ENHANCED GAIN CYLINDRICAL DIELECTRIC RESONATOR ANTENNA

BASED ON COMBINATION OF HIGHER ORDER MODES

Michal Mrnka and ZbynkRaida
Department of Radio Electronics, Brno University of Technology

Abstract:

I.

INTRODUCTION
Dielectric resonator antennas, firstly proposed by Long et al. [1], have become
very popular radiating elements in microwave and millimeter-wave frequency
bands. To their main advantages belong high radiation efficiency, compact size,
ease of excitation and relatively large impedance bandwidth when compared to
other resonant antenna elements, to list a few. Cylindrically shaped resonator,
operating with the low order hybrid electromagnetic mode HEM 11 placed above a
sufficiently large ground plane is probably the most frequently used DRA
configuration [1-4]. This mode generates broadside radiation pattern with linear
polarization and gain about 5 dBi. Several approaches have been suggested to
increase the gain of the DRAs. Arraying of single element DRAs [2] is probably the
most versatile method in which the gain value can be directly controlled by
number of elements in the array. Nevertheless, increased size, complexity and
costs of the resultant antenna are the main disadvantages.
Altering of a single element DRA can be used in cases, where medium
gains up to around 10 dBi are sufficient. In general, two tactics to increase the
gain of the single element DRA exist. Firstly, additional structures are placed in
near vicinity of the resonator operating in the low order mode. These can
represent e.g. surface mounted short horns [6], EBG structures [8] or
superstrates [7]. Particularly, the rectangular hybrid DRA antenna described in
[7] provided peak gain of 14.44 dBi and gain above 11 dBi in complete ISM band
at 60 GHz. On the other hand, the common disadvantages of the antennas based
on the first approach are again higher complexity and increased size.
Second strategy is to utilize higher order radiating modes in single
dielectric resonator. This approach has been already adopted in both rectangular
and cylindrical DRA. Petosa and Thirakoune [7] showed the DRA based on higher
order TE13 and TE15 modes in rectangular resonator can achieve gains of 8.2 dBi
and10.2 dBi, respectively. The structure operating in TE 15 mode [7] required
maximum dimension of the resonator of about 1.1 0 when build from dielectric
material with relative permittivity r = 10, where 0 is the free space wavelength.
Guha et al. [10-12] managed to excite higher order HEM 12 mode in cylindrical
resonator by introducing an air-filled cavity in the ground plane below the
resonator. This way peak gain of about 10 dBi was achieved but only in relatively
narrow impedance bandwidth.

In presented letter, we use excitation of higher order hybrid

electromagnetic HEM133 mode in single cylindrical dielectric resonator with partial
excitation of the nearby HEM123 mode in order to accomplish considerable gain
enhancement. These modes do not require any special feeding schemes nor the
ground plane modifications and can be excited similarly to the well-known HEM 11
mode. The aperture coupling feed [5] is selected and optimized in order to avoid
excitation of unwanted TE/TM modes within the resonator. Parametric study in
CST Microwave Studio [13] was conducted to see the behavior and to determine
the limits of the proposed DRA. The antenna was designed to operate over
unlicensed ISM 5.8 GHz band (5.725 GHz - 5.875 GHz), but the concept might be
more suitable at higher frequencies, where the resonators size can be less
crucial.
The letter is organized as follows. Section II briefly describes the antenna
concept and design process. The E-field distributions within and in close vicinity
of the resonator are discussed. Parametric study, final dimensions and simulation
results are given in Section III. Manufacturing of the prototype together with
experimental results are summed up in Section IV. Finally, the letter is concluded
by short discussion in Section V.

II.

ANTENNA CONCEPT
The antenna is composed of a single cylindrical dielectric resonator placed above
the ground plane of circular footprint. The resonator is excited through
rectangular slot in the ground plane of a microstrip line according Fig 1. Aperture
coupling feeding mechanism was selected in order to minimize excitation of
unwanted lower-order modes in the structure. Relative permittivity of the
resonator in all simulations was 6.15. This value was simply selected due to
availability of material with given er. Substrate Arlon 25N with relative
permittivity 3.38 was used in the feeding structure design.
Initial dimensions for the resonator (height h and diameter d according to the
Figure 3) were found by magnetic wall method using CST Eigenmode solver. All of
the walls were considered perfect magnetic conductors and the resonators
dimensions were obtained so that the resonant frequency of the both target
modes HEM133 HEM123 lied close to the desired frequency 5.8 GHz. Since the
method does not take into account radiation losses of the resonator, considerably
large inaccuracy is a result. Nevertheless, the method provided reasonable initial
approximation of the dimensions that needed to be tuned and optimized
afterwards. Full-wave transient solver in CST Microwave Studio was used for this
purpose.

Fig.1. Geometry of an aperture fed cylindrical DRA

Figure 2 depicts simulated electric-field distribution of the mode combination

within the resonator. The E-field oscillates predominantly in the x-axis and thus
the radiation is linearly polarized in the broadside direction (direction along zaxis). Figures 2a and 2b show cross sectional views of the E-field distribution in
two different planes of the resonator according to the Fig 2c. Presence of the
desired modes is evident in these cross sections. Relatively high gain radiator
with radiation efficiency above 90 % can be obtained by careful optimization of
the resonators size and the ground plane diameter.

