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ZHIFENG YAOL | Lecturer MINTONG LIL | Associate Professor CHEN LIN L | Engineer DONG WANG, Ph.D.
Microstrip Antenna
Maintains Low
Profile
Combining a U-shaped parasitic element with
thin substrate material results in a compact
conformable antenna.
M
icrostrip antennas offer many ben- to provide wide bandwidths without enlarging antenna size.
ef its to high-f requenc y systems, In addition, the use of shorting pins or shorting walls on the
including low profiles, light weight, unequal arms of a U-shaped patch or L-probe feed anten-
small volume, and ease of integra- nas16,17 have helped achieve wideband impedance bandwidths
tion with other RF/microwave components. Unfortunately, while maintaining small antenna size. All of these microstrip
microstrip antennas have also been plagued by inherently antenna investigations have involved thick substrates, although
narrow bandwidths, limiting their use in some applications. low-profile broadband microstrip antennas are required in
A number of approaches have been proposed to increase the some applications. The current goal is to enhance the band-
operating bandwidths of these antennas, including increasing width of a microstrip antenna while using a thin substrate
the substrate thickness, using different impedance-matching (less than 0.010).
and feeding techniques, and using multiple resonators and To meet this goal, a broadband low-profile microstrip patch
slot antenna geometries.1-12 However, these methods tend to antenna with a U-shaped parasitic element was investigated.
add to an antennas weight and volume, and can increase This relatively compact antenna was fabricated on a substrate
the fabrication cost. with thickness of 0.0080, where 0 is the wavelength in air of
Several newer, promising techniques have been proposed the center frequency at 2.45 GHz. This new microstrip antenna
to enhance microstrip antenna bandwidth. U-slot rectangu- was found to achieve a relatively larger impedance bandwidth
lar patch antennas13,14as well as U-shaped parasitic patch than a conventional microstrip antenna.
antennas15 with thick foam or substratehave been found Figure 1(a) shows top and side views of the proposed anten-
W H
HU W
WP
GV
W = 88
F L = 82
LU
GH F = 13
L LP H=1
L WP = 49
LP
LP = 38
GS
GS = 0.5
GF LF LS LS = 15.9
WU WS = 15
GS
WP WS Unit: mm
H
WF
(a) (b)
1. These diagrams compare (a) the proposed microstrip antenna with (b) a conventional microstrip antenna.
66 MONTH
MARCH 2014
YEAR MICROWAVES & RF
U-Slot Patch Antennas
0 0
5 5
10 10
15 15
Return lossdB
Return lossdB
20 20
25 25
LP = 38.1 mm LU = 33.2 mm
30 LP = 38.3 mm 30 LU = 33.4 mm
LP = 38.5 mm LU = 33.6 mm
35 LP = 38.7 mm 35 LU = 33.8 mm
LP = 38.9 mm LU = 34.0 mm
40 40
2.38 2.40 2.42 2.44 2.46 2.48 2.50 2.52 2.40 2.42 2.44 2.46 2.48 2.50 2.52
FrequencyGHz FrequencyGHz
2. These curves show the effects of different patch lengths on 3. These curves show the effects of differences in arm-length
antenna return loss. on antenna return loss.
na. For conformal applications, the antenna is constructed on The proposed antenna features a microstrip-fed rectangular
a substrate with thickness (H = 1 mm) of 0.0080 and relative patch and a U-shaped parasitic element. The rectangular patch
permittivity of 2.65. To achieve a wideband impedance match, is designed to resonate at a lower frequency than the resonant
two resonant modes should be excited simultaneously around modes. To maintain a desired resonant length with smaller size,
the center frequency, with the return losses between the two the length of the main patch (LP) is designed as 0.5Lg, with the
resonant frequencies maintained below 10 dB. width reduced to 0.25Lg, where Lg = the guided wavelength at
the lower frequency. To produce another resonance at a higher
frequency, a U-shaped parasitic element is added to surround
the radiating and nonradiating edges of the main patch.
The resonant length of the U-shaped patch can be controlled
by adjusting its length (LU) and width (WU). Electromagnetic
(EM) coupling between the main patch and parasitic patch
is realized across the horizontal (GH) and vertical (GV) gaps.
With a 50- microstrip feed line, the low-profile antenna is
convenient for integrating with other microwave components
and conforming to the structure.
