1

CONTENTS:

1 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................ 2
2 PROBLEM STATEMENT ............................................................................................................... 4
3 OBJECTIVE ..................................................................................................................................... 4
4 SCOPE .............................................................................................................................................. 5
5 LITERATURE REVIEW ................................................................................................................. 6
6 METHODOLOGY ........................................................................................................................... 7
6.1 Material Specification ................................................................................................................ 7
6.2 Design of Antenna ..................................................................................................................... 7
6.3 Feeding Technique ..................................................................................................................... 8
6.4 Dielectric materials .................................................................................................................... 9
6.5 Resonant Frequency ................................................................................................................... 9
6.6 Reasons of selecting microstrip dipole antenna ............................................................... 10
6.7 Flow Chart ............................................................................................................................... 12
6.8 Calculation.................................................................................................................................13
7 REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................... 15
















2

1 INTRODUCTION

A microstrip antenna is a type of antenna used to process ultra-high frequency signals.
It is often used as a satellite radio or cell phone receiver or is mounted on an aircraft or
spacecraft. This type of antenna has the advantage that it is low cost to create but the
disadvantage that it has limited bandwidth.
An antenna is a device designed to transmit or receive electromagnetic waves. It is
used in radio equipment to convert radio waves into electrical currents or electrical currents
into radio waves. The only difference between a transmitting antenna and a receiving antenna
is the direction the signal is travelling. A microstrip antenna is used to transmit or receive
signals in the ultra-high frequency spectrum. These are waves with frequencies between 300
MHz and 3000 MHz (3GHz) [1].
Microstrip dipole is a narrow microstrip conductor on the true side of the substrate,
which is interrupted by a feeding gap. Figure 1 shows the structure of microstrip dipole
antenna or printed dipole antenna. Microstrip dipole or printed dipole antenna has been
applied in communication devices such as notebook computer and access point for PCN
operations. This type of microstrip dipole antenna usually has a narrow width and in this case
it can be integrated at the access point of PCN application.

Figure 1: Structure of Microstrip dipole antenna



3

For good antenna performance, a thick dielectric substrate having a low dielectric
constant is desirable since this provides better efficiency, larger bandwidth and better
radiation [2]. However, such a configuration leads to a larger antenna size. In order to design
a compact Microstrip patch antenna, substrates with higher dielectric constants must be used
which are less efficient and result in narrower bandwidth. Hence a trade-off must be realized
between the antenna dimensions and antenna performance.


































4

2 PROBLEM STATEMENT

Nowadays most of the communication devices such as personal computers, mobile
phone, smart phone and others can connect to internet within a wireless network. The
wireless can coverage one or more access points. Recent years, the rapid growth of the
communication technology requires more compact antennas due to the decrease in the size of
the communication devices. As size of the communication devices decrease antennas become
a significantly large part of the overall package volume. So we need to design an antenna
with smaller size and low profile suitable for the PCN application. It is expected that the
proposed design will provide antenna with enhanced bandwidth to be use in PCN application.


3 OBJECTIVES


The objectives of this project are:

1) To design a microstrip dipole antenna at 4.2GHz for personal communication network
(PCN) applications.

2) To improve the narrow bandwidth by a variety of techniques such as use of various
substrate with low relative dielectric constant (r), with different thickness of
substrate and size of antenna as well.







5

4 SCOPES


The scopes of this project are:
1) To calculate microstrip dipole antenna of length L, width W and gap G. The length of
rectangular arm is / 4 where is the wavelength in the dielectric medium and equal
to reff / 0 where 0 is the free space wavelength.

2) To choose the resonant frequency which is 4.2GHz and do the simulation in CST
software.

3) To fabricate the microstrip dipole antenna with different substrate thickness

4) After fabricate, test and measure the bandwidth and frequency of the antenna.

5) Lastly, the simulation result from CST software is analyze and confirmed with
measurement result from a prototype antenna.















