Effect of primary source location on Fabry-Perot Resonator Antenna

Zhen-guo LIU

State Key Lab of Millimeter Waves, Southeast University, Nanjing, CHINA, 210096
liuzhenguo@seu.edu.cn
Abstract The directivity and its bandwidth properties of
Fabry-Perot Resonator antennas made of two different ground
plate covered with a partially-reflecting surface are studied
theoretically, respectively. The relationship between the
directivity and the primary source location is also obtained. It is
shown that the directivity of Fabry-Perot Resonator will obtain
its maximum when primary source is located at certain of
position. But the directivity bandwidth will not vary obviously
with the source location. At the same time the product of
maxium of directivity and its bandwidth is a function of
reflection coefficient of partially reflective surface, which is
larger than a certain constant. Finally the simulated results of
planar Fabry-Perot Resonator antenna are validated to have
good agreement with the calculated theoretically.

surface in the analysis. Based on the ray viewpoint, EM wave

excited by radiator is bounced in the FP cavity, which
introduces multiple reflections with decreasing amplitudes
between these two planes. Assuming no transmission losses,
the amplitude of the direct transmitted ray is equal to t. For a
given angle , the amplitude of the once-reflected ray can be
written as:

t1

tr1e

 jk

tr1e  jk 2 h cosT (1)

Then the total transmitted wave T can be given as a

superposition of all partially transmitted fields and is shown
in:
f

n 0

n 0

t2n  t2n1

T (T , f )

Index Terms Fabry-Perot Resonator antenna, Directivity

Bandwidth, Partially Reflective Surface (PRS), Artificial
Magnetic Conductor (AMC), Perfect Magnetic Conductor
(PMC).

t
tr1e  jk 2 h cosT

1  r1r2 e  jk 2 D cosT 1  r1r2 e  jk 2 D cosT

I. INTRODUCTION
Fabry-Perot Resonator (FPR) antenna generally consists of
a primary source backed with a metal ground plate and a
partially reflective covered plate [1,2,3,7]. Their highly
directional radiation properties and low complexity with
single-feed system represents its important advantage as
compared to feeding networks used in conventional antenna
arrays. But to our knowledge, the directivity properties of the
antennas effected by primary source location has not been
sufficiently studied. In this paper, the directivity and its
bandwidth properties of FPR antennas is analyzed
theoretically based on ray viewpoint.

2h
 jk 2 h tan T sin T
cosT

(2).

t (1  r1e  jk 2 h cosT )
1  r1r2 e jk 2 D cosT
The power pattern is therefore written as:

t (1  2 r1 cos(M r1  k 2h cos T )  r1 )
2

1  2 r1 r2 cos(M r1  M r2  k 2 D cos T )  r1 r2

where Mr1 ,

Mr

(3),

are the phase of r1and r2 respectively.

II. ANALYSIS MODEL

It is well known that the bandwidth of a directive antenna
based on a Fabry-Perot cavity decreases significantly when
the desired gain is high. The Fabry-Perot resonator antenna
can be act as the parallel plate waveguide (PPW) with
leakage. The propagated electromagnetic wave in PPW
usually can be analyzed by plane wave method. So, in this
section, a relation between the maximum power density and
half-power bandwidth is derived by using plane wave
superimposition method.
2.1 Fabry-Perot Resonator antenna with radiator placed
in the cavity
Fig.1 shows the geometry of the proposed FPR antenna.
The cavity is made of a completely reflecting surface PEC or
PMC and an infinite Partially Reflective Surfaces (PRS)
characterized by their reflection coefficients r1 and r2
respectively. The distance between two parallel planes is D.
An omni directional radiator placed at a distance h from the
PEC or PMC. The PRS is assumed to be a homogeneous

978-1-4244-2802-1/09/$25.00 2009 IEEE

a
b
Fig.1 Fabry-Perot Resonator antenna constituted by a PRS
and a PEC or PMC (a) h0 (b) h=0

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Assuming the magnitude of reflection coefficient of PEC

or PMC r1 equal to one, when the condition
M r k 2h cos T and M r  M r k 2 D cos T is obtained, the
2

1  2 r1 r2 cos(M r1  Mr2  k 2 D cos T )  r1 r2

1
T
2

power pattern achieves its maximum at boresight (=0e) as

follows:
2

(1  r2 )(1  2 r1  r1 )

