Synopsis The microstrip patch antenna offers an attractive possibility to make compact, conformal and low cost antennas for mobile wireless systems. Antennas for mobile terminals are required to be small, lightweight and low profile, in addition to have an Omni-directional radiation pattern in the horizontal plane. Patch antenna designs can have some operational limitations that include restricted bandwidth, low gain and a decrease in radiation efficiency due to surface wave losses. One of the approaches for a small sized patch antenna is the use of high Er substrate, although antennas on high dielectric constant substrates are smaller, excitation of undesirable surface waves deteriorate the antenna performance further. This situation becomes extremely severe at higher frequencies, resulting in patch antennas with reduced gain and bandwidth, as well as an unacceptably high level of cross-polarization.
The motivation for the synopsis is to investigate methods to develop
microstrip antennas with improved characteristics mainly for mobile applications. This synopsis investigates the use of electromagnetic waves to generate energy from different sources, for various microstrip patch antenna configurations with improved performance. These novel devices have the capability of generating energy from the propagation of electromagnetic waves along certain or all directions, within a certain frequency band, thus giving us an additional flexibility in designing rectenna(s) and other components. Investigations presented in this synopsis have been carried out in two parts. To start with, the behavior of electromagnetic spectrum has been studied in detail. The focus has been on different substrate materials based on different material structure.
The antenna is a transitional structure between free-space and a guiding
device such as co-axial, waveguide etc. An antenna is an essential part of transmitting and receiving system that is used for radiating electromagnetic waves. Moreover, the antenna should provide stable electrical and mechanical characteristics even in a harsh weather and bending conditions with no interference to other radio systems. These days UWB antenna is used for data communication as FCC has proposed a high bandwidth of 7.5 GHz from 3.1 to 10.6 for UWB applications. Any signal that occupies at least 500MHz spectrum can be used in UWB systems. UWB is generally preferred due to its low power consumption, its ability to penetrate the walls, high immunity to the fading effects and it is much faster than Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. It serves for both commercial and non commercial purposes, like military, radar frequency, location track, indoor and also for body wearable applications. In order to meet the needs of the desired applications the UWB antenna is generally been made on miniaturized substrate due to cost effectiveness. Designing of an elliptical shaped patch depends on three main parameters, Resonant Frequency-11GHz, Dielectric Constant-4.4, and Height of dielectric substrate-62 mil. Following figure 1 represents the patch designing in HFSS. It is designed by cutting out the sides of the ellipse on a FR4 substrate and hence making it an inset elliptical patch which is suitable for body wearable applications and it gives a high gain of about 6 dBi and a return loss below -10db. The ground plane lies at the bottom surface of the dielectric substrate and the elliptical patch designed is at the top layer of the dielectric substrate. The antenna is used for frequency band of 7.5 -15 GHz for which antenna yields a return loss of less than -35 dB. The antenna is miniaturized to 2.8 cm 4 cm in order to use it for UWB applications.
Figure 1: Elliptical Patch Design
Typical representation of wireless energy transmission between
transmitters and receivers. Antenna Design & Analysis The antenna is designed using HFSS (High Frequency Structural Simulator). It is one of several other commercial tools used for antenna designing. The elliptical patch antenna is designed to operate at particular frequency bands. The antenna consists of elliptical patch with inset feed. Inset feed slot is used to increase the Bandwidth. The antenna is printed on the FR4 epoxy substrate with dielectric constant ( r) =4.4, thickness of 1.5748mm.
Design Requirements Input Impedance =50 Resonant Frequency of the Antenna=11GHz Relative permittivity of the substrate = 4.4 Dielectric loss tangent =0.02
Antenna design and configuration
As the dimension of patch is circular in nature, the actual radius of the patch is given by (Balanis, 1982)
Where,
The effective radius of patch is given by (Balanis, 1982)
So therefore, the resonant frequency for the antenna should be expressed as
Where Vo is free space speed of light.
Conclusion In this synopsis, the microstrip fed slot PCB antenna has been designed for promising ultra wide band applications. The antenna in this design can operate from a frequency band of 7.5 to 15 GHz .The mushroom shaped patch has been cut from the radiator to reduce the ground plane effects. The aspect which is to be highlighted is the return loss (S11 parameter ) which is less than 35 dBi at 11GHz and VSWR is less than 2 at 11GHz (1.096abs) and at 13 GHz (1.326abs) and antenna has perceived a gain of 6db .The antenna gets a suitable radiation pattern and a good polarization .The compact UWB antenna has a potential for body wearable applications .The antenna on FR4 epoxy substrate is feasible and can be easily fabricated with low cost and is proved a useful candidate for ultra wide band antenna. The energy transmission is also very satisfactorily performed with these design parameters.