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A Dual Band Patch Antenna for Bluetooth and Wireless

Local Area Networks Applications
M. Mabaso and P. Kumar*

Discipline of Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering

University of KwaZulu-Natal, King George V Avenue, Durban 4041, South Africa
E-mail: [email protected]

miniaturized and multiband antennas have

Abstract- In this article, the design and increased vastly and rapidly. The communication
development of a novel rectangular patch antenna devices in use today requires wireless
for dual band applications that operates at 2.4 GHz connectivity for multiple applications such as
and 5.8 GHz is presented. The dual band antenna
Bluetooth, GPS, WLAN, GSM900, DSC1800,
consists of a rectangular patch which is fed by the
coaxial probe feeding technique. The ground plane
UTMS2000, etc. with different center
is loaded with two rectangular strip slots and one frequencies. While the usage of multiple
elliptical slot to drive the antenna into dual mode antennas can achieve multiband operations, but
and to enhance its bandwidth. The proposed they increase the costs, size of the device and
antenna is designed and simulated using CST complexity of the system. In addition to that,
microwave studio software. The antenna with using multiple antennas creates the coupling
optimized dimensions is fabricated and measured. problem which in turn degrades the performance
The various antenna parameters such as the return of the antennas.
loss, gain, directivity, E-plane and H-plane
radiation patterns etc are presented and discussed.
An alternative solution to achieve dual band
The return loss plot of the dual band antenna both
in simulation and in measurement conforms the
resonance is to modify the structure of a single
dual band characteristics. The size of the proposed band antenna in a systematic manner.
dual band antenna is compact and suitable for Modifications such as loading slots either on the
compact wireless devices. The antenna is low cost radiating patch or ground plane [6], stacking of
and provides high gain and high directivity. The two or more patches between one or more
maximum gain and maximum directivity of the dielectric layers [7], using more than one
proposed antenna are 7.398 dB and 7.923 dBi, radiating elements with different sizes that
respectively. The proposed antenna is designed resonates at different frequencies [8], reactive
using transmission line model and is suitable for loading with stubs [9], patch trimming with a
use in the Bluetooth and wireless local area
rectangular notch [10], or shorting pins [11] for
networks (WLANs) applications.
closely spaced bands with the frequency ratio
Index Terms- Dual band, elliptical slot, rectangular around 1.5:1 have been proposed. Some of these
patch antenna, rectangular strip slot, return loss. modifications hardly achieve the multiband
systems requirements. Another method known as
Defected Ground Structure (DGS), modifies the
I. INTRODUCTION ground plane to meet the multiband requirements
[12-14].
The compact size, low profile, low cost, easy
fabrication etc make the microstrip patch Defected Ground Structure (DGS) is the generic
antennas suitable for aircraft applications, missile structure mostly used for the microwave
applications, radar applications, mobile components design with high-performance and
communications etc [1-5]. The accelerating small size [15]. This structure is employed to
demand and developments of communication reject unwanted frequency, to produce wider
devices that require extremely high performing, bandwidths, and to reduce circuit size. DGS is an

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VOL.13, NO.5, SEPTEMBER 2018

etched lattice of certain shape located on the performance. Table 1 shows the optimized
ground plane. The performance of microstrip parametric values of the entire structure of the
antennas can be enhanced by introducing the dual band antenna.
defects in the ground plane [16]. The shape of the
defect may be changed from the simple shape to
the complicated shape for better performance.

The design of a novel dual band rectangular

patch antenna is presented in this paper. The
defected ground structure (DGS) is used to
achieve dual band and to enhance the bandwidth
of the antenna. The design is optimized and
simulated using CST microwave studio software.
A prototype is fabricated with the optimized
dimensions of the structure. Simulated as well as
measured results are shown. The designed and
developed high gain antenna is low cost antenna.
The proposed antenna is compact in size and
suitable for Bluetooth and WLANs application.
Rest of the paper is organized as follows. The
proposed antenna design and prototype
development are presented in section 2. Section 3
presents the simulated results, measured results
and discussion of results. Finally, section 4
concludes the work. (a)

II. THE PROPOSED DESIGN

The structure of the proposed rectangular

microstrip patch antenna for dual band operations
at 2.4 GHz and 5.8 GHz is shown in Fig. 1. The
top view, bottom view and the side view of the
structure is shown in Fig. 1(a), Fig 1(b) and Fig.
1(c), respectively. The antenna consists of a
rectangular radiating patch which is fed by a
coaxial or probe feed positioned at
and as shown in Fig. 1. The antenna
is designed on an FR4 dielectric substrate with a
thickness of and a dielectric constant of
. The rectangular slots, slot A and slot B
shown in Fig. 1 (b) have been introduced in the
ground plane to drive the antenna into dual mode
and an additional elliptical slot, slot C, as shown
in Fig. 1 (b) have been introduced too, to enhance (b)
the bandwidth of the antenna at these resonant
frequencies. The location of the feed point is
optimized to provide the desirable antenna