6

5 LITERATURE REVIEW

Recent years, the rapidly and widely growth of the wireless communication had make
microstrip patch antenna become more popular. Due to the low profile, light weight and low
production cost, the development of microstrip antenna had been widely research and
develop. But, the only disadvantage of the microstrip antenna is the narrow operation
bandwidth. The bandwidth of the basic microstrip patch antenna is usually 1 to 3%. The
bandwidth of the antenna depends on the shape of the patch, dielectric constant, the thickness
of the substrate and the resonant frequency [6]. Microstrip dipole antenna had been applied in
communication devices such as notebook computer and also the access point of the WLAN
operation.
For the design of the microstrip patch antenna, we had to choose the resonant
frequency first and then calculate the length and the width of the patch [5]. The two hatched
rectangular pieces is made up of copper on the top of the substrate. Each of the hatched
rectangular is connected with the microstrip bend [6]. When the length of the dipole antenna
is being fixed, the wider the width of the dipole antenna makes the lower frequency
resonance and the frequency is shifted from right to the left. In other condition when the
length and the width of the antenna is variables, the input return loss is increase when the
length and the width of the dipole antenna is increased to achieve the resonance frequency of
2.4 GHz [5].
For the dipole antenna, when the dipole near one half of the wavelength, the antenna
radiates bidirectional in the E-plane. From the journal, it is proved that the bandwidth of the
microstrip dipole is greater than the monopole antenna [4]. The resonance of the antenna can
be seen by observing the dip in the return loss from the graph. To design the dipole antenna,
the length of each hatched rectangular must about quarter wavelength [5].
As a conclusion, the performance of the micostrip dipole antenna is better than the
monopole antenna. The bandwidth of the antenna is depending on the length and the width of
the antenna. When the length of the antenna is longer, the bandwidth of the antenna also
decreased.



7

6 METHODOLOGY

The project consist two parts, hardware and software. The hardware part comprises
fabrication and measuring the antenna and the software part contains designing and
simulating the antenna. Therefore at the beginning of the project a work flow has been
established so that the work is well organized and to ensure the work can be finished on time.

6.1 Material Specification

The materials that use in dipole microstrip patch antenna as below:
I. Copper
II. FR4 substrate (PCB board)
For the above materials, FR4 is chosen as the substrate. The FR4 has the dielectric constant,

r
of 4.3 and the height of the FR4 is approximately 4.5mm. The copper is use as the patch of
the antenna because the thickness of the copper layer is only 0.1mm and the dielectric
constant for the copper also very high. Not only for the patch, copper also use as the ground
level of the antenna.

6.2 Design of Antenna


( top view) ( bottom view)
Figure 6.2: Design of dipole antenna at 4.2GHz
Figure 6.2 shows the design of microstrip dipole antenna. Design of microstrip dipole
antenna consists of length L, width W, and gap G. For good antenna performance, a thick
dielectric substrate having a low dielectric constant is desirable since this provides better
efficiency, larger bandwidth and better radiation.
8

6.3 Feeding Technique

A feeding method is the method used to excite to radiate by direct or indirect contact.
There are many different methods of feeding and four most popular methods are
a. Microstrip line feed,
b. Coaxial probe,
c. Aperture coupling
d. Proximity coupling.
In this project, the microstrip line feed method was chosen. For this method, it can
divide into 2 different feeding types which are inset feed and the fed with the quarter
wavelength of the transmission line. These two types of the feeding method have different
ways to calculate the input impedance and the design of these two feeding method also
different.
A microstrip antenna can be simply excited by a transmission line. The patches can
combine with the microstrip line locates on the same sides of the patches or microstrip line
designed on the separated layer placed behind the ground level. The patch and also the
microstrip line can be fabricated by a single. Low cost chemical etching process and each
single patch of the elements does not need to fabricate individually. So in the design of the
antenna we choose the inset fed method which the microstrip line directly connected with the
patch and on the same layer of the antenna.









9

6.4 Dielectric materials

The dielectric materials that have chosen in the antenna is the copper as the patch and
the FR4 as the substrate. The purpose of the substrate material of a microstrip antenna is to
provide mechanical support for the radiating patch elements and also to maintain the required
precision spacing between the patch and its ground level. With higher dielectric constant of
the substrate materials, the patch size of the antenna also can be reduced due to the loading
effect. Other than this, the higher dielectric constant also can reduce the bandwidth of the
antenna. The dielectric material that we use is the FR4 that have dielectric constant 4.3 and
can easily obtain in the laboratory. The loss tangent of the FR4 is equal to 0.002. The
dielectric constant of the substrate material is an important design parameter. Low dielectric
constant is used in the prototype design because it gives better efficiency and higher
bandwidth, and lower quality factor Q. The low value of dielectric constant increases the
fringing field at the patch periphery and thus increases the radiated power. The proposed
design has patch size independent of dielectric constant. So the way of reduction of patch size
is by using higher dielectric constant and FR-4 Epoxy is good in this regard. The small loss
tangent was neglected in the simulation.
Lastly, substrate thickness is another important design parameter. Thick substrate
increases the fringing field at the patch periphery like low dielectric constant and thus
increases the radiated power. The height of dielectric substrate (h) of the microstrip patch
antenna with coaxial feed is to be used in C-band range frequencies. Hence, the height of
dielectric substrate employed in this design of antenna is h= 4.5mm.


