Int. J. Electron. Commun.

(AE) 67 (2013) 10101014

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International Journal of Electronics and Communications (AE)

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/aeue

A compact high gain microstrip antenna for wireless applications

Kaushik Mandal a , Partha Pratim Sarkar b,
a b

Department of E.C.E., Academy of Technology, West Bengal, India DETS, University of Kalyani, West Bengal, India

a r t i c l e

i n f o

a b s t r a c t
In this article, we describe a novel type of defective ground surface (DGS) microstrip antenna that achieves higher gain, multi resonant frequency with compact size. The proposed antenna consists of a hexagonal shaped patch with small volume. Six triangular slots have been cut on the ground plane, just below the six corners of the hexagonal radiating patch. Antenna is circularly polarized one and it has the measured peak gain of 7.2 dBi. The antenna shows multi frequency behavior and more than 57% compactness compare to the conventional hexagonal patch antenna. The simulated results are conrmed experimentally. The proposed antenna is simple in structure compared with the regular stacked or coplanar parasitic patch antennas. It is highly suitable for wireless communications. 2013 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.

Article history: Received 16 August 2012 Accepted 1 June 2013 Keywords: Microstrip antenna Defective ground surface High gain Compactness Multi frequency

1. Introduction Microstrip antennas are widely used in a broad range of military and commercial applications mainly because of their advantageous features in terms of low prole, low cost, lightweight, and easy manufacturability. However, two major disadvantages associated with microstrip antennas are low gain and narrow bandwidth. Most works have been intended to improve the bandwidth, but few in enhancing the antenna gain. There are several methods which can be used to improve the gain of a patch antenna. The resonance gain method [1,2] involves the addition of a superstrate or cover layer over the substrate. Alternatively, one can use an air gap to reduce the effective permittivity of the cavity under the patch [3,4]. The gain of a patch antenna can also be increased using a parasitic element or a reduced surface-wave antenna [57], cavity backed slot antenna [8] and double layer array antenna [9]. All of them compel to increase the antenna height at the same time presence of superstrate above an antenna may adversely affect the antennas basic characteristics such as radiation pattern, resistance and efciency. An electromagnetic band-gap (EBG) structure can also be used to improve the antenna performance. Use of costly substrate like an electromagnetic crystal substrate [10] is also reported. Different kinds of design techniques like removal of substrate [11] and slotted ground plane [12] are also reported but most of them provide gain of around 57 dBi. This paper introduces a new compact hexagonal patch antenna for high gain and multi frequency applications. A defective ground

surface (DGS) is used to increase the gain of a conventional hexagonal patch antenna. The proposed DGS hexagonal microstrip patch antenna is simple and different from that reported in [110]. Higher gain along with multi frequency and compactness are achieved by cutting six triangular slots on the ground plane just below the six corners of hexagonal radiating patch. These characteristics suggest that the embedded triangular slots in the ground plane are more effective than the techniques reported in [110]. The proposed antenna is prototyped and measured. A good agreement is observed between the simulations and measurements for the antennas input impedance (S11 ), gain and radiation pattern performances. The simulations are carried out using a method of moment (MOM) based ANSOFT software. Experiments are done using Standard microwave test bench. As per organization of the paper Section 2 briey describes the design scheme of the proposed antenna structure and associated parameters. Section 3 describes experimental results comparing two antennas: a conventional hexagonal patch antenna A (reference antenna) and the proposed antenna B. In this section measured results are also compared to its simulated counterpart to prove the design concepts. Finally, the concluding remarks are given in Section 4.

2. Antenna structures A conventional hexagonal patch antenna A is designed as a reference antenna for parametric study purpose. Fig. 1 shows the geometry of reference hexagonal patch antenna A which is printed on a nite unmodied rectangular ground plane of size 60 mm 50 mm.

Corresponding author. Tel.: +91 33 25823644; fax: +91 33 25828282. E-mail address: parthabe91@yahoo.co.in (P.P. Sarkar). 1434-8411/$ see front matter 2013 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.aeue.2013.06.001

K. Mandal, P.P. Sarkar / Int. J. Electron. Commun. (AE) 67 (2013) 10101014 Table 1 Specications of antennas. W1 Patch dimensions 10 d Slot dimensions 6 W2 10 d1 4.5 W3 20 d2 4 L1 10 d3 3

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L2 15 d4 7

All the dimensions are in mm.