1  2 r1 r2  r1 r2

max

(4)

r2

tn

(r r ) te
n

 jkn 2 D cosT

2 1

n 0

(10),

n 0

t /(1  r1r2 e  jk 2 D cosT )

(6)

the maximum transmitted power, achieving at resonant

condition M r2  M r1 k 2 D cos T is valid, is written as:

if the M r2 close to  also(which is usually correct in the

1.2

PEC case D=O

PMC case D=O

Normalized transmitted power |T| /|T|max

frequency band of interest) and n equal to zero, it means that

the profile of resonator is close to /2 and the primary source
is in the middle of the resonator.
For the case of AMC, M r1 is equal to zero, then

0,1, 2"

O Mr
(  1)  nO / 2, n 0,1, 2"
4 S

(9)

2 (1 r2 )

T (T , f )

For the case of PEC, r1 is equal to , then

 nO / 2, n

1 (1  r2 )
]
2 r2
2

arccos[1 

Note that, if the radiator is placed in the position as

illustrated in Fig.1b [1,3,4,5,6], the amplitude of the
transmitted wave outside the resonator cavity is expressed as
following

2.2 Fabry-Perot Resonator antenna with radiator directly

backed by PEC or PMC

O Mr
( )  nO / 2, n 0,1, 2"
4 S
(5)
O Mr  Mr
D
(
)  nO / 2, n 0,1, 2"
4
S

(8).

1  r2
1  r2

'f1/ 2
f0

BW

Note that formula (4) is different from that given in [4]. And
the resonant distance D and height h is a function of
operating frequency and the reflection coefficient r1 and r2,
which can be written as:

Then, for the PEC and PMC cases, resolving Eq.(7) gives

max

(1  r2 )(1  r1 ) 2
1  r2
4
2
(1  r1 r2 )
1  r2

(1  r2 )(1  2 r1 cos(Mr1  k 2h cos T )  r1 )

nO / 2, n 1, 2"

(7).
D (2n  1)O / 4, n 1, 2"
When n=1, the profile of resonator is just 3/4, and the
radiator is at /2 from the ground plate. Fig.2 shows the
normalized transmitted power versus h/ at resonant
frequency for PEC and PMC acted as ground plate,
respectively. The curves characterize the directivity
performance of FPR antenna. It can be seen that the
directivity of FPR antenna will obtain its maximum when
radiator is located at /4 from PEC ground plate and when
radiator is placed at /2 from PMC ground plate. Additionally,
the available maximum of directivity is unique .
The half power bandwidth of |T| versus frequency is
defined as BW [3]. To find the expression of BW as a
function of the reflection coefficient r, the following equation
is resolved [2]:

1.0

1.2
1.0

0.8

0.8

0.6

0.6

0.4

0.4

0.2

0.2

0.0
0.0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

h/l

0.6

0.7

0.0
0.8

Fig.2 Normalized transmitted power |T|2 vs h/

(1  r2 )

2
max

(1  2 r1 r2  r1 r2 )

1  r2
1  r2

(11)

which is similar as [2,3]. According to the resonant condition,

the profile of resonator cavity

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O Mr  Mr
(
)  nO / 2, n 0,1, 2"
S
4
2

(12).

For the case of PEC, M r1 is equal to  and the M r2 is close to .

Fig.3 Normalized product of the T

When n=0, thus the resonant distance D is approximate to

half wavelength, which is same as previously description. If
the PEC is replaced by PMC, which means that M r1 is equal

III. DISCUSSION

to zero, the profile of resonator cavity can be reduced to a

quarter of wavelength. The above analysis thus predicts the
profile reduction of resonator antennas to half, by means of
replacing the PEC with a PMC ground plane.
According to the same method, the half power
bandwidth of |T| can be obtained by resolving the
equation:

1  r2

1  2 r1 r2 cos(Mr1  Mr2  k 2D cos T )  r1 r2

2

1 2
T
2 max

(13)

1 1  r2
2 1  r2

It is interestingly noted that the half power bandwidth BW

is also given as the same formula (9) for both PEC and PMC
cases.
The product of the maximum of the transmitted power and
the half power bandwidth BW can be written as follow:

2
max

u BW

1  r2 2 1  r2
u
1  r2 S
r2

2c 1  r2

r2

(14)

