Aperture coupled

Wide-Band Micro Strip Antenna

Design
- Srivatsa Bhargava J
(4610-510-081-05891)
MTech ,
CEDT, IISc Bangalore.
Aim: Parametric Study, design and implementation of single patch, wide band
Aperture coupled microstrip patch antenna for 2GHz frequency range.

Abstract: Microstrip patch antennas are well suited for integration in to many
applications owing to their conformal nature. There are many wide banding
techniques used for the MSAs. But many wide banding techniques such as
using slots in the patch require an inductive coupled feed (probe feed). But
complete planar (2D) processes for manufacturability needs capacitive
coupling. Capacitive coupling with coplanar feed network has the drawback
that the feed network interferes with the radiation properties of the antenna.
So the coupling techniques with the feed lines in the plane other then the
antenna are more suitable. Aperture coupled feed and proximity feed are to
such feed techniques. Of these, aperture coupled feed which makes use of
thick antenna substrates is the most convenient as it has only single ground
plane. Apart from this aperture coupling provides a greater radiation pattern
symmetry and greater ease of design for higher impedance band width owing
to a large number of design parameters. In this type of feed by using multiple
patches bandwidths up to 70% are reported(how ever only single patch design
is attempted in this project).

So the parametric study, design, fabrication and testing of a with wide

band aperture coupled antenna has been attempted in this project. And an
aperture coupled antenna with 500 MHz band width was designed at 2GHz
range thus realizing 25% band width.
Band width considerations:

In this project, 10 dB return loss band width is considered for design. The 10dB
return loss corresponds to a VSWR of 2. Therefore the impedance circle for the
antenna has to stay with in the VSWR =2 circle on the smith chart for the
desired range of frequencies. So, the entire design problem thus boils down to
identify the parameters of the ACMA geometry which control the impedance
circle and tune the design parameters accordingly.

Design methodology:

The design procedure evolves from the analysis of the geometry. The ACMSA
has been analyzed with different models such as transmission line model,
modal expansion model, intergral equation model etc.., Of these transmission
line model provides us with better intuition as to which dimension affects
which parameter, but is inaccurate and the other two are more accurate and
mathematically rigorous but provide us with very little design intuition. So the
transmission line model of the ACMSAs was studied and is briefly outlined
below:

An exploded view of a simple aperture coupled microstrip patch antenna is

shown below:

The patch on the topmost substrate is the radiating element and the slot in the
ground plane couples the energy from the microstrip feed line (beneath the
bottom most substrate) to the patch. This transmission line model is applicable
only when, dominant mode contribution of the patch is sufficient which is true
for thin substrates.
The equivalent circuit model of the ACMSA is shown below:

The patch is modelled as to consisting of two finite radiating slots. The

impedance provided by these slots is deduced from the infinite radiating slot
model