Technische Universitt Chemnitz

Fakultt fr Elektrotechnik und Informationstechnik

Professur Hochfrequenztechnik und Theoretische Elektrotechnik

Masters Research Project

INVESTIGATE THE INFLUENCE OF DIFFERENT TYPES OF

FEEDS ON THE PERFORMANCE OF A RECTANGULAR
PATCH ANTENNA

Project Guide

: Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. Madhu Chandra

Submitted By

: Pavan Kumar Akula

Matriculation Number

: 389187

Course

: Information and Communication Systems

Degree

: Masters

Abstract:
Introduction:
In high-performance aircraft, spacecraft, satellite etc., where size, weight, cost performance
and ease of installation are constraints, low profile antennas may be required. Patch Antenna
meets this requirement.
Patch Antenna also called as Microstrip Patch Antennas are low cost, easily fabricated, and
are conformable to planar and coplanar surfaces. The Impedance and polarization pattern in
these Antennas can be designed by having additional loads between patch and ground plane
such as pins, varactor diodes. With the current state of art using modern printed-circuit
technology, mechanically robust when mounted on rigid surfaces, compatible with current
Monolithic Microwave Integrated Circuit (MMIC) technology. Along with the above
mentioned advantages, there are some disadvantages also that exist. Some of the main
disadvantages are Low efficiency, Low power, High Q (sometimes >100), and Narrow
frequency band-width.
The efficiency and band-width can be improved by increasing the height of substrate [1]. Due
to this increase in height, surface waves are introduced that can extract power from direct
radiation which is not desirable. These waves get scattered at the edges of the substrate and
surface discontinuity occurs [2] by degrading the pattern and characteristics of Antenna.
These waves can be eliminated by introducing cavities and stacking by maintaining large
bandwidths [3]. The Patch Antenna consists of a very thin metallic strip above the ground
plane where its thickness (t) should be << free-space wavelength.

Proposed Investigation:
To simulate and analyze the performance of a Rectangular Patch Antenna for a given desired
frequency of 3 GHz by using standard and popular feeds like Microstrip line, Coaxial probe,
Aperture coupling and Proximity coupling feed by examining various parameters like
radiation pattern, Gain, Bandwidth, Impedance and polarization. Also, to design a Microstrip
patch in such a way that the pattern is maximum and normal to patch which can be achieved
by selecting appropriate mode of excitation.
As a part of this research project, main aim is to conduct a critical literature survey on the
relative performance as well as on coupling mechanisms of different feeds and highlight the
findings and implement them using the below mentioned method. Also, to introduce the
concept of fringing effects [4] which generally occurs while simulating the Microstrip
Antenna using Transmission-Line model. We begin with this easier illustrative model in the
initial stages, simulate and understand its performance.
Latter in this report, the concept of Cavity model is introduced for which Patch Antenna
resonates in higher order and resembles dielectric loaded cavities [4]. Also we will
understand the physical interpretation of the formation of the fields with in the cavity due to
which the charge distribution is controlled using attractive and repulsive mechanisms.

Method Used:
1) To develop a Graphical User Interface (GUI) in MATLAB which takes height (h),
dielectric constant of substrate (r) and resonant frequency (f) as input parameters and
generates following output parameters like Length (L), width (W), Gain, Radiation
Resistance, Efficiency of an Antenna.
2) The theory for computing will be explained in the report will be based on the
reference [4].
3) The execution of the theory will be done via MATLAB, using the concept of Routines
in order to generate the output parameters and simulated using Ansoft HFSS.

Results:
1) To simulate the designed Antenna using Ansoft HFSS and decide the best feed based
on the results obtained using HFSS.
2) To compare and contrast the simulated radiation pattern of the various feeds of
Antenna.