as well as the reference antenna is prototyped. Photographs of the fabricated proposed antenna are shown in Fig. 3. 3. Results and discussions The hexagonal patch antenna A serves the purpose of reference antenna of B and is used to study the effect of modied ground plane on the antenna performances. Simulated as well as measured S11 and peak gain of antenna A and B are presented. The corresponding simulated and measured results for antenna A and B are summarized in Table 2 for comparative study. i) Fig. 4 shows the plots of simulated and measured input impedance S11 for the different kinds of antenna structures. Antenna A provides a single resonant frequency 5.2 GHz (simulated) and 5 GHz (measured). In case of antenna B an additional resonance occurs at 3 GHz but higher operating frequency (5.2 GHz) remains unchanged. This may be due to the capacitive and inductive effects caused by the electromagnetic coupling effects between the patch and slotted ground plane. The measured counterpart for antenna B shows three resonant frequencies 2.8, 3.2 and 5 GHz. It shows that the measured S11 validates its simulated counterparts for both of the antennas. ii) Fig. 5 represents the measured S11 plot of antenna A and B for comparative study purpose. The proposed antenna B shows multi resonating (2.8, 3.2 and 5 GHz) behavior compare to the single resonant (5 GHz) reference antenna A. After ground modication the rst resonance frequency of the proposed antenna is at 2.8 GHz. We observe a signicant decrease in rst resonant frequency from 5 GHz to 2.8 GHz. If we want to resonate the reference antenna at 2.8 GHz without ground

Fig. 1. Geometry of the reference hexagonal antenna A.

Now to achieve higher gain along with multi frequency and compactness six triangular slots have been cut on the ground plane, just below the six corners of the hexagonal radiating patch and that leads to the proposed antenna B. The conguration of proposed antenna B is exactly same with the reference antenna A apart from the modied ground plane. Fig. 2 shows the geometry of proposed high gain antenna B with a defective ground surface. Antennas A and B are printed on a less costly microwave substrate glass-PTFE of thickness h = 1.6 mm and relative permittivity r = 2.4. Six (1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6) triangular slots having different side lengths are properly placed in the rectangular ground plane just below the six corners of hexagonal patch. Triangular slots 1, 2, 4 and 5 are with same dimensions and triangular slots 3 and 6 are with same dimensions. The detailed dimensions of the reference and proposed antennas are mentioned in the Table 1. These dimensions are nalized after a good number of simulations. The patch was fed by a 50 coaxial probe of outer diameter 0.5 mm. The feed location was optimized at 35 mm 30 mm position from the lower left most corner of ground plane to provide good impedance matching. The proposed antenna

Fig. 2. Geometry of the proposed gain enhanced hexagonal antenna B.

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Fig. 3. Photographs of the fabricated proposed antenna B.

Table 2 Simulated and measured results. Antenna Resonant frequency (GHz) Simulated A B 5.2 3.0; 5.2 Measured 5 2.8; 3.2; 5.0 Peak gain (dBi) Simulated 5.1 7.06 Measured 5 7.2 Bandwidth (MHz) Simulated 180 280; 160 Measured 290 70; 110; 370

Fig. 4. Simulated and measured S11 plots. (a) Reference antenna A and (b) proposed antenna B.

Fig. 5. Measured S11 plot for reference antenna A and proposed antenna B.

modication, the size of the antenna will be much more this provides a size reduction of around 57%. iii) Fig. 6 shows the plots of simulated and measured peak gain for the different kinds of antenna structures. The maximum peak gain is 5.1 dBi (simulated) at 3.4 GHz and 5 dBi (measured) at 3.2 GHz for antenna A. For the proposed antenna B the maximum peak gain is 7.06 dBi (simulated) at 3.4 GHz and 7.2 dBi (measured) at 3.2 GHz. The little disagreement between simulated and measured gain may be attributed to the loss of the connectors and the measurement process. iv) Measured gain of antennas A and B is presented in Fig. 7for comparative study purpose. Over a wide frequency band gain of the antenna is positive as well as high. From the gure, it is seen that the antennas A and B have average measured peak gain of 2.74 dBi and 4.51 dBi respectively over the entire frequency band. This study conrms the high gain performance of the proposed antenna. Maximum measured gain for antennas A and B are 5 dBi and 7.2 dBi respectively. Thus

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Fig. 6. Simulated and measured peak gain plot. (a) Reference antenna A and (b) proposed antenna B.

