Nest Watch: Proximity Sensor Antenna

Catherine Boosales
Spring 2001
Faculty Supervisor:

Dr. Thomas Weller

Abstract

The Nest Watch Wireless Sensor group project set out to design and build a sensor to monitor activity in a birds nest. This paper gives a brief description of the overall project and then directs focus to the 2.45 GHz patch antenna that was part of the proximity sensor of the system. Basic theory centered on the design improvements of an aperture couple-fed microstrip patch antenna is presented followed by an outline of the design steps. Lastly, data comparisons are made and conclusions drawn.

Introduction

With an overall goal of producing a wireless sensor that will monitor activity in a birds nest and transmit the data to a remote location for collection, two teams of students from two different universities collaborated on the project. Each student at the University of South Florida (USF) had two roles to play in terms of the overall project. One of these roles involved a system level responsibility of some type that would require substantial interaction with other team members, some of which were from the other university involved, Tennessee Technological University (TTU). The second role involved the analysis and design of one part of the overall sensor. The production of the antenna for the proximity sensor and the integration and calibration of the same sensor will be presented in this report. Before further details about the antenna or the proximity sensor are discussed, some description of the overall project, The Nest Watch Wireless Sensor, is necessary. USF was responsible for the production of three main parts of the sensor, the sensor card itself, the transmitter and the receiver. The sensor card is simply a proximity sensor with a temperature sensor and a light intensity sensor mounted to it. The proximity sensor works at a frequency of 2.45 GHz and will be described in more detail in the next section. The data from the sensor card is sent via a 915 MHz signal from the transmitter card, which would be attached to the sensor card, to the receiver. Once the signal is received, the information is processed and then displayed on a web page designed by TTU. The

student team members at TTU also designed the signal processing parts of the transmitter and receiver as well as the software that is used for the data collection. Students from both universities were responsible for inter-university communication where necessary. As an illustration of team roles, figure 1 demonstrates how the different parts fit together to form the collective project. The boxes in green represent USF and those in purple are for TTU. Proximity TTU Baseband TTU Temperature Light Intensity USF RF TX USF Antenna

USF

DC power TTU Baseband

USF TTU Signal Processing TTU Web Posting

USF Antenna

USF RF RX

TTU Figure 1: University Team Assignments

DC Power

On a slightly smaller scale, the baseline proximity sensor was assembled and built by a team of 4 students and then tested to obtain calibration data. This first sensor card consisted of a surface mount voltage controlled oscillator to generate the 2.45 GHz signal, a quadrature hybrid coupler to equally split the signal into two (a reference signal and a target signal), a surface mount mixer to serve as a phase detector and a patch antenna to send and receive the target signal. In addition, an amplifier was also produced to be used in the event that one of the signals wasnt strong enough for detection thereby requiring amplification. This card was the safe approach first design produced to ensure that a working sensor would be produced within the time frame of a semester. Further analysis and design of many of the individual components of the system were to be completed by the students as their individual projects.

The portion of the project presented in this paper contained two initial goals and the addition of a third, as the semester progressed. The first and foremost goal was that of producing a suitable antenna for the proximity sensor. This antenna was to transmit and receive at 2.45 GHz with a return loss of better than 10 dB. The safe-approach version of this antenna was to be probe-fed from the edge of the coupler on the sensor card through the ground plane of the antenna. Once the baseline antenna was produced, additional modifications to improve performance were to take place. The specifications of the second antenna were to be determined during the semester via feedback from various sources particularly including the calibration team with the overall goal of improving sensor performance. One such improvement suggested at the onset, was an antenna that was feed via a magnetically coupled feed line through a small aperture in the ground plane of the sensor card as pictured in figure 2.

Figure 2: Example drawing of an aperture-coupled feed antenna.

Once the initial probe-fed design was produced and tested, the motivation for producing this type of couple-fed antenna changed from that of improving polarization purity and return loss (by improving input impedance match) to the necessary goal of bringing the antenna closer to the sensor card for logistical reasons which will be explained later. The production approach for the antennas began with the performance of lab exercise 12 from the Wireless Circuits and Systems Design Course1 with modifications to feed characteristics and resonant frequency. The second design began with calculations by hand and then continued or altered in ADS-Linecalc and PCAAD. These calculations were then utilized to create a layout in ADS to allow for a Momentum Simulation. Lastly, the layouts were submitted for milling and then tested, and tuned as necessary, after production.