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Where is the effective dielectric constant of

the microstrip antenna and it is given by [2]:

Table 1: Dimensions of the proposed dual band

antenna.
S. Parameter Values
No.
(c) 1 4.4
Substrate dielectric constant,
Fig. 1 Dual band antenna structure (a) top view, (b) 2 Substrate thickness, 1.5
bottom view, (c) side view.
3 Ground plane length, 50

4 Ground plane width, 50

The dimensions of the rectangular microstrip are
calculated as follows for the central resonant 5 Copper thickness, 0.02
frequency of . The width ) of the 6 25
Patch length,
microstrip antenna is calculated by [2]:
7 Patch width, 25

8 Inner radius of SMA connector, 0.65

9 Outer radius of SMA connector, 2.335

Where is the velocity of light in free space. 10 x-coordinate of the feed point, -1

The actual length ) of the rectangular

microstrip antenna is calculated by [2]: 11 y-coordinate of the feed point, 6.5

12 Length of the rectangular slot, 20

Where is the effective length of the 13 Width of the rectangular slot, 3

microstrip patch antenna due to fringing fields
and is the additional length due to fringing 14 Major axis of the elliptical slot, 5
fields. The effective length and the
additional length of the microstrip antenna are 15 Minor axis of the elliptical slot, 3
given by [2]:

An equivalent circuit diagram of the DGS is

shown in Fig. 2 [15]. The DGS equivalent circuit
consists of a parallel tuned circuit in series with

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the transmission line to which it is coupled as

shown in Fig. 2. The different shapes of DGS
have the same role and same characteristics of
slow wave effect and high impedance, band
rejection, miniaturization of size with the same
equivalent circuit. However, to improve the
circuit performance of antenna the shape of DGS
can be further change or modified.

The prototype of the proposed antenna was

fabricated and investigated experimentally. The
photographs of the developed prototype of the (b)
proposed antenna are presented in Fig. 3 with top
Fig. 3 Fabricated dual band antenna (a) top view, (b)
view and bottom view in Fig. 3(a) and Fig. 3(b), bottom view.
respectively.

III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

In this section, the simulated and measured

results of the proposed antenna are presented.
The return loss, resonant frequencies, bandwidth
etc are used to describe the input characteristics
performance of the antenna while far fields are
used to describe the output characteristics
performance of the antenna. In Fig. 4, the
simulated and measured return loss plot for the
Fig. 2 Equivalent circuit of DGS [15] frequency range from 2 GHz to 6 GHz is shown.
It is evident from Fig. 4 that the proposed
antenna resonates at 2.3647 GHz and 5.8806
GHz with the return loss values of -25.059634
dB and -19.165118 dB, respectively. The shape
of the return loss plot in Fig. 4 indicates that the
antenna operates at two frequency bands. The
resonance at 2.9977 GHz and at 3.8487 GHz are
referred to as harmonics and they are not
effective. At 2.3647 GHz and 5.8806 GHz there
are sharp deeps which has crossed -10 dB line
and there are no other sharp deeps in the graph
that have crossed this line, which confirms about
the dual band nature of the proposed antenna.
(a) The return loss plot for the first frequency band
crosses the -10 dB line firstly at 2.3236 GHz and
secondly at 2.4065 GHz, indicate that the
bandwidth for this band is 82.926 MHz, which is
the suitable bandwidth for Bluetooth application.
The return loss plot for the second frequency
band crosses the -10 dB line firstly at 5.7995
GHz and secondly at 5.9616 GHz. Hence, the

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bandwidth of the antenna for the second beamwidth, direction of main lobe and side lobe
resonance is 162.12 MHz centered at 5.8 GHz level are presented in Table 2. The simulated
which is suitable for WLANs application. The maximum directivity and maximum gain of the
simulated and measured results show good proposed antenna are shown in Fig. 7. The
agreement except little shift in the resonant maximum gain and maximum directivity of
frequencies of the measured results to lower 7.398 dB and 7.923 dBi, respectively are
frequencies. The deviation in the measured and achieved by the antenna. The total efficiency and
simulated results are possibly due to following radiation efficiency of the antenna are presented
reasons. The main reason may be connector in Table 3. The maximum total efficiency and
losses and dielectric losses. Other possible reason maximum radiation efficiency are 87.99% and
is the PCB fabrication resolution limitation which 88.9%, respectively.
mainly affected at corners of slots etc. The
diameter of the hole that was supposed to be
drilled for SMA connector was designed to be
1.3 mm and the diameter of the hole that was
really drilled was 1.5 mm because in the PCB
laboratory the smallest size of the drilling bit that
could closely meet the diameter specifications of
the desired hole has a diameter of 1.5 mm. Since
the location of the feed point tends to affect the
operating bands of the antenna, hence this could
possibly be one of the reasons for the
inconsistency between the simulated and
measured results.