6.5 Resonant Frequency

In this antenna project, the antenna will be design to have function in the c-band
frequency. The c-band frequency is from 4GHz to 8GHz. So we choose the resonant
frequency as 4.2GHz that located in the range of the c-band frequency.


10

6.6 Reasons of selecting microstrip dipole antenna

The advantages of microstrip antenna when compared to conventional antenna are as
following:

1) The extremely low profiles of the microstrip antenna make it lightweight and it
occupies very little volume of the structure or vehicle on which it is mounted. It can
be conformally mounted onto a curved surface so it is aesthetically appealing and
aerodynamically sound. Large aperture microstrip arrays on flat panels can be made
mechanically foldable for space application.

2) The patch element or an array of patch antenna, when produced in large quantities,
can be fabricated with a simple etching process, which can lead to greatly reduced
fabrication cost. The patch element can also be integrated or made monolithic with
other microwave active/passive components.

3) Multiple-frequency operation is possible by using either stacked patches or a patch
with loaded pin or a stub.

4) The microstrip antenna technology can be combined with the reflect array technology
to achieve very large aperture without any couple and RF lossy beam former.

5) Light weight.

6) Very easy to integrate with MICs.

7) Mechanically good enough when mounted in rigid surfaces.

8) Can easily support linear and circular polarization.

9) Low profile planner.


11

The dipole microstrip antenna was chosen because the balance dipole antennas offer
the advantage of receiving balanced signals. The two-pole design enables the device to
receive signals from a variety of frequencies. It also helps the device sort out problems
caused by conflicting signals without losing reception quality.

The microstrip line feeding method have been chosen because Microstrip line feed is
one of the easier methods to fabricate as it is a just conducting strip connecting to the patch
and therefore can be consider as extension of patch. It is simple to model and easy to match
by controlling the inset position.























12

6.7 Flow Chart









Yes


No


Yes

No




Figure 6.7: Flow chart of microstrip dipole antenna
End
Compare measured and simulated result
Problem?
Fabricate the antenna
Problem
?
Simulate dipole antenna in
CST
Calculations of antenna
parameters
Antenna design
Start
13

6.8 Calculation

Parameters that keeps constant:
i. d, thickness of dielectric substrate (FR4) = 0.1mm
ii. f, resonant frequency = 4.2GHz
iii. W, width of the dipole patch = 0.5cm (with proper approximation)
iv. , dielectric constant of substrate = 4.3

Solution to find L
1
and L
2
of dipole antenna:
I. Effective Dielectric Constant (
eff
) of a microstrip line;

r =

)


=

)

=3.54

II. Wavelength of dipole antenna :

=

; c = speed of the light

=

= 0.038
= 4cm
14

II. the length of L1 and L2:

L1 = L2 =

= 1cm


















15

7 REFERENCES

1) Muhammad Yusof Ismail, Muhammad InamAbbasi, Reflectarray Antennas for
Strategic Defense Technology. Penerbit UTHM, pp. 15-20, 2012.
2) Constantine A. Balanis, Modern Antenna Handbook. A John Wiley & Sons, Inc.,
pp.157-200, 2008.
3) Yoshihiro Konishi, Microwave Electronic Circuit Technology.pp.51-86, 1998.
4) Nitali Garg, Zarreen Aijaz, A Dual Band Microstrip Dipole Antenna for Wideband
Application. International Journal of Computer Technology and Electronics
Engineering (IJCTEE) Vol. 2, Issue 6, pp. 18-20, 2012.
5) M. H. Jamaluddin, M.K. A. Rahim, M. Z. A. Abd. Aziz, and A. Asrokin, Microstrip
Dipole Antenna Analysis with Different Width and Length at 2.4GHz. Journal from
IEEE, pp. 41-44, 2005.
6) M.H. Jamaluddin, M.K. A. Rahim M. Z. A. Abd. Aziz, A. Asrokin, Microstrip
Dipole Antenna for Wlan Application. Journal from IEEE, pp.30-33, 2005.
7) Manik Chand Yadav, Amit Kumar, A Printed Antenna for WLAN Applications.
Journal from International Conference on Recent Trends in Engineering &
Technology, pp.203-206, 2006.
8) Cheng-Cheh Yu and Kung-Min Ju, Printed-Circuit Dipole Antenna for Personal
Communication Network Handset. Proceedings of ISAP '92, Sapporo, Japan. Journal
from IEEE Trans. Technol., pp.205-207, 1992.