This new antenna is designed to operate in the 2420-to-
2484-MHz region. To cover this bandwidth, the positions of
the two resonant frequencies should be close to the extreme
frequency limits of the desired operating band. Therefore, the
length and width of the main patch are designed to be close to
0.5Lg and 0.25Lg, respectively, at the lower resonant frequency
(2430 MHz).
Meanwhile the effective resonant length of the U-shaped
Three Volt Temperature Controller patchnamely LU + 0.5WU 0.5HUis close to 0.5Lg at the
The new DN505-0303 Subminiature Temperature Controlled Heater
compliments ThermOptics other Heater products that are designed to
higher resonant frequency of 2474 MHz.
heat sensitive Electronic Components such as frequency sources, Filters The antenna has been optimized with the aid of the High
and Optical Arrayed Waveguides (AWGs). The DN505-0303 supplies Frequency Structure Simulator EM simulation software from
3 Watts of power from a 2.7 to 3 Volt power supply. Ansoft Corp. (www.ansys.com). The final dimensions were
ThermOptics also designs and manufactures Log Amplifiers and set as LP = 38.5 mm; WP = 19.4 mm; LU = 33.6 mm; WU = 11.9
Optical Power Monitors. mm; HU = 1.7 mm; GV = 0.8 mm; GH = 1.8 mm; LF = 15.5 mm;
WF = 2.73 mm; GF = 0.5 mm; and H = 1 mm. The ground and
substrate size of the proposed antenna were defined as a length
www.thermoptics.com
1004 MalloryWay | Carson City, NV 89701 | PH: 775-882-7721 | FAX: 775-882-7675 width of 66 60 mm.
In the parametric studies, six critical parameters with strong
effect on the performances are given and discussed. The other horizontal gap increases from 1.8 to 2.6 mm. This also shows a
parameters, such as the patch width (WP and WU), the ground matching effect on the performance of the antenna.
size (L and W), substrate permittivity, and the substrate thick-
ness (H) are kept the same as mentioned above. The return loss Editors Note: To read the full version of this article, go to
curves of the proposed antenna are shown in Figs. 2 and 3 as a www.mwrf.com/passive-components/microstrip-antenna-
function of frequency for different design parameters. maintains-low-profile.
Figures 2 and 3 illustrate the influences of the patch lengths
ZHIFENG YAOL | Lecturer
(LP and LU) for the resonant frequencies. It can be seen from College of Mechanical and Electronic Engineering,
Fig. 2 that the position of lower resonant frequency is obvi- Northwest A&F University, Yangling 712100, Peoples Republic of China
ously shifted downward as LP increases, but that of higher reso- MINTONG LIL | Associate Professor
nance frequency is slightly shifted. The variation in the case of College of Mechanical and Electronic Engineering
Northwest A&F University, Yangling 712100, Peoples Republic of China
increasing LU is contrary to that of increasing LP, as shown in e-mail: limintongyd@163.com
Fig. 3. Comparing the two results shows that the position of
CHEN LIN L | Engineer
lower resonant frequency is primarily controlled by the length The 723 Institute of CSIC
(LP) of main patch; on the other hand, the length (LU) greatly Yangzhou 225001, Peoples Republic of China
affects the position of higher resonance frequency. DONG WANG, PH.D.
Figure 5 (online only) shows the effect of horizontal gap (GH) College of Mechanical and Electronic Engineering
Northwest A&F University, Yangling 712100, Peoples Republic of China
on antenna performance. It depicts that an increase in the hori-
zontal gap causes considerable shift downwards in the higher REFERENCES
resonant frequency and a moderate shift in the lower resonant 1. D.H. Schaubert, D.M. Pozar, and A. Adrian, Effect of microstrip antenna substrate
thickness and permittivity: Comparison of theories and experiment, IEEE Transac-
frequency. It should be noted that the two resonant frequen- tions on Antennas & Propagation, Vol. AP-37, June 1989, pp. 677-682.
cies are close to each other with increasing GH, contrary to 2. H.F. Pues and A.R. Van De Capelle, An impedance-matching technique for
increasing the bandwidth of microstrip antennas, IEEE Transactions on Antennas &
the effect of GV. As a result, the bandwidth decreases while the Propagation, Vol. AP-37, No. 11, November 1989, pp. 1345-1354.
gri_t52TCXO_1/4 page MRF_Layout 1 1/21/14 11:50 AM Page 1
3. F. Crop and D.M. Pozar, Millimeter-wave design of wide-band aperture-coupled
stacked microstrip antennas, IEEE Transactions on Antennas & Propagation, Vol.
39, No. 12, 1991, pp. 1770-1776.