Conclusion:
In the first phase i.e., Research project phase, a GUI is designed to simulate the performance
of a Rectangular Microstrip Patch Antenna using MATLAB. In the next phase i.e., Thesis
Phase, the above designed Antenna will be tested, simulated and performance will be studied
using advanced designing tools like CST and ADS.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER NO. TITLE
ABSTRACT
LIST OF FIGURES
1
INTRODUCTION
1.1 WHAT MAKES A GOOD ANTENNA
1.2 WORKING OF A PATCH ANTENNA
1.3 DESIGN PARAMETERS
1.4 METHOD OF ANALYSIS
1.4.1 TRANSMISSION-LINE MODEL
1.5 DESIGN
2
FEEDING METHODS
2.1 COAXIAL FEED

PAGE NO.
1
1
1
2
2
2
4
5
5

LIST OF FIGURES
FIGURE NO.
TITLE
1.1
Fringing effects along length of Patch
1.2
Physical and effective lengths of rectangular
microstrip patch

PAGE NO.
3
4

2.1

Top view of a typical microstrip antenna with coax

2.2

feed
Side view of a typical microstrip antenna with coax

feed

LIST OF TABLES
TABLE NO.
1.1

TITLE
List of Input Parameters

PAGE NO.
2

CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
Introduction:
Microstrip antennas have been one of the most innovative topics in antenna theory
and design in recent years, and are increasingly finding application in a wide range of modern
microwave systems. The basic configuration of a microstrip antenna is a metallic patch
printed on a thin, grounded dielectric substrate. Originally, the element was fed with either a

coaxial line through the bottom of the substrate, or by a coplanar microstrip line. This latter
type of excitation allows feed networks and other circuitry to be fabricated on the same
substrate as the antenna element, as in the corporate-fed microstrip array. It radiates a
relatively broad beam broadside to the plane of the substrate. This the microstrip antenna has
a very low profile, and can be fabricated using printed circuit (photolithographic) techniques.
To a large extent, the development of microstrip antennas has been driven by systems
requirements for antennas with low-profile, low-weight, low-cost, easily integrability into
arrays or with microwave integrated circuits, or polarization diversity.
Disadvantages of the original microstrip antenna configurations include narrow
bandwidth, spurious feed radiation, poor polarization purity, limited power capacity, and
tolerance problems. Much of the development work in microstrip antennas has thus gone into
trying to overcome these problems, in order to satisfy increasingly stringent systems
requirements [1].
1.1 What makes a good antenna? [5]
A) One single answer would be: resonant. An object may physically resonate - e.g. a
piano string, or a guitar string. Each of those musical instruments has a string that is
either struck or plucked - and the string physically vibrates at one specific frequency.
An antenna is similar in many ways to that musical string. It resonates best at one
particular frequency. It can resonate a little above and below that frequency, and
sometimes at multiples of that frequency, but it usually does best at that one
frequency.
1.2 Working of a Patch Antenna:
When the patch is excited by a feed, a charge distribution is established on the underside of
the patch metallization and the ground plane. At a particular instance of time, the underside of
the patch is positively charged and the ground plane is negatively charged. The attractive
forces between these sets of charges tend to hold a large percentage of the charges between
the two surfaces. However, the repulsive force between positive charges on the patch pushes
some of these charges towards edges, resulting in large charge density at edges [6]. The
dielectric Substrate is usually electrically thin (d < 0.05 0), so electric field components
parallel to the ground plane must be very small throughout the substrate. The patch element
resonates when its length is near /2, leading to relatively large current and field amplitudes.
In the view of equivalence theorem, there are several ways to interpret the resulting radiation.
Alternatively, radiation can be considered as being generated by the induced surface current
density, on the patch element in the presence of the grounded dielectric substrate [1]. There
are numerous substrates that can be used for the design of microstrip antennas, and their
dielectric constants are usually in the range of 2.2 < r < 12. The ones that are most desirable
for antenna performance are thick substrates whose dielectric constant is in the lower end of
the range because they provide better efficiency, larger bandwidth, loosely bound fields for
radiation into the space, but at the expense of larger element size.
1.3 Design Parameters: [7]