4c

where c is constant. When the radiator is placed directly on

the reflecting surface (as shown in Fig.1b) it will be 1, when
the radiator is located in the cavity (as shown in Fig.1a) it is
equal to 4. Figure 3 shows the normalized product of the

2
max

2
max

and BW vs. r2

Compared with (4) and (11), we can find that the

maximum of directivity of FPR antenna decrease to quarter
when the primary souce location vary from O / 4 to zero for
PEC ground plate case and when the primary souce location
vary from O / 2 to zero for PMC ground plate case. If the
resonant condition is valid, the bandwidth of directivity is
just the function of the reflection coefficient. It means that
the directivity bandwidth will not vary obviously with the
source location theoretically. On the other hand the
maximum of directivity and its bandwidth is the same for
both PEC and PMC ground plate cases, but the profile of the
antenna can be further reduced by using the PMC ground
plate.
IV. VALIDATION
In order to validate our approach, a prototype of antenna as
shown in Fig.4, which reference to [8], was simulated by
Ansoft HFSS. The partially reflecting surface is a grid made
of metallic strips, which are along the x axis and periodically
distributed along the y-axis. An electric dipole, 9.5 mm in
length and 2 mm in width, is placed at distance h from
ground plate and acts as the primary source. The metallic
strips are 3.06 mm in width and 120 mm in length, the grid
periods P =5.8 mm. The resonator cavity height D=10 mm.

and half power bandwidth versus r2. It can be

observed that the normalized product of the T

2
max

and half

power bandwidth monotonically decrease to constant as r2

tends to 1.

Fig.4 Schematic representation of the prototype FPR antenna

The parameters of the grid are optimized to obtain a high
directivity at a frequency around 15GHz. The normalized
directivity as a function of the location of source at resonant
frequency fr =14.7GHz is shown in Fig.5. As predicted above,
when the source is placed at /4 from the PEC ground, which
means the source locating in the middle of cavity, the
maximum of directivity is obtained. When the distance
between source and PEC ground plate vary from O / 4 to
close to zero, the directivity will have about 6dB decline. It
has good agreement with theoretical calculation.

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V. CONCLUSION
An analysis for the directivity bandwidth properties of
Fabry-Perot Resonator antennas made of PEC or PMC
ground plate covered with a partially-reflecting surface are
presented theoretically base on ray view point, respectively.
It is shown that the directivity is a function of location of
primary source and it will obtain its maximum when primary
source is located at certain of position. The available
maximum of directivity in theory is unique for both PEC
ground plate and PMC ground plate. And the directivity
bandwidth will not vary obviously with the source location
theoretically. The original results obtained here leads to a
design method for getting the maximum directivity without
affecting on bandwidth of this kind of resonator antenna.
Finally the simulated results of planar Fabry-Perot Resonator
antenna are validated to have good agreement with the
calculated theoretically.

[4] H. Boutayeb, K. Mahdjoubi, A.C.Tarot, et al, Directivity of an

antenna embedded inside a Fabry-Perot cavity Analysis and
design. Microwave & Opt. Tech. Lett., vol.48, No.1,
2006.pp.12-17.
[5] Z.G. Liu, W.X. Zhang, D.L. Fu, et al, Broadband Fabry-Perot
resonator printed antennas using FSS superstrate with dissimilar
size, Microwave & Opt. Tech. Letters, vol.50, No.6, 2008. pp.
1623-1627.
[6] Z.G. Liu, Quasi-Periodic structure application in Fabry-Perot
resonator printed antennas, APMC 2008, 2008, Dec, HongKong
[7] Z.G. Liu, Z.C.Ge, Research Progress on Fabry-Perot

Resonator antenna, Journal of Zhejiang University

SCIENCE A, Vol.10, No.4, 2009. pp.583-588.

[8] N. Guerin, S. Enoch, G.Tayeb, et al, A metallic Fabry-Perot

directive antenna, IEEE Trans. on Antennas Propagat., vol.54,
No.1, 2006. pp.220-224.

Normalized Directivity(dB)

1
0
-1
-2
-3
-4
-5
-6
-7

Ground plate made of PEC

Resonator cavity height D=l/2

-8
0.0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

The Normalized height of source: h/O

Fig.5 Directivity vs the Normalized height of source

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This work is supported by State Key Lab. of Millimeter
Waves opening project (No. 6204029002)
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using optimized partially reflective surfaces. IEE Proc
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