2013 Ninth International Conference on Intelligent Information Hiding and Multimedia Signal Processing

Design of High Gain Planar Dipole Array Antenna for WLAN Application

Yuh-Yih Lu, Jhih-Jie Jhu Hsiang-Cheh Huang

Department of Electrical Engineering Department of Electrical Engineering
Minghsin University of Science and Technology National University of Kaohsiung
Hsinchu 304, Taiwan, R.O.C. Kaohsiung 811, Taiwan, R.O.C.
[email protected] [email protected]

Abstract—This paper presents a new design of planar dipole the dipole element are chosen to fabricate the proposed
array antenna (PDAA). Radiated patches are etched on the antenna which can operate at 5.2/5.8 GHz. The fabricated
metallic layer of a double-sided printed circuit board (FR4) to array antenna can be built on a double-sided FR4 substrate
form the PDAA. The two symmetric flags with trapezoid patch and reduce the manufacturing cost.
are designed on both side of the print circuit board to form the
basic dipole element. IE3D software is used to design PDAA. II. ANTENNA DESIGN
Better parameters are selected to manufacture the proposed
The basic dipole element configuration of the proposed
array antenna. The fabricated 4×8-element planar dipole array
PDAA is depicted in Fig. 1. In figure 1(a), two symmetric
antenna can be operated at 5.2/5.8 GHz successfully. With
suitable size parameters of the dipole element, PDAA is
flag type patches with trapezoid patch are etched both on the
fabricated. From the measured results, the wide bandwidth front upper-side and back lower-side metallic layers of FR4
about 1.97GHz is obtained. The peak gain of the fabricated substrate to form the basic dipole element and create the
PDAA with reflector is 15.55dBi at 5.2GHz and 17.53dBi at operating frequency bands. Figure 1(b) shows the same
5.8GHz. This high gain planar dipole array antenna can be structure performed as figure 1(a) but upside down. The
used in WLAN frequency band. antenna structures are etched on a double metallic layer of
FR4 dielectric substrate which has relative permittivity of 4.4
Keywords-dipole array antenna; wide bandwidth ;WLAN and thickness of 0.6mm. The dipole element 1 and 2 shown
in Fig. 1 are placed closely. The right flag on front side of
I. INTRODUCTION element 1 is designed to overlap the left flag on back side of
element 2. This structure shown in Fig. 2(a) can reduce the
Today multimedia improves the lives of people in its entire size and increase impedance bandwidth of array
application. Many multimedia applications are invented as antenna.
part of functions of mobile device. Mobile devices transmit
and receive data over the air without wired cabling. Antenna
plays an important role on these wireless communication
systems. In many applications it is necessary to design
antennas with high gain to meet the demands of long
distance communication. Usually the single element antenna
provides low gain. Therefore, enlarge the dimensions of the
antenna or form an assembly of radiating elements is usually
used to increase the gain value. The array antenna structure
is widely applicable to increase the range and reliability of
wireless communication. Compact size, lower cost and easy
fabrication are important factors to design antenna. The 
planar antenna can meet these attractive features. Therefore,
(a) Dipole element 1 (b) Dipole element 2
many researches have been reported to study planar array
antenna for wireless communications [1-7]. Figure 1. Geometry of the basic dipole element of PDAA.
Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) provides the data
networking needs of public wireless service subscribers. Two series feed 1×2 elements are parallel connection
High gain antenna is critical to WLAN system. Reflect array with microstrip feed line and form a 1×4 elements planar
or line fed antenna array is usually used to implement high antenna array shown in Fig. 2(b). Eight subsections shown in
gain array antenna [8-9]. In this study, a new design of high Fig. 2(b) are designed to create the proposed 4×8 elements
gain planar dipole array antenna is proposed. The return loss, planar dipole array antenna shown in Fig.3. A hybrid (series-
resonant frequency, impedance bandwidth, and radiation parallel) feed network is used for the proposed PDAA. The
pattern are obtained from IE3D simulations. The designed proposed PDAA is fed with an SMA connector on the end
PDAA excites the resonant frequency that can be used for point A of line 9 (L9). W and L are the width and length of
WLAN applications. The suitable geometric parameters of the proposed array antenna, respectively. In figure 3, the

978-0-7695-5120-3/13 $26.00 © 2013 IEEE 1

DOI 10.1109/IIH-MSP.2013.9
distance between dipole element 1 and 2 is D1 which equals transformer in the feeding network. The feeding branch
to 0.5 λ . λ is the wavelength in the dielectric medium. D2 composed of L6 and L7 is T-junction microstrip power
is the distance between two parallel sections and equals to divider. L8 and L9 are also used to form T-junction
microstrip power divider. A print circuit board is used as the
0.436 λ0 [7]. λ0 is the free space wavelength of the
reflector. The air gap between the proposed PDAA and
designed operation frequency. reflector is equal to λ0 / 4 .

III. THE SIMULATIONS

The design of the single dipole patch was conducted to
meet the wanted return loss and operation frequency at
5.8GHz. Table I lists the characteristic impedance and length
of each microstrip feed line branch in the feeding network.
 The upper side length and lower side length of trapezoid are
7mm and 4mm, respectively. The bottom length of flagstaff
(a) Series feed 1×2 array is 0.7mm. We adopted various size parameter a of flag
shown in Fig.1 of PDAA and fixed other parameters listed in
Table II to observe the characteristics of PDAA. The
numerical simulation and analysis for the proposed PDAA
are performed using IE3D simulation software. The
simulated curves of return loss against frequency for varying
a of the PDAA are shown in Fig.4.

(b) Parallel feed network performed with two series feed 1×2 elements .

Figure 2. Dipole element connected with microstrip feed line.

Figure 4. Simulated return loss for varying size parameter a of the

proposed PDAA.

TABLE I. FEED LINE PARAMETERS OF THE PROPOSED PDAA.

L1 70, length 47.75mm

L2 40, length 7mm

L3 60, length 7.24mm

L4 90, length 15mm

L5 50, length 27.35mm

L6 70.7, length 14.7mm

Figure 3. Geometry of the proposed 4×8 elements PDAA.
L7 50, length 36.5mm
Quarter-wavelength transformer is commonly used to L8 70.7, length 14.7mm
match the antenna to the transmission line [10]. Another
technology used to solve the matching problem is T-junction L9 50, length 7.14mm
microstrip power divider [11]. L3 is a quarter-wavelength

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 From this figure, simulated return loss of PDAA mismatch and fabrication tolerance. The measured
increased with decreasing value a at 5.8GHz and impedance impedance bandwidth for return loss less than -10dB is
bandwidth is nearly unchanged. We also changed size 1.97GHz and this broader bandwidth phenomenon can be
parameter c and fixed other parameters to observe the used in WLAN application.
characteristics of PDAA. From figure 5, the same trend is The measured radiation patterns for the fabricated PDAA
observed at 5.8GHz. Therefore, we set a=6.5mm and c=6mm without reflector at 5.2GHz and 5.8GHz are shown in Fig.8.
in this study. Under the simulation results, the suitable size Figure 9 shows the measured radiation patterns under the
parameters are chosen and listed in Table II. same testing condition as Fig.8 but PDAA with reflector.
The measured peak gains for testing frequencies at x-z and y-
z plane of the fabricated PDAA with and without reflector
are listed in Table III. From this table, it can be observed that
the measured peak gain of the fabricated PDAA increased
with adding reflector at the testing frequency.

Figure 5. Simulated return loss for varying size parameter c of the (a) Top view
proposed PDAA.

TABLE II. GEOMETRIC PARAMETERS OF DIPOLE ELEMENT SHOWN IN

FIG.1

(b) Side view

a b c d e f g h Figure 6. Photography of the fabricated PDAA with reflector.

6.5 1 6 1.7 12.7 3 1.3 6

mm mm mm mm mm mm mm mm

IV. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

From the simulation results, we use the same geometric
parameters to fabricate the proposed planar dipole array
antenna which can reach the operating frequencies covering
5.2/5.8 GHz. It is well known that the fields from the
elements of the array interfere constructively in the desired
directions and destructively in the remaining space to
provide better directive patterns. Therefore, the size
parameters shown in Fig.1 should be carefully designed to
obtain the wide bandwidth and higher antenna gain. A
prototype array antenna with the size W×L=147×174(mm)2
is implemented in this study. The photography of fabricated
PDAA is shown in Fig.6.
The simulated and measured curves of return loss against
frequency of the fabricated PDAA are illustrated in Fig.7. Figure 7. Measured and simulated curves of return loss against frequency
From this figure, we observe that the simulated and of the proposed PDAA.
measured operating frequency band and return loss have the
same trend. There are discrepancies between the simulated The measured peak gains of the fabricated PDAA with
and measured results which may occur because of the effects reflector at 5.2GHz and 5.8GHz were 15.55dBi and
of the coaxial connector soldering process, feeding network 17.53dBi, respectively. From Fig. 8 and Fig. 9, it is found

3
that the planar dipole array antenna uses a reflector can TABLE III. MEASURED PEAK GAIN OF THE FABRICATED PDAA AT THE
OPERATING FREQUENCY.
obtain directional radiation and higher gain. The proposed
array antenna exhibits large bandwidth (4.69-6.66 GHz) and reflector Frequency x-z plane y-z plane
high gain characteristics and can be used for WLAN
applications. without 5.2GHz 12.79dBi 12.23dBi
with 5.2GHz 15.55dBi 15.23dBi
without 5.8GHz 15.51dBi 15.12dBi
with 5.8GHz 17.53dBi 17.52dBi

V. CONCLUSIONS
This paper has described a new design for WLAN planar
dipole array antenna. The fabricated planar dipole array
antenna comprises of a 4×8-element dipole array which is
constructed easily by etching on both sides of a FR4
substrate. It can excite the frequency band that can be used
(a) x-z plane f=5.2GHz (b) y-z plane f=5.2GHz in 5.2/5.8 GHz. Carefully choose the designed parameters
of the PDAA would implement the wide bandwidth and
high gain array antenna. The fabricated array antenna can
be built on cheaper FR4 substrate and reduce the
manufacturing cost of a device.
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Figure 9. Measured radiation patterns of PDAA with reflector.