The following are some features of Rogers RT/Duroid 5880. It has low moisture absorption,
isotropic in nature, uniform electrical properties over frequency and excellent chemical
resistance. The dielectric constant of this material is uniform from panel to panel and is
constant over a wide frequency range. Its low dissipation factor extends to usefulness to Kuband and above. Table 1.1 shows various input parameters to consider for simulating.
Table 1.1: List of Input Parameters
Resonant Frequency
Dielectric Substrate
Dielectric Constant of Substrate(r)
Resonating Resistance (Rr)
Height of Substrate

9.8 GHz
Rogers RT/Duroid 5880
2.2
50
1.575 mm

1.4 Method of Analysis: [4]

There are many methods of analysis of microstrip antennas. The most popular models are the
transmission-line and cavity model. Amongst transmission-line model is easiest of all, it gives
good physical insight, but is less accurate and it is more difficult to model coupling.
1.4.1 Transmission-Line Model
Basically the transmission line model represents the microstrip antenna by two slots separated
by a low-impedance Z0 transmission line of Length L. The antenna is viewed as a length of
open-circuited transmission line with light loading at the ends to account for fringing fields
and radiation which is explained below. The voltage and current on this equivalent
transmission line can be approximated as [1]:
Voltage = V(x) = V0

Current = I (x) =

cos

X
L

V0
X
sin
Z0
L

a) Fringing effects:
Because the dimensions of the patch are finite along the length and width, the fields at the
edges of the patch undergo fringing. This is illustrated along the length in the Figure 1 for
the two radiating slots of the microstrip antenna. The same applies along width. Most of
the electric field lines reside in the substrate and parts of some lines exist and part of some
of lines in air. If the ratio of width and height is greater 1 and dielectric constant is greater
than 1, then the electric field lines concentrate mostly in the substrate. Fringing in this case
makes the microstrip line look wider electrically compared to its physical dimensions.
Since some of the waves travel through substrate and some in air, an effective dielectric
constant (eff) is introduced to bring fringing and the wave propagation in the line. For

most of the applications effective dielectric constant has values in the range of 1 < eff <
r near

to the values of original dielectric constant.

Fig 1.1: Fringing effects along length of Patch.

The effective dielectric constant is a function of frequency. As the frequency of operation
increases, most of the electric field lines concentrate in the substrate. For lower
frequencies the effective dielectric constant is essentially constant. At intermediate
frequencies its values begin to monotonically increase and eventually approach to the
values of dielectric constant of the substrate. Therefore the effective dielectric constant is
given by

where W is the width of the patch which can be calculated using the below formula and r
in our case is 2.2 and the width of the patch is given by

Where C is the velocity of light which is 3*108 M/Sec and f0 is the resonant frequency
which on our case is 9.8 GHz.

b) Calculation of Effective Length

Because of the fringing effects, electrically the patch of the microstrip antenna looks
greater than its physical dimensions. For the principal demonstrated where the dimensions
of the patch along its length have been extended on each end by a distance L, which is
function of effective dielectric constant and the width-to-height ratio.

Fig 1.2: Physical and effective lengths of rectangular microstrip patch.

A very popular and approximate relation for normal extension of length is

Since the length of the patch has been extended by L on each side, the effective length of
patch is now
Leff = L + 2 L
And Length of Patch is given by
L=

1.5Design:
Based on the simplified formulation that has been described, a design procedure is
outlined which leads to practical design of Rectangular Microstrip Antenna.
Inputs to be specified: r, fr (in GHz) and h (in cm).
Parameters to determine: W, L
Procedure:
1) For an efficient radiation, a practical width would lead to better
efficiencies.
2) Determine the effective Dielectric Constant (reff).
3) Once W is found, determine the extension length L.
4) Then obtain the actual length of Patch L.
5) For practical consideration, we have to consider the following ground
plane dimensions for simulation i.e., Lg = 6*h + L and Wg = 6*h + W.

CHAPTER 2
FEEDING METHODS
In this chapter, we will go through various types of feeds that have been present and their
characteristics. An antenna needs an input to show its performance characteristics which can

be done through these feeding methods. There are many configurations that can be used to
feed microstrip antennas. The four most popular are the Microstrip Line, Coaxial Probe,
aperture coupling and Proximity Coupling. Selection of the feeding technique governed by a
number of factors. The most important consideration is the efficient transfer of power
between the radiating structure and feed structure, that is, impedance matching between the
two. Minimization of spurious radiation and its effect on the radiation pattern is one of the
important factors for the evaluation of feed [6].

2.1 Coaxial feed

Coupling of power through a probe is one the basic mechanisms for the transfer of
microwave power. The probe can be an inner conductor of a coaxial line in the case of
coaxial line feeding or it can be used to transfer power from strip line to microstrip antenna
through a slot in the common ground plane. A typical microstrip antenna with coaxial feed is
show below.

Fig 2.1 Top view of a typical microstrip antenna with coax feed

Fig 2.2 Side view of a typical microstrip antenna with coax feed
As show in fig 2.2, the coaxial connector is attached to the back side of the printed circuit
board, and the coaxial center conductor after passing through the substrate is soldered to the
patch metallization. The location of feed point is determined for the given mode so that the
best impedance match is achieved. The outer core dimensions of the coaxial cable should be
2*inner core diameter. Coaxial probe feed has the advantage of simplicity of design through
the positioning of the feed point to adjust the input impedance level. But it has several
limitations. For increased bandwidth of Patch antenna, a thicker substrate is used and
therefore requires a longer probe. This gives rise to an increase in spurious radiation from
probe, increased surface power and increased feed inductance. However feed inductance can
be compensated by a series of capacitor [6].

2.2 Microstrip feed

A stripline or triplate device is a sandwich of three parallel conducting layers separated by
two thin dielectric substrates, the center conductor of which is analogous to the center
conductor of a coaxial transmission line. In contrast to this, a microstrip device is the simplest
form which consists of a sandwich of two parallel conducting layers separated by a single
thin dielectric substrate [8]. The first conducting layer is the lower conductor which acts as
a ground plane and the second layer is the upper conductor which is a simple rectangular
patch and the associated feed network. The coupling between the microstrip line and the
patch could be in the form of edge or through a gap between them [6]. In this type of feed
technique, a conducting strip which is smaller in width when compared to the patch is
connected directly to the edge of Microstrip Patch as shown is fig 2.3. However as the
thickness of the dielectric substrate being used, increases spurious feed radiation which
decreases the antenna bandwidth and introduces undesired cross polarized radiation. This can
be reduced by optimizing the aspect ratio W/L of the patch at about 1.5 [6]. This method is
advantages due to its simple structure. The edge coupled feed described suffers from a
limitation on impedance mismatch because the input impedance of the patch at its radiating
edge is very high compared to the 50 . Therefore, an external impedance matching circuit is
used between the patch edge and the 50 microstrip line. In the direct microstrip feed, the
feed point is selected on the non-radiating edge of the patch.

Fig 2.3 Patch Antenna with Microstrip Feed

References:
1. Pozar, David M., "Microstrip Antennas," Proceedings of the IEEE, vol.80, no.1, pp.79
- 91, Jan 1992.
2. Lier, E.; Jakobsen, K., "Rectangular microstrip patch Antennas with infinite and finite
ground plane dimensions," Antennas and Propagation, IEEE Transactions on, vol.31,
no.6, pp.978 - 984, Nov 1983.
3. Long, S.A.; Walton, M., "A dual-frequency stacked circular-disc antenna," Antennas
and Propagation, IEEE Transactions on, vol.27, no.2, pp.270-273, Mar 1979.
4. Balanis, Constantine A, "Antenna Theory: Analysis and Design," 2 nd ed., 1992, John
Wiley & Sons, Inc., pp. 727-752.

5. http://www.qsl.net/aa0ni/antennafaq.html, 04th July, 2015.

6. Ramesh Garg, Prakash Bhartia, Inder Bahl, "Microstip antenna design handbook," 2 nd
ed., 2001, Artech House, pp. 253.
7. Rogers RT/Duriod 5880 Datasheet, Rogers Corporation.
8. Carver, Keith R.; Mink, J., "Microstrip antenna technology," in Antennas and
Propagation, IEEE Transactions on , vol.29, no.1, pp.2-24, Jan 1981.