(a) E-plane

Fig. 4 Return loss of the proposed dual band antenna.

Fig. 5 and Fig. 6 present the normalized polar

plots version of the simulated and measured
radiation patterns at 2.4 GHz and 5.8 GHz,
respectively. The radiation patterns indicate that
the antenna exhibits approximately figure of
eight radiation patterns in E-plane and (a) H-plane
approximately omnidirectional in H-plane. The
simulated radiation pattern parameters i.e. 3 dB Fig. 5 Radiation pattern of the antenna at 2.4 GHz (a)
E-plane, (b) H-plane.

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and high directivity in both frequency bands. The

proposed dual band microstrip patch antenna is
suitable for Bluetooth and WLANs compact
wireless devices.
Table 2: Radiation pattern parameters of the antenna

S. Parameter Value (at Value (at

No. 2.4 GHz) 5.8 GHz)
1 3 dB beamwidth (E- 86.3 deg. 71.9 deg
plane)
2 Main lobe direction 3.0 deg. 3.0 deg.
(E-plane)
3 Side lobe label (E- -3.9 dB -0.9 dB
plane)
4 3 dB beamwidth 89.4 deg. 74 deg.
(H-plane)
5 Main lobe direction 179 deg. 336 deg.
(H-plane)
(a) E-plane 6 Side lobe label (H- -0.6 dB -0.9 dB
plane)

Fig. 7 Maximum gain and maximum directivity of the

proposed antenna.
(b) H-plane
Table 3: Radiation efficiency and total efficiency of
Fig. 6 Radiation patterns of the antenna at 5.8 GHz (a)
E-plane, (b) H-plane. the proposed antenna

The performance of the proposed antenna is S. Frequency Radiation Total

compared with the other reported antennas in No. efficiency efficiency
Table 4. From Table 4, it can be observed that the 1 2.35 GHz 82.52 % 81.81 %
size of the proposed antenna is compact and 2 2.4 GHz 83.21 % 75.61 %
suitable for compact wireless devices. The 3 5.8 GHz 88.90 % 76.87 %
antenna is low cost and simple in fabrication. The
4 5.85 GHz 88.77 % 85.20 %
first resonance of the antenna is at 2.4 GHz and
5 5.9 GHz) 88.74 % 87.99 %
the second resonance of the antenna is at 5.8
GHz. The proposed antenna provides high gain

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Table 4: Performance comparison of the proposed designer even though there were some small
antenna with other reported antennas deviations in the prototype and simulated results
that were mainly attributed to possible connector
Ref. Patch Fabri- Resonant Max. Max.
area cation / center Gain Direc- losses, dielectric losses and fabrication errors.
freq. tivity The proposed dual band antenna provides high
[7] 706.5 Higher 3.42 GHz, -- 5.07 directivity in both bands and simple to fabricate.
mm2 cost 3.73 GHz dB,
and 5.56 Although multiband antennas can be used in
complex dB different wireless application, but they lack the
[14] 21x Low 3.4 GHz, 2.4 -- flexibility to accommodate new services, and
15.3 cost 5.5 GHz dBi,
mm2 and 3.5
therefore, it is in the designer’s wishes to further
simple dBi improve the design from multiband antennas to
[17] 7x 18 Higher 2.46 GHz, 2.31 -- frequency reconfigurable multiband antenna.
mm2 cost 4.94 GHz dBi,
and 3.9
complex dBi
[18] 22.5x Low 2.43 GHz, 2.053 3.20 ACKNOWLEDGMENT
14 cost 5.52 GHz dB, dBi
mm2 and 4.52 4.52
simple dB dBi Authors are thankful to reviewers for their
[19] 39.6x Low 2.5 GHz, 6.7 -- comments/suggestions for improving the quality
47.4 cost 3.5 GHz dB,
mm2 and 5.1
of manuscript. Authors also pay their gratitude to
simple dB University of KwaZulu-Natal for providing
[20] 21x Low 2.63 GHz, 2.4 -- laboratory facilities and financial support for this
19.5 cost 4.65 GHz dBi,
mm2 and -2.2 work.
simple dBi
[21] 29x Low 2.4 GHz, 1 --
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