The second initial goal was to produce valid calibration data for the proximity sensor so that analysis could be performed. This data was to help determine how to distinguish between different types of activities in the nest. This calibration was to be performed initially on the coaxial part sensor that was set up and then on each successive sensor card to be produced. Calibration involved the testing and recording of output voltages for a range of set-ups selected to simulate bird nest activity such as the presence of eggs or that of a bird or two. This information was then relayed to TTU for reference when designing the baseband part of the transmitting system. As the second stage antenna design depends very highly on the placement of the feed line on the circuit, it was necessary to become considerably more involved with the sensor integration team than originally intended. In order to determine if the antenna design to be produced was going to function as planned, it was necessary to produce the new sensor card as well. As the semester progressed, additional time was spent on the production of the second and third stage sensor cards. The successful fabrication of these two cards quickly developed into the third goal of this particular project.

Theory

The Nest Watch Wireless Sensor utilizes three different antennas to operate. Two of these antennas are designed to operate at a frequency of 915 MHz for transmission and reception of data. The third antenna is part of the proximity sensor and as such will simultaneously transmit and receive a signal at a frequency of 2.45 GHz. The VCO on the sensor card generates a signal that is split into two equal signals. Both of the new signals are of the same frequency and phase. One of the signals gets sent directly to the mixer as the reference signal. The second signal is transmitted from the antenna towards the target (in this case, a resident of the nest). The signal will bounce off the target (if there is one present) and return to the antenna still at the same frequency, but with a different phase. This new signal is received and then sent back through the coupler to the other input of the mixer. The mixer will combine the two signals (the reference signal and the target signal) to produce a DC voltage, as is always the case when two signals of the same frequency are mixed, that will vary based on the phase difference. Since the

sensor card will be placed below the birds nest, a microstrip patch antenna was chosen as the design of the antenna because it will radiate a relatively broad beam that is normal to the surface of the patch. This will direct the signal in the correct direction for occupant detection. In addition, the patch antenna will resonate effectively at /2, which at 2.45 GHz would be of a fairly small size and therefore as unobtrusive to the bird as possible. Due to simplicity and the need for a baseline antenna to operate with, a probe-fed patch was designed. The equivalent circuit for such a patch is depicted in Figure 3, where the parallel RLC represents the patch and the series inductor stands for the inductance in the probe feed-line2.

Figure 3: Equivalent Circuit for Probe-fed Patch Antenna

The probe-fed (or line-fed) patch antenna only has one design parameter that can be varied to optimize input impedance. The location of the probe determines the magnitude of the real part of the input impedance and as such, cannot be located in the center of the patch (where the impedance is /4 away from a virtual open and is therefore seen as a virtual short). This would be where Zin is zero and therefore not matched to the line. In addition, the probe cannot be at the edge because in a /2 patch, the both edges are virtual opens and the real impedance is at a maximum. An additional advantage to a probe-fed design is the lack of reliance on the balance of the circuit to complete the design. As the probe has to extend off of the back of the patch, the location of the probe on the sensor card is unimportant thereby eliminating many integration issues. Disadvantages to the probe feed, while numerous in some situations, are fairly limited in this application. The first and most obvious is a mechanical difficulty with the manner in which the antenna is attached to the sensor card. In the probe feed configuration, the patch extends from the back of the sensor card by about 3 centimeters as can be seen in figure 4. While this doesnt seem like a very large distance, it would 5

pose a problem should this initial design need to be placed unobtrusively underneath a birds nest. The nest would literally have to be balanced on the antenna. By utilizing an aperture couple fed antenna where the feed line is on the face of the sensor card with the rest of the circuit and the antenna is flat against the back of the card with a ground plane containing a small hole (or aperture) between them, the mechanical difficulties of the probe-fed antenna are alleviated.

Figure 4: Initial Probe-fed antenna pictured as connected to the back of the sensor card.

