(Pre published copy)

Corner Truncated Microstrip Patch Antenna for

Handheld Wireless Applications
M. Ali Babar Abbasi, Saleem Shahid, M. Rizwan, Munir A. Tarar, Farooq A. Tahir
Samar Mubarakmand Research Institute for Microwave and Millimeter-wave Studies (SMRIMMS)
Department of Electrical Engineering, School of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science (SEECS)
National University of Sciences & Technology (NUST), Islamabad, Pakistan
{11mseemabbasi, saleem.shahid, 11mseemrizwan, munir.tarar, farooq.tahir} @seecs.edu.pk
AbstractThe paper presents a compact microstrip patch
antenna for RFID 2.45 GHz, WiMAX 2.5 GHz, LTE Band 7,
Blue tooth, WLAN 2.4 GHz, Zig-Bee, Super Extended C-Band
and license free band applications. Patch with corner truncation
and suitable slots are used to achieve the desired bands. Antenna
size has been reduced significantly and FR4-epoxy is used as
substrate with height=3.2mm and r =4.4 to ensure cost effective
fabrication. Proposed antenna is circularly polarized, bandwidth
efficient and compact in size. The antenna performance is
characterized in terms of S parameter, radiation pattern and
current distribution. Simulations are carried out in software such
as HFSS v13 whereas effect of introducing different slots has also
gone under discussion.
Keywords micro-strip patch antenna, probe fed, corner
truncated, mobile communication systems

I. INTRODUCTION
Conventional microstrip antennas in general have a
conducting patch printed on a grounded substrate, and have
attractive features of low profile, light weight, easy fabrication,
and conformability to mounting hosts [1]. Microstrip patch
antennas have narrow bandwidth however bandwidth
enhancement is demanded for practical applications. In
addition, applications in present day mobile communication
systems usually require smaller antenna size in order to meet
the miniaturization requirements of mobile units. With the
developments
of
various
standards
for
wireless
communications, demand increased for broadband antennas.

A brief discussion on todays research areas in wireless

communication will enable us to understand multi application
compact designs presented in the literature. These research
areas include RFID tags consisting of an antenna combined
with an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) chip
[4],[5]. Bluetooth also is a well-established short-distance (10
meters) wireless communications standard which uses 2.4
2.484 GHz frequency of ISM band with a bandwidth of 84
MHz [6]. LTE release 10 also promotes the application bands
for frequencies from 700-2500 MHz [7]. Wireless local area
network (WLAN) requires three bands of frequencies: 2.4GHz
(2400-2484 MHz), 5.2GHz (5150-5350 MHz) and 5.8GHz
(5725-5825 MHz) [8]. WiMAX 802.16e comprises 3 bands.
WiMAX comprises of 2.5 GHz (2.5-2.69 GHz), WiMAX 3.5
GHz (3.3-3.7 GHz) & WiMAX 5.7 GHz (5.2-5.8 GHz) [9].
Above mentioned application bands, and license free bands at
2.4GHz (2403-2483 MHz), 5GHz (5150-5250 MHz, 52505350 MHz, 5725-5825 MHz & 5725-5850 MHz) are the areas
of prominence of antenna designers.
Our goal is to design a compact microstrip patch antenna of
order 4x4 cm2 that could operate in multi-application bands and
could perform better in terms of return loss and antenna gain.
Geometry outline of proposed antenna is shown in Figure 1.

Starting with the applications demanded for particular

antennas, initially an over view about previously done work is
presented. Techniques, their benefits and at the end
applications available are discussed. This paper proposes size
reduction and frequency adjusting techniques for microstrip
antennas by using adequate feeding point and introducing
suitable slots upon the current intensity, hence simultaneously
improving the radiating properties, return loss, impedance
bandwidth and gain.
Today, demand for an antenna is to be compact, and
supportive for multi applications. Earlier an optimized
microstrip patch antenna with compact size, better radiation
efficiency and gain by varying current path was presented [2].
For size reduction, use of shortening pin is also reported [3].
Some other techniques like meandering, aperture coupling,
peripheral cuts and tuning stubs are also discussed [1].