Fig. 9. Measured and simulated axial ratio. Fig. 7. Measured peak gain plot for reference antenna A and proposed antenna B.

the proposed antenna B exhibits enhancement of peak-gain by 44% compare to the conventional hexagonal patch antenna A. Embedded triangular slots on the ground plane reduce the surface wave resulting in higher gain performance of the antenna. v) The surface current distributions beneath the patch at the center frequencies 3 GHz and 5.2 GHz are drawn in Fig. 8. Observe that the currents have perpendicular components to the edges of the patch. vi) Fig. 9 illustrates the measured and simulated axial ratio (AR) plotted against frequency. It is found that the

suitable circular polarized (CP) performances of two bands were achieved. vii) Radiation pattern curves with co- and cross-polarization in one principle plane (E-plane); measured at the frequency 3.2 GHz are shown in the Fig. 10. The gures show that the maximum radiation occurs in the broad side direction ( = 0 ); the frontto-back ratio of the antenna B was the best. Good front to back radiation ratio leads to higher gain of the proposed antenna. The proposed antenna provides a favorable radiation pattern along with the high gain. Here co-result is always 5 dB higher than cross result and front to back radiation ratio is greater than 2.

Fig. 8. Surface current distributions beneath the patch at the center frequencies 3 GHz and 5.2 GHz.

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Fig. 10. E-plane radiation patterns of the two antennas A and B measured at 3.2 GHz.

4. Conclusion So without any additional layer and costly substrate the proposed antenna successfully achieves higher gain, compare to the corresponding regular hexagonal microstrip patch antenna. Along with the enhanced gain the proposed antenna shows a reasonable compactness as well as multi resonant characteristics. Thus the defective ground plane plays an important role to fulll all of our desired goals. This is the uniqueness of our design. References
[1] Huang CY, Wu JY, Wong KL. High-gain compact circularly polarized microstrip antenna. Electron Lett 1998;34:7123. [2] Huang CY, Wu JY, Yang CF, Wong KL. Gain enhancement compact broadband microstrip antenna. Electron Lett 1998;34:1389. [3] Park S, Kim C, Jung Y, Lee H, Cho D, Lee M. Gain enhancement of a microstrip patch antenna using a circularly periodic EBG structure and air layer. Int J Electron Commun (AE) 2010;64:60713. [4] Abboud F, Damiano JP, Papeirnik A. A new model for calculating the input impedance of coax-fed circular microstrip antennas with and without air gaps. IEEE Trans Antennas Propag 1990;38:18825. [5] Kokotoff DM, Waterhouse RB, Britcher CR, Aberle JT. Annular ring coupled circular patch with enhanced performance. Electron Lett 1997;33:20001. [6] Llombart N, Neto A, Gerini G, de Maagt P. Planar circularly symmetric EBG structures for reducing surface waves in printed antennas. IEEE Trans Antennas Propag 2005;53:32108. [7] Part Y-J, Herchlein A, Wiesbeck W. A photonic band gap (PBG) structure for guiding and suppressing surface waves in millimeter-wave antennas. IEEE Trans Antennas Propag 2001;49:18547. [8] Li Q, Shen Z. Inverted microstrip-fed cavity-backed slot antennas. IEEE Antennas Wireless Propag Lett 2002;1:98101. [9] Hsieh TH, Lee CS. Double-layer high-gain microstrip array antenna. IEEE Trans Antennas Propag 2000;48:10335.

[10] Halim Boutayeb, Denidni Tayeb A. Gain enhancement of a microstrip patch antenna using a cylindrical electromagnetic crystal substrate. IEEE Trans Antennas Propag 2007;55:31405. [11] Yeap SB, Chen ZN. Microstrip patch antennas with enhanced gain by partial substrate removal. IEEE Trans Antennas Propag 2010;58:28116. [12] Kuo JS, Hsieh GB. Gain enhancement of a circularly polarized equilateraltriangular microstrip antenna with a slotted ground plane. IEEE Trans Antennas Propag 2003;51:16526. Kaushik Mandal was born in West Bengal, India, in 1980. He received the B.Tech. and M.Tech. degrees in radio physics and electronics from the University of Calcutta, India, in 2004 and 2006 respectively. He is currently working toward the Ph.D. degree in the Department of Engineering and Technological Studies, University of Kalyani, Presently he is working in ECE Department of Academy of Technology, West Bengal, India, as an assistant professor. He has published more than four technical papers. His current research interests are in enhancement of bandwidth and gain of microstrip antennas. He is a member of IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society.

Dr. Partha Pratim Sarkar was born in West Bengal, India, in 1969. He received the B.E. degree in electronics and telecommunication engineering from Bengal Engineering College (presently known as Bengal Engineering and Science University), West Bengal, India in 1991 and the M.E. and Ph.D. degrees from the Jadavpur University, West Bengal, India, in the 1994 and 2002 respectively. Presently he is working in D.E.T.S. University of Kalyani, West Bengal, India, in professor rank. His area of research includes microstrip antenna, microstrip lter, frequency selective surfaces and articial neural network. He has contributed around 200 research papers in various journals and conferences of repute. He is a life Fellow of IEI and IETE.