Fig. 2 E-field distribution in the cross section A (a) corresponds to the HEM 133,
in cross section B (b) mode HEM123 and the E-field configuration on the top
wall of the DRA (c)

Aperture coupling excitation scheme was selected to excite both of the desired
modes in the DRA. This solution was preferred, since the desired modes are of

higher order and e.g. a probe feed would give rise to excitation of unwanted
TE/TM modes, deteriorating the near field distribution. The aperture was fed by a
50microstrip line placed on the other side of the ground plane according to the
Fig. 3. By placing the aperture symmetrically below the DRA and tuning its
dimensions it was possible to excite both of the desired modes with single feed.
Correct values of parameters l, w and s had to be found; initial values were
calculated using general guidelines [4]:

0.4 0
,
e

(1)

w=0.2 l,

(2)

l=

s=

where e =

r + s
;
2

and

substrate, respectively and

s
g

g
,
4

(3)

are the relative permittivities of the DRA and

is the guided wavelength in the substrate. The

length in (3) is selected, so that the half wave resonance of the slot is avoided.
Nevertheless, in our case it was necessary to work with considerably longer slot,
for appropriate mode excitation; hence the back lobe radiation was increased due
to the partial resonance of the slot. However, this could be easily solved by using
stripline instead of microstrip line. The optimum slot dimensions were found to be
l = 17.73mm, w =3.49mm with stub length s = 10.94mm.

Fig.3 Detail of the antenna geometry

III.

PARAMETRIC STUDY
The influence of two main design parameters of the proposed DRA on antenna's
performance was studied. Namely its diameter d and the diameter of the ground
plane a were varied and the resonant frequency, impedance bandwidth and
maximum gain were observed. Due to the restrictions of the antenna's
fabrication method, its height h could be only an integral multiple of 1.575 mm,
which was the height of the Arlon 600 substrate used for manufacturing (more
details in following sections). The optimum height h was found out to be 22.05
mm corresponding to 14 layers of the mentioned substrate. The desired resonant
frequency was 5.8 GHz with band of interest covering frequency range 5.7255.875 GHz corresponding to relative bandwidth of 2.6 %. Throughout the
parametric study, the dimensions of the feeding structure (i.e. slot width w, its
length l and stub length l) were kept constant as well as the height h of the
resonator.
The resonant frequency of the DRA and its impedance bandwidth were
determined mostly by the dimensions of the resonator whereas its gain was in
addition quite strongly influenced by the diameter of the ground plane. Figure 4
shows the frequency response of the reflection coefficient for several d values
(reference impedance 50 ) with ground plane size a=132.5 mm.

Fig. 4 |S11| vs. frequency for several diameters of the resonator

Following Figure 5 depicts the dependency of realized gain on frequency for

several diameters of the resonator as well as for several ground plane sizes (Fig.
6). It was found out that the gain was increasing with increasing the ground plane
size only to a certain point; extending its size beyond this value did not bring any
further gain improvement. Height of the resonator h was fixed to the value 22.05
mm in all of the plots.

Fig. 5 Realized peak gain in the broadside direction vs. frequency for several
diameters of the resonator

Fig. 6 Realized peak gain in the broadside direction vs. frequency with ground
plane diameter as a parameter

IV.

PROTOTYPE AND RESULTS

The antenna was built by stacking up layers of completely etched Arlon 600
substrate with er = 6.15, loss tangent tand = 0.0015 and thickness 1.575 mm.
The layers were held together by double sided duct tape of 65 um thickness and
relative permittivity of approximately 3. The photograph of the proposed
antenna's final prototype is given on Fig. 7. The resonant frequency had to be
slightly tuned by altering resonator's diameter in order to compensate the effect
of 14 layers of duct tape in between the dielectric layers. Final dimensions of the
resonator were h=22.75 mm corresponding to 14 layers of the Arlon 600
substrate interleaved with 14 layers of the duct tape. Diameter of the resonator
was 44.1 mm and diameter of the ground plane a=132.50 mm.

Fig. 7. Manufactured circular reflector with a slot and the dielectric resonator

Comparison between simulated and measured magnitude of the reflection

coefficient is depicted in Figure 8; reasonable agreement can be observed.
Simulations were conducted in transient solver of CST Microwave Studio and
measurement was done using a vector network analyzer.

Fig. 8 Simulation vs. experimental measurement results for S11

Next, radiation patterns and gain of the designed antenna were measured
in an anechoic chamber. First, the gains frequency response was measured in
the broadside direction; the maximum gain 11.59 dBi was obtained at the
frequency 5.82 GHz. Radiation patterns in two orthogonal principal planes (xz, yz
in Fig. 1) were measured at the frequency of maximum gain 5.82 GHz for co- and

cross-polarization components (Fig.9); co-polarization component corresponded

to the x axis and the cross-polarization to the y axis.
The measured data complied reasonably well with the simulation results.
Moreover, it should be mentioned that the back lobe present in the simulations
was not measured accurately. Probable reason was the nature of the anechoic
chamber in which the antenna was measured, i.e. the line of sight between the
illuminator and the AUT was obstructed by antenna scanner for corresponding
angles.

Fig. 9 Simulated and measured radiation patterns at 5.82 GHz, E-plane

corresponds to xz plane and H-plane to yz plane

Fig. 10 Frequency response of the gain; simulation vs. measurement

V.

CONCLUSIONS

New concept of dielectric resonator antenna based on combination of higher

order modes in simple cylindrical resonator was presented and experimentally
verified by measurement. Directive radiation pattern with high gain of 11.59 dBi
was measured and impedance bandwidth was sufficient to cover the whole 5.8
GHz ISM band. Relatively high side lobe levels in the E-plane (7 dB below the gain
in the broadside direction) could be considered the main disadvantage.
The implementation of the antenna might be more convenient at higher
frequencies, where the dimensions are less crucial. Since the structure operates
with higher order modes, the electrical size is increased when compared to the
operation with low order modes. Further miniaturization might be possible using
higher permittivity materials, which was not attempted in this letter.

VI.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

VII.

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available: