KISLIK, AA, ITTIPIBOON, A., ANTAR, Y.M.M., and CUHACI, M.

: 'Slot
excitation of thedielectric disk radiator', IEEE Trans., 1995, AP-
LEUNG, K.w., LUK, K.M., CHOW, K.Y., and YUNG, E.K.N.: 'Bandwidth
enhancement of dielectric resonator antenna by loading a low-
profile dielectric disk of very high permittivity', Electron. Lett.,
1997,33, pp. 725-726
43, pp. 198-201
Circularly polarised equilateral-triangular
microstrip antenna wi t h truncated tip
Chia-Luan Tang, J ui-Han Lu and Kin-Lu Wong
A novel circular polarisation (CP) design of a single-feed
equilateral-triangular microstrip antenna with a truncated tip is
proposed andexperimentally studied. It is found that, whenthe
side length of the truncated tip is -0.09 times that of the
triangular patch, circularly polarised radiation can beachieved by
using a single probe feed. Details of the antenna design are
described, and experimental results of the CP performanceare
presentedandanalysed.
Introduction: Recently, owing to their relatively compact antenna
sizeat a fKed operating frequency, several designs of triangular
microstrip antennas for circular polarisation have been reported
[I , 21. These related designs include the useof a nearly equilateral-
triangular patch [I] and an equilateral-triangular patch with a slit
[2]. For the former design, the aspect ratio of the triangular patch
is required to beslightly different from 1.0 to allow the excitation
of two near-degenerate orthogonal modes for CP radiation. This
design, like the nearly-square and nearly-circular patches [3], is
very sensitiveto aspect-ratio variation, and extreme care is usually
required in the design and fabrication processes. For the CP
design using an equilateral-triangular patch with a slit [2], the
antenna structure is simpler and shows relaxed manufacturing tol-
erances. However, regarding the capability of post-fabrication tun-
ing for compensating fabrication errors or substrate material
tolerances [4], such a design method is limitated because it is
inconvenient to fine-tune the dimensions of the embedded slit
inside the triangular patch. In this Letter wedemonstrate a novel
and simpledesign method for an equilateral-triangular microstrip
antenna to perform CP radiation, with simple post-fabrication
fine-tuning. The CP radiation of the proposed design is achieved
simply by cutting the correct sized section from the tip of an equi-
lateral-triangular patch (seeFig. 1). Typical designs have been suc-
cessfully implemented, and experimental results of the CP
performance are presented and discussed.
m
Fig. 1 Geometry of single-feed equilateral-triangular microstrip antenna
with truncated tip for CP operation
Feeds at point A and point B, respectively, are for right-hand and
left-hand CP operations
Antenna design and experimental results: Fig. 1 shows the pro-
posed antenna design. The equilateral-triangular patch has a side
length of d and is printed on a substrate of thickness h and relative
permittivity E,. A small triangular tip of sidelength Ad is truncated
in the triangular patch. It is expected that, owing to the truncated-
tip perturbation, the effectiveexcited patch surface current path in
the y direction is slightly shorter than that in the x direction,
which gives the j-directed resonant mode a resonant frequency
slightly larger than that of the i-directed resonant mode. That is,
the dominant mode (TM,, mode) of the triangular patch can be
split into two near-degenerate orthogonal resonant modes of equal
amplitudes and 90" phase difference for CP operation. In addi-
tion, the singleprobe feed for CP operation can be determined
from the intersection of L, and L,, which are, respectively, the
50fi feed-position loci of the two excited orthogonal resonant
modes. These two feed-position loci are determined experimentally
in this study. For the probe feed at point A, which is usually
located in the right half of the triangular patch, right-hand CP
radiation with a good matching condition can be obtained. Con-
versely, left-hand CP radiation can be obtained by exciting the
patch at point B (the mirror image of point A with respect to the
centreline of the triangular patch).
C @@
Fig. 2 Measured input impedance for proposed antennas with E, =4.4, h
=1.6 mm, feed at point A
a Antenna1: d =56.0mm, Ad =4.5mm, (xp, y,,) =(-7.3mm, -16.8mm)
b Antenna2: d =48.0mm, Ad =4.2mm, (x,, y,) =(-7.2mm, -13.6mm)
c Antenna3: d =40.0mm, Ad =3.6mm, (x,,, y,,) =(-3.8mm, -12.2")
I I I
0 - -
1690 1700 1710 1720 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000
frequency, MHz frequency, MHz
a b
2360 2370 2380 2390 2400
frequency, MHz
C
Pig. 3 Measured axial ratio et boresight direction for proposed anten-
nas shown in Fig. 2
a Antenna 1
b Antenna2
c Antenna3
The proposed antenna has been constructed and measured. Fig.
2 shows typical results of the measured input impedance. Three
cases of different triangular patch dimensions are shown, with the
feed at point A for right-hand CP radiation. The measured results
of the axial ratio are presented in Fig. 3. The corresponding CP
performance is also given in Table 1. It is found that, when the
side length of the truncated tip is adjusted to be-0.09 times that
ELECTRONICS LETTERS 25t h June 1998 Vol. 34 No. 13 1277
of the triangular patch, the dominant mode of the triangular patch
is split into two near-degenerate orthogonal modes of equal ampli-
tudes and 90" phase difference, which results in CP radiation. It is
also noted that the fine-trimming, if necessary and for destructive
trimming only, of the triangle tip for CP operation is much easier
than adjusting the aspect ratio of a nearly equilateral-triangular
patch [l] or trimming the embedded slit in an equilateral-trinagu-
lar patch [2]. Hence, the proposed design provides the advantage
of post-manufacturing tuning capability.
Table 1: CP performance of proposed antennas with parameters
given in Fig. 2
1 d 1 Ad 1 Centre frequency 1 CP bandwidth
I m I m m I MHZ I MHz (96)
Compact circularly polarised microstrip
antenna with bent slots
Wen-Shyang Chen, Chun-Kun Wu and Kin-Lu Wong
By embedding a group of four bent slots in a corner-truncated
square microstrip patch, a single-feed compact circularly polarised
microstrip antenna can easily beobtained. Results show that, for
a given circular polarisation (CP) operation, the proposed
antenna can havean antenna sizereduction of morethan 50 YO as
compared to theconventional CP design using a comer-truncated
squarepatch without theslots. Moreover, the50Q feed position
and truncated-corner sue for achieving CP operation are found to
benearly independent of the bent slots introduced in the patch,
which makes theproposed antenna easy to implement.
Antenna 1 I 56 I 5.0 I 1707 I 17 (1.0)
Antenna21 48 I 4.2 I 1982 I 28(1.4)
I Antenna 3 I 40 I 3.6 I 2380 I 30(1.26) I
Centre frequency defined as frequency at which axial ratio is
minimumin operating bandwidth
O0 O0
Pig. 4 Measured radiation patterns in two orthogonal planesfor antenna
3 shown in Fig. 2
f =2380 MHz
RHCP
LHCP
The results also show that the CP bandwidths obtained, deter-
mined from the 3dB axial ratio, are -1.&1.4%, and are largely
dependent on the electrical thickness of the substrate for the
antenna parameters studied here. Fig. 4 presents typical measured
radiation patterns in two orthogonal planes of the proposed
antenna at the centre operating frequency. Good right-hand CP
radiation is observed.
Conclusions: A new and simpleCP design for a single-feed equi-
lateral-triangular microstrip antenna with a truncated tip has been
demonstrated. By simply truncating a correctly sized section of the
triangle tip and using a singleprobe feed, right-hand or left-hand
CP radiation can easily be obtained. The proposed CP design is
easy to implement and also allows post-manufacturing trimming.
0 IEE 1998
Electronics Letters Online No: 19980906
Chia-Luan Tang and Kin-Lu Wong (Department of Electrical
Engineering, National Sun Yat-Sen University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan,
Republic of China)
J ui-Han Lu (Department of Electronic Communication Engineering,
National Kaohsiung Institute of Marine Technology, Kaohsiung,
Taiwan, Republic of China)
5 May 1998
References
1 SUZUKI, Y. , MIYANO, N., and CHIBA, T.: 'Circulatory polarised
radiation from singly fed equilateral-triangular microstrip antenna',
IEE Puoc. Microw. Antennas Propag., 1987, 134, pp. 194198
2 LU, J .H., TANG, c.L., and WONG, K.L.: 'Circular polarisation design of
a single-feed equilateral-triangular microstrip antenna', Electron.
Lett., 1998, 34, (4), pp. 319-321
3 JAMES, J .R., and HALL, P.S. (Eds.): 'Handbook of microstrip
antennas' (Peter Peregrinus, London, 1989)
4 PLESSIS, M D. , and CLOETE, J . : 'Tuning stubs for microstrip-patch
antennas', ZEEE Antennas Propag. Mag., 1994, 36, pp. 52-56
Introduction: To satisfy the requirement of miniaturisation of port-
able communications equipment, studies of compact microstrip
antennas have received much attention, and several related designs
with circularly polarised radiation [l - 31have also been reported.
For such circular polarisation (CP) designs, the splitting of two
near-degenerate orthogonal modes of equal amplitudes and 90 O
phase differenceis achieved by slightly adjusting the asymmetric
structure of the embedded slots in the patch, such as a cross-slot
of unequal arm lengths in a circular patch [l] and a group of four
slits of different lengths at the boundary of a square patch or a
circular patch [2, 31. These compact CP design methods usually
show strict manufacturing tolerances, because a very small differ-
encein the asymmetry of the embedded slots is required to achieve
a large antenna sizereduction. To easethis problem, we demon-
strate in this Letter that a corner-truncated square microstrip
antenna with four bent slots of equal arm lengths embedded in the
patch can perform a compact CP operation with much relaxed
manufacturing tolerances. Details of the proposed antenna are
described, and experimental results of the CP performance are pre-
sented and discussed.
Y
1305111
Fig. 1 Geometry of proposed compact circularly-polarised, comer-trun-
cated square microstrip antenna with four bent slots
I
1500 1700 1900 21 00 2300
frequency,MHz
Fig. 2 Measured return loss for proposed antenna with different arm
lengths of bent slots
E, =4.4, h =1.6mm, L =28mm, w =lmm, S =2mm, AL =3.2mm,
d =6.7"
dntenna 1: e =12"
Antenna 2: e =lOmm
Antenna 3: =8mm
Antenna design and experimental results: Fig. 1 shows the pro-
posed compact CP design of a single-feed corner-truncated square
1278 ELECTRONICS LETTERS 25th June 1998 Vol. 34 No. 13