A second disadvantage of the probe-fed antenna has to do with polarization. While a probe feed will excite the dominant mode of the antenna element, the asymmetry of the feed in relation to the patch (as necessary for impedance matching) will generate some higher-order modes. These additional modes of excitation will produce crosspolarized radiation, degrading polarization purity. Lastly, the probe-fed patch antenna traditionally has a very narrow band width. This is due primarily to the location of the feed network and the resonating structure on the same substrate. In order to improve bandwidth, it is possible to use a thicker substrate with a lower dielectric. Unfortunately, with the feed set up as a probe (the same would be true of an inset microstrip feed), increasing the thickness or dielectric of the substrate would also be increasing the thickness of the feed substrate thereby increasing spurious feed radiation in the circuit. This will affect overall antenna performance by increasing loss of power and possibly affecting radiation efficiency, which is why in circuits where radiation losses are detrimental, thin, high dielectric substrates are advantageous (such as GaAs). Since the supplies available for this design did not include substrates of varying

thickness and dielectric, this disadvantage could not be accounted for and was subsequently uncorrectable in the final design. The second iteration of antenna design involved the alteration of the feed mechanism through which the antenna receives its power. This mechanism, an aperturecoupled microstrip antenna, was first proposed by D.M. Pozar in the mid-eighties3. As mentioned in the introduction, this design consists of a patch antenna on one layer of substrate with the feed line (or network) on a second layer of substrate with a mutual ground plane between them. The ground plane contains a hole or aperture that is electrically small as compared with the wavelength of operation. This hole allows the coupling of the equivalent magnetic current of the feed line through the aperture to stimulate the dominant H-field of the patch4. If the dominant mode of the patch has an electric field of zero and a maximum magnetic field centered directly below the patch, then placement of the slot in this location would give a maximum coupling factor5. Pozar demonstrated this in his initial proposal of the design. An equivalent circuit representation of this mechanism is pictured in figure 5 where the series RLC represents the patch, the parallel inductor is the aperture and the shunt capacitor stands for the feed line6.

Figure 5: Equivalent Circuit for Aperture-coupled Patch Antenna

There are many advantages to an antenna of this feed type, not all of which were necessary for this particular application. As mentioned earlier, this feed arrangement requires the antenna and the circuit to be on separate substrates. This makes it possible to utilize a thick, low dielectric constant substrate to maximize radiation and bandwidth on the antenna side and a thin, high dielectric constant substrate (such as GaAs) to optimize the circuit side. In addition, this configuration reduces the competition for real estate on the circuit board between circuit devices and the antenna. Since the ground plane effectively shields the two sides from each other, there is reduced spurious radiation affecting the antenna from the feed lines or active devices of the circuit. 7

Other advantages include a reduction in the size of the back lobes of the radiation pattern because the aperture is smaller than the resonant size and a reduction in higher order modes due to the symmetrical excitation resulting from the aperture location in the center of the patch. This design also gives four degrees of freedom in design optimization: the slot size, the feed substrate parameters, the feed line width and the location of the slot. Impedance matching is achieved through the adjustment of the length of the slot and the width of the feed line. As an example of how adjusting these parameters affects antenna performance, it should be noted that increasing the stub length from 10% of the patch length to 50% of the patch length will rotate the trace around the smith chart to allow for the tuning of the reactive part of the impedance as pictured in figure 6a. Adjusting the aperture length from 22.5% of the patch length to 35% of the patch length allows for the tuning of the resistive part of the impedance and will increase the coupling factor as illustrated in figure 6b7.

50%

40% 20%

10%

Figure 6a: Input impedance as a function of stub length. Percentages are of patch length.

35% 30% 25%

22.5%

Figure 6b: Input impedance as a function of aperture length. Percentages are of patch length.

These charts show how the impedance changes as a function of changing one (of four possible) parameter. Lap is the length of the aperture and Ls is the length of the slot. As in the case of a probe-fed patch as well, the resonant frequency is primarily determined by the length of the patch. In an aperture coupled microstrip patch antenna, the resonant frequency decreases and the resonant resistance increases with increasing slot length. This relationship could come in very handy if patch size was limited but slot length was not (within reason) and resonant resistance was unimportant. This would allow you to increase the length of the slot and decrease the length of the patch and still maintain the same resonant frequency while only increasing resonant resistance.

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Design Process

As previously mentioned, the first goal of this project was to produce a patch antenna to be utilized as part of the safe approach sensor that was being produced. To this end, calculations to determine the initial patch dimensions were made as shown in figure 7. The only substrate available for this design was FR-4 which has a dielectric constant of 4.3 and a dielectric loss tangent of 0.022. Additionally, the thickness used for calculations was 0.1574 cm. 3.0 108 = 0.059m = 59mm 2.45 109 4.3 width of patch = length x 1.25 = 23.604mm

C fd r

= 29.505mm = length of patch 2

Figure 7: Probe-fed Patch Initial Calculations

Once the dimensions were calculated by hand, all the information was entered into an antenna design program called PCAAD. This allowed the determination of the optimal probe-to-edge distance for the feed line. This dimension is the one design parameter that can be altered to affect the antennas effective match to the 50 feed line of the probe (and ultimately the sensor circuit, as well). The distance that was chosen based on the best match was 1.108 cm from the edge. Calculations determined that this location should give an impedance value between 50.5+j15 and 49.3+j7 for the frequency of interest. A rendition of the patch layout that was submitted for milling can be seen in figure 8 on the next page. This antenna was milled, soldered and tested, the results of which will be discussed in the next section.

11

29.60 mm

11.84 mm

11.84 mm

Figure 8: Microstrip Patch Antenna Version 1

23.68 mm

The next step in the design process involved the acquisition of knowledge of the Momentum features in Agilents Advanced Design System (ADS). By performing a previously tested procedure involving the definition and simulation of a shunt stub layout, it was possible to gain initial exposure to this program. In the process, new but critical concepts such as how to define a substrate or edit a port quickly became clear. These steps were explored further in the process of designing the second generation of antennas. As a further investigation into these features, the probe-fed patch designed above was successfully simulated and the results compared to actual data to be discussed in the next section. Some alterations of the size of the patch had to be made to account for the lack of precision in placement of the probe feed (it had to be measured and drilled by hand). In order to adjust the input impedance to improve return loss, 0.5 mm were manually (estimated) sliced off the length closest to the probe. This action was intended not only to slightly increase the resonant frequency (i.e. Small patch) but also effectively decreased the probe-to-edge distance thereby increasing the impedance from around 46 to 50. The results of this effort will also be discussed in the next section.

11.08 mm

12

The second antenna design process began with the PCAAD program and the dimensions of the previous patch. In this program, there is an option for designing a

rectangular aperture coupled patch. When selecting this option (located under the microstrip heading), the user is prompted for the necessary parameters. These included the antenna substrate dielectric constant thickness, the patch length and width, the feed substrate dielectric and thickness (which in our case was the same as the antenna substrate), the slot length and width, and the feed line width and stub length. A diagram of these dimensions as defined by the PCAAD program is pictured in figure 9.
Patch length

Feed line width

Slot length Patch width Slot width

Stub length

Figure 9: Antenna Dimensions for PCAAD program

Feed line Antenna Aperture

Once the parameters were keyed in correctly, PCAAD will estimate the design frequency and use that as the default center frequency over which to analyze the input impedance of the antenna (over a sweep range with this frequency at the center)8. The program will also compute and display the estimated bandwidth, the radiation efficiency, the front-to-back ratio and the directivity. In this case, the only parameter that couldnt be altered was that of the feed line width which was set at 50 for the circuit of the

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sensor card. If a different impedance was needed for the antenna, a matching network of some type would have to be included in the sensor card layout. To avoid additional integration difficulties, it was most convenient to match the antenna to 50 as was done with the probe-fed patch. Once dimensions that appeared to give the correct response were simulated in PCAAD, the same dimensions were then drawn in the layout program of ADS. Initial attempts to match the ADS results to the PCAAD results proved much more discouraging than helpful. To alleviate this frustration, PCAAD was virtually abandoned for the remainder of the design process. The initial patch design that was created for simulation consisted of an assortment of arbitrarily chosen lengths (kind of a guess). This was done because it was initially unclear as to how PCAAD had defined the dimensions that were working, and because additional practical exposure to the substrate/layer definitions in ADS was necessary. In order to define a substrate, ADS asks that all the necessary parameters are keyed in and then the program will compute the substrate over a given frequency range. This newly created definition can then be saved for future use. The more difficult part of this substrate defining process was to assign the definitions to the correct layers so that ADS knows how this design is assembled. As can be seen in figure 10, the substrate layers had to be defined in terms of the layers on which the design was drawn.

