equivalent rectangular microstrip patch antenna on iso/anisotropic thin substrate, IEE Proc.Microwave Antenna Propagation Vol. 150, No. 4, pp. 223-229, August 2003, 7. C. Y. D. Sim, T. Y. Han and J. F. Wu, Impedance matching and dielectric effects on CP square ring microstrip antenna, Chienkuo Technology University, Taiwan 500, R. O. C, pp. 1996. 8. igdem, Sekin Grel and Erdem Yazgan, Compensation of dielectric effects on the resonant behaviour of the microstrip ring structure by using an air-gap control, IEEE Transactions on Electromagnetic Compatibility, Vol. 43, No. 2, pp. 219-223, May 2001. 9. I. Bahl, P. Bhartia, S. Stuchly, "Design of microstrip antennas covered with a dielectric layer," IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, Vol. 30, No. 2, pp.314-318, Mar 1982. 10. Gangadhar P Maddani, Sameena N Mahagavin and Shivasharanappa N Mulgi, Design And Development Of Microstrip Array Antenna For Wide Dual Band Operation International journal of Electronics and Communication Engineering &Technology (IJECET), Volume1, Issue1, 2010, pp. 107 - 116, Published by IAEME. 11. Suryakanth B and Shivasharanappa N Mulgi, Design And Development Of Low Profile, Dual Band Microstrip Antenna With Enhanced Bandwidth, Gain, Frequency Ratio And Low Cross Polarization International journal of Electronics and Communication Engineering &Technology (IJECET), Volume1, Issue1, 2010, pp. 88 - 98, Published by IAEME. 12. Amit Kumar Gupta ,R.K. Prasad and Dr. D.K. Srivastava, Design And Development Of Dual E-Shaped Microstrippatch Antenna For Bandwidth And Gain Enhancement International journal of Electronics and Communication Engineering &Technology (IJECET), Volume3, Issue3, 2012, pp. 34 - 42, Published by IAEME. 13. M. Veereshappa and Dr.S.N Mulgi, Design And Development Of Triple Band Ominidirectional Slotted Rectangular Microstrip Antenna International journal of Electronics and Communication Engineering &Technology (IJECET), Volume3, Issue1, 2012, pp. 17 - 22, Published by IAEME. 14. Mahmoud Abdipour, Gholamreza Moradi and Reza Sarraf Shirazi, A Design Procedure For Active Rectangular Microstrip Patch Antenna International journal of Electronics and Communication Engineering &Technology (IJECET), Volume3, Issue1, 2012, pp. 123 - 129, Published by IAEME.

54