Figure. 1. Geometry outline of antenna

(Pre published copy)

Figure. 2. Dimensions of truncated corners.

II.

ANTENNA CONFIGURATION

The antenna has been designed on low cost FR4 substrate

with height=3.2mm, r =4.34 and tan =0.016. Patch on
grounded substrate shown in Figure 1 along with its
geometrical dimension is a simple probe fed. The feeding
point is greatly dependant on the operating frequency.
Therefore the feeding point is selected to be in adequate
position. Our aim was to ensure better return loss, as well as
accepted band width.
Figure 1 shows initial design with its dimensions. A
rectangular patch was chosen as the radiation element. Initial
dimensions of patch were adjusted by general guideline of
antenna design [1]. As IEEE 802.11b and 802.11g standards
utilize the 2.4-GHz ISM band, adaptive frequency for antenna
design has been set to 2.45 GHz.
Two sided corner truncation technique shown in Figure 2
was implemented on both sides of the patch [4], third corner
has been truncated so that better impedance matching across
the operating bands can be obtained. Return loss was
improved up to -27.5 dB at first place as shown in Figure 4.
TABLE I.

ANTENNA D IMENTIONS

Edge

Length (cm)

3.05

2.55

3.83

3.35

Edge

Length (cm)

0.7

0.65

0.39

1.35

Slot

Length (cm)

0.6

1.8

1.5

Figure. 3. Dimensions and numbering of slots.

Figure. 4. Comparison of simple and corner truncated patch

Size of truncated patch was adjusted such that the

operational bandwidth may include 2.4 2.69 GHz. Secondly,
corner truncation also ensured circular polarization of antenna.
Figure 2 shows the design configuration for antenna operating
at 2.45 GHz. Measurements in Figure 2. are in cm and
diagonal corners have same dimensions.
For this initial design, a comparison between simple patch
and truncated patch is given in Figure 4. Band of operation for
improved design is 2.38-2.74 GHz. This band comprises
various applications which will be discussed in later section of
this paper.
III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
A parametric study has been performed to evaluate the
effects of the slots on reflection coefficient. Slots at altering
field of J surface have been introduced consecutively to
achieve best return loss with maximum bandwidth. So that
antenna may tune as per requirements of applications, either
reflection coefficient or band width.
By introducing slot 1 and 2, with dimensions in Table I and
numbering as shown in Figure 3, reflection coefficient
improved significantly. By systematic alteration in length p
from 5-10mm, return loss has been improved up to -33.5 dB.
Figure 5(a) shows comparison for patch without slot 1 & 2 and
with slots at p=6 & 8mm. Results depicts improved return loss
for lower frequency band, however, the high frequency band
does not show a notable change. Vector and magnitude surface
current distribution shown in Figure 6(a) also renders the center
of the patch as the main radiating area. Introducing slot 1 and 2
improved radiation particularly at 2.5 GHz which can be
witnessed in Figure 5(a) and Figure 6(b).
Since currents along the right truncated edges are flowing
in the direction of currents along left truncated. Only center and
bottom edge of patch contributes to the radiation. Introducing
slot 3 on none radiating mid of patch, hence disturbing the
current path, determines new resonant frequency 4.5-5.2 GHz.
Altering the length of slot 3 by keeping constant width (1 mm)
ensured new application bands for WLAN 5.2, 5.8 and
WiMAX 5.8GHz. Length q has been altered from 1mm to
2mm to investigate the symmetric current paths. At q=1, dual
band has been achieved resonating at 5.5 GHz and 6.4 GHz.
Whereas, application bands of WLAN and WiMAX requires
5.2 to 5.8 GHz. Systematic study for alternation of q depicts

(Pre published copy)

that at 1.8mm improved reflection coefficient of -35.4dB has

been achieved which can be observed from Figure 5(b). In
Figure 8(a), two distributed current paths on left and right side
of slot 3 introduce new resonant frequency band for several
applications.

(a)

(b)

Figure. 6. Simulated surface current distribution on the conductor. (a) Current

flow on corner truncated patch (b) after adding sot 1 and 2.

(a)

(b)

(c)
Figure. 5. Optimization with proposed variation in geometrical configuration
(a) Comparison of measured reflection coefficient on, slot 1 added & slot 1
size adjusted to 6mm (b) with and without slot 2 and 3 (c) with slot 4 added
and adjusted

Introducing slot 4 improved the reflection coefficient up to

-38.4 dB and bandwidth up to 2.8 GHz for high frequency band
without changing of lower frequency bandwidth. For different
lengths of r, upper band can be attuned independently.
Significant improvement with respect to resonant frequency
and bandwidth has been noted for methodical length variation
from 1.5-2.5mm. New acceleration and deceleration of current
and path variation can be seen in Figure. 8(b), here additional
resonant areas have been introduced on radiator. Comparing
Figure 8(b) and results in Figure 5(c) clarifies that multi bands
in Figure 5(b) have been blended together to form a wide band
as a result of introducing slot 4. For r=1.5mm, antenna
promises the best return loss for WLAN 5.2. Comparative
analysis for improvements has been tabulated in Table II.
Power transmitted by the antenna is not a problem in
wireless communication RF front end design now a days, but
direction and far field coverage area does matter. Figure 7
exhibits the measured far-field radiation patterns in the yz and
zx planes for three frequencies at 2.45, 5.2 and 5.8 GHz,
respectively. Summarized below are the bands of application
for proposed antenna from Figure 4 & 5(c), as mentioned in
Table II.
1.

WLAN (2400-2484 MHz)

2.

Blue tooth (2400-2484 MHz)

3.

Zig-Bee (2400-2483.5 MHz)

4.

RFID (2.45 GHz)

5.

License free band (2403-2483)

6.

WiMax 2.5 (2500-2690 MHz)

7.

LTE Band 7 (2500-2690 MHz)

8.

License free bands on 5 GHz

9.

WLAN 5.2 (5150-5350 MHz)

10. WiMax 5.8(5200-5800 MHz)

11. WLAN 5.8 (5725-5825 MHz)
12. Super Extended C-Band (4500-7025MHz )

(Pre published copy)

(a)

(b)

(c)

Figure. 7. 2-D Radiation pattern in yz and xz planes, depicting the coverage area for (a) 2.45, (b) 5.2 and (c) 5.8 GHz

TABLE II.

PARAMETRIC STUDY AND SYSTEMATIC IMPLEMENTATION OF

TECHNIQUES ON ANTENNA PATCH.

Steps

S(1,1) Parameter

Band Width

Applications

Rectangular Patch

-16.2 dB

150 MHz

1-3

Corner Truncated

-27.5 dB

320 MHz

1-7

Adding Slot 1,2

-32.5 dB

320, 1550
MHz

1-8

Adding Slot 3

-34.6 dB

320, 2020
MHz

1-11

Adding Slot 4

-38.4 dB

320, 2800
MHz

1-12

return loss. Proposed antenna is tunable for required bandwidth

and capable of performing reasonable Omni-directional
coverage and high radiation efficiencies throughout these
bands. Also, compared to previous designs proposed in [2], [4]
and [5], proposed antenna is both compact and wideband,
results are partially comparable with antennas proposed in [6][8]. Antenna is compact, simple in design, cost effective in
fabrication as well as flexible for multi operations. It makes
proposed antenna solution suitable to be installed within
laptops, Tablets or even in ultra-thin hand-held PDAs as an
internal antenna for multiband wireless communication
systems.
REFERENCES
[1]
[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

(a)

(b)

Figure. 8. Simulated surface current distribution on patch and dual path

followed by current (a) after introducing slot 3 (b) after introducing slot 4.

[6]

[7]

IV. CONCLUSIONS
Theoretical investigations of a single layer single feed
microstrip patch antennas have been carried out using finite
element method (FEM) based software such as Ansoft HFSS.
Design is fairly simple rectangular patch on grounded FR4epoxy substrate. By introducing cuts on edges and addition of
slots in the patch, a size reduction has been achieved with
increased band width, multi frequency operation and improved

[8]

[9]

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