AIR FR4 FR4 AIR Red is antenna, black is ground plane and gold is feed line Figure 10: Definition of design layers (lines are copper)

In this design, the patch was on the 1st cond layer, the feed line was on the second cond layer (cond2) and the slot was on one of the pcvia layers. By telling ADS

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how each layer was related to both the substrates and the air, it was possible to successfully simulate a multi-layered magnetically coupled design. Since an impedance maximum will occur at wavelength multiples, an impedance minimum and therefore a current maximum will occur wavelength from the maximum point. This would indicate that if the maximum current in the feed line should be located at the aperture opening, then the feed line should be terminated in an RF open wavelength past the slot. In simulation, this didnt appear to work. The simulations where the feed line ended wavelength past the slot produced resonant frequencies with unacceptable return losses (less than 8 dB). After repeated attempts at correcting this problem by altering the slot dimensions and the patch dimensions, it became clear that regardless of what the theory dictates, in simulation, this arrangement wasnt producing even moderately acceptable results. Furthermore, the original antenna attempt, which was based on a misinterpretation of the PCAAD arrangement, produced the best results to this point. It was also discovered in this original design attempt that, contrary to the correct information in PCAAD, results were more predictable when the long side of the slot was perpendicular to the patch. It quickly became apparent in this process that a much smaller patch needed to be utilized when using this method in order to keep the resonant frequency in the right frequency range. With all this in mind, the final attempts began to approach the arena of suitable designs. Narrowing the slot produced better return loss but tended to increase resonant frequency so the patch length had to be reduced to compensate. The last iteration involved the scaling of the parts in relation to each other to maintain the same match, but to increase the resonant frequency. This actual layout of this design can be pictured in figure 10a while the current distribution simulation can be seen in figure 10b showing maximum current in the slot where the coupling is occurring.

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Figure 11a: Aperture Coupled Patch Antenna Layout Used for Simulations

Figure 11b: Aperture Coupled Patch Antenna Current Distribution Simulation (green is higher current levels)

After the simulations were producing acceptable results, the actual layout of the antenna needed to be produced. The first challenge involved creating an antenna and feed network without the sensor card so that testing could be accomplished on the antenna alone. As may be expected, while the above design simulates easily, the desire to test it in the lab illuminated some additional challenges. The feed network would be milled on FR4 substrate as usual with the added difficulty of requiring an accurately placed slot (or hole) in the ground plane on the reverse side. This proved to be somewhat of a challenge to our current milling capabilities, but was accomplished in a timely manner. The antenna itself had to be milled on single-sided FR4 so that no ground plane would be present. As was discovered the hard way, the layout for this part of the design needed to be a mirror image of the original layout as it would be flipped over and attached to the back of the feed network card. In addition, there needed to be a way to attach an edge-mount connector to the edge of the board. This required cutting away a few millimeters of the antennas substrate so that the connector could make contact with the ground plane.

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In addition to the desire to test the antenna individually, there was also the priority of producing a working sensor card. Since the feed line for this antenna is now a part of the sensor card circuit, successful integration became the next step. To this end, two cards were produced (in addition to the safe-approach card). The first one implemented the coupler that was designed by another student and can be viewed in figure 11a. The second card used all the same components of the safe-approach card with alterations in layout to accommodate the new antenna feed line and to allow for the insertion of an amplifier should one be necessary and can be viewed in figure 11b.

Figure 12a: Sensor card layout with new coupler (red is aperture in ground plane)

Figure 12b: Sensor card layout with only a feed line added (blue is antenna on back of card).

The last step to the design process involved the tuning of the new aperture coupled patch antenna after milling. The resonant frequency was not where it needed to be so initially some copper tape was added to the patch length to reduce the frequency. These pieces of tape worked very well, so they were measured and the dimensions added to the size of the patch. Additional patched were produced for those that were already milled and the ones that had not be produced yet were altered. The results of the antenna tests will be displayed and discussed in the next section. The results of the actual sensor

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card will not be included in this report as the card was sent to TTU before anything more than an initial test was completed.

Measurement Methods and Simulated Results

In terms of the testing of the proximity sensor antenna there are two main concerns. One is resonant frequency as 2.45 GHz was chosen as the operating frequency because it is in the range of frequencies not really regulated by the FCC for institutional usage. If we operate too far from 2.45 GHz, we would be in danger of breaking a few laws. The second main concern is that of return loss. The antenna is designed to operate at very low power (partially to avoid cooked eggs) and as such, needs an antenna that will transmit and receive a vast majority of the usable power. Knowing that amplification can make up for some of the loss of power on the return path, the necessary return loss was set at 10 dB. The first iteration of antennas, which was the probe-fed patch, resonated at 2.43 GHz with a return loss of only 8.7 dB. This antenna was used in conjunction with the original safe-approach sensor card and valid calibration data was obtained which was the goal for that antenna. However, the voltages produced by the mixer during this trial were considerably lower than those produced by the first coaxial sensor circuit that we measured. This would be because the signal was too weak which would be the direct effect if the return loss was not optimum. The results of this measurement made with the HP8714 Vector Network Analyzer can be seen below in figure 12.

Lowest Reflection at Resonant Frequency Figure 13: VNA generated plot of S11.

2.43GHz

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In addition, this measurement was made with the Anritsu Scorpion, which can measure up to 6 GHz to allow viewing of any additional resonances due to other patch dimensions besides the length. This data was saved in .S2P format and then imported into ADS to allow simple comparisons to the simulations. Figures 13a and b show this comparison and as can be clearly seen, the response of the measured data is a little closer to the design value because of the removal of the thin strip of copper that was mentioned earlier. In addition, it is apparent that there are three resonant frequencies within the range in which we are measuring but the 2nd and 3rd are far away from the design frequency so not in any danger of interfering. The smith chart plot also shows that the marker frequencies (1st resonance) are closer to the center of the chart indicating a better match than the other two frequencies. (Note: In all of the following plots, red is measured data and blue is simulated data)

P robe-fed P atch S im ulated D ata vs. M easurem ents 10 0

Reflection (dB)

m2 m1

-10 -20 -30 -40 0 1 2 3 Frequency (G Hz) 4 5 6

m1 freq = 2 .3 3 7 G H z d B (S (3 ,3 ))= -1 0 .8 0 7

m2 freq = 2 .4 2 8 G H z d B (S (1 ,1 ))= -9 .4 3 5

Figure 14a: Comparison of Measured data with Simulations for Probe-fed Patch

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P robe-fed P atc h M easured D ata vs . S im ulation

m2
S (3,3) S (1,1)

m1

freq (10.00kH z to 6.000G H z)

m1 freq=2.337E9Hz S(3,3)=0.288 / 172.253 impedance = Z0 * (0.554 + j0.047)

m2 freq=2.428E9Hz S(1,1)=0.337 / 122.032 impedance = Z0 * (0.602 + j0.389)

Figure 14b: Smith chart plot of measured data versus simulations for probe-fed patch

The second iteration on which measurements were made was the first aperture couple fed antenna produced (separate from the sensor card). The same measurements were made with the Scorpion data compared to the simulated data shown in figures 14a and 14b.
Initial Couple-fed Patch Simulated Data vs. M easurements 5 0

Reflection (dB)

-5

m2
-10 -15 -20 0 1 2 3 Frequency (G Hz) 4 5 6

m1

m1 freq=2.450GHz dB(S(3,3))=-17.190

m2 freq=2.721GHz dB(S(1,1))=-9.942

Figure 15a: Comparison of Measured data with Simulations for Couple-fed Patch

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Initial C o up le -f e d P atc h Me asure d D ata vs . S im ulatio n

S(3,3) S(1,1)

m1 m2

freq (10.00kHz to 6.000G Hz)

m1 freq=2.450E9H z S(3,3)=0.138 / -19.267 im pedance = Z0 * (1.294 - j0.120

m2 freq=2.721E9H z S(1,1)=0.318 / -9.351 im pedance = Z0 * (1.899 - j0.219)

Figure 15b: Smith chart plot of measured data versus simulations for couple-fed patch

As may be apparent from the plots, the resonant frequency is quite a bit off from the design value and with not nearly as good of a return loss value. As mentioned before, to correct for this, small pieces of copper tape were used to increase the length of the patch to hopefully bring the frequency closer to the design value. Additionally, it can be observed from the log-mag format plot, that there was a slight calibration flaw where the value of S11 goes greater than zero. This error was corrected for in the next set of comparisons. Finally, after the copper tape additions had been replaced by a newly milled patch design (larger by the copper tape amount) a second set of measurements were made with the Scorpion but with a better calibration. These measurements are compared to simulated data in figures 15a and 15b.

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Final Couple-fed Patch M easured D ata vs. Sim ulation 1 10 0 Reflection (dB) -10 -20 -30 -40 0 1 2 3 Frequency (G Hz) 4 5 6

m1

m2

m1 freq= 2.450G H z dB (S (3,3))= -17.190

m2 freq= 2.473G H z dB (S (1,1))= -34.957

Figure 16a: Comparison of measured data with original design simulations for the tuned couple-fed patch.
F inal C o up le -fe d P atch Me asure d D ata vs. S im ulatio n 1

S(3,3) S(1,1)

m2

m1

freq (10.00kHz to 6.000G Hz)

m1 freq=2.450E9Hz S(3,3)=0.138 / -19.267 im pedance = Z0 * (1.294 - j0.120

m2 freq=2.473E9Hz S(1,1)=0.018 / 158.407 im pedance = Z0 * (0.967 + j0.013)

Figure 16b: Smith chart plot of measured data versus original simulations for second couple-fed patch

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It is worth noting from the above displays, that the actual antenna response, while not quite at 2.45 GHz, was better matched to 50W than was the simulation. M2 in the above plot is virtually in the center of the smith chart with the display indicating that the impedance is equal to Zo*(0.967 + j0.013). An ideal load would be Zo*(1+j0.0). This match explains why the return loss of the actual antenna is almost doubled that of the original simulation. The fact that the antenna that was increased in length came closer to resonating at the same frequency as the simulation than did the original design (which had the same dimensions as the simulated patch) leads one to believe that one or more of the handkeyed parameters might be incorrect. It was noted that without the ground plane on the FR4 (as was the case with the antenna layout), it is obvious that different sheets of substrate are of different colors (one was yellow, the other white). If the dielectric constant was, in reality, different than designed with, it could significantly change the necessary design. If the dielectric is increased, it would increase the resonant frequency by reducing the size of the wavelength in the dielectric. Because of this, it is apparent that the substrate used for milling the antennas could quite possibly have had a higher constant that 4.3.

Conclusions and Recommendations

As the design and testing process drew to a close, it became quite clear how important it was to have left some room for flexibility in the original design schedule. Uncontrollable difficulties, such as unexplainable glitches in the simulation programs, arose that delayed the production process by weeks. In the case of the antenna and the sensor card, this prevented extensive testing of the final product. Overall, this particular design process was very successful. The antennas were produced on schedule (for the most part) and to specifications. As this was a group project, one of the original goals was to stick to the individual schedule as closely as possible so as to not hold up anyone elses design production. This particular goal was met without too much difficulty. In addition, and more importantly, the final antenna was completed with the antenna residing directly on the back of the ground plane of the sensor card, resonating at 2.45 GHz and giving a

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return loss of considerably better than 10 dB. Further investigation into this design process could involve altering the design to affect radiation pattern and investigating how this affects the ability of the sensor to monitor activity in a nest. In addition, some time needs to be invested into determining what the voltage output values of the sensor card are actually indicating. Had the sensor card that included this new improved antenna been available for testing, some in-depth calibration trials could have been completed towards this end.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank a few people without whose help and patience, this project would not have been possible. The first is Dr. Rudolph Henning for not only lending all of his antenna books but also for allowing the freedom to work on my own schedule. The second two people who should be acknowledged here are Cheevin Chulikavit and Marc Ejgird both of whom accepted our confused scheduling without complaint and who completed circuit milling overnight as needed.

T. Weller, Wireless Circuits and Systems Laboratory #12: Dipole and Patch Antennas, University of South Florida, w12-exp-010101, 2001. 2 D.M. Pozar, Microstrip Antennas, Proc. IEEE, Vol. 80, No. 1, pp. 79-81, January 1992. 3 D.M. Pozar, Microstrip antenna aperture-coupled to a microstrip-line, Electronic Letters, Vol. 21, No. 2, pp. 49-50, Jan. 1985. 4 H.A. Bethe, Theory of Diffractions by Small Holes, Physical Review, Vol. 66, pp. 163-182, 1944. 5 C. A. Balanis, Antenna Theory: Analysis and Design, Second Edition, John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 1997. 6 D.M. Pozar, Microstrip Antennas, Proc. IEEE, Vol. 80, No. 1, pp. 79-81, January 1992. 7 P.L. Sullivan and D.H. Schaubert, Analysis of an aperture coupled microstrip antenna, RADC-TR-85274, Rome Air Development Center, Feb. 1986. 8 D.M. Pozar, Personal Computer Aided Antenna Design for Windows: version 3.0, Antenna Design Associates, Inc. Leverett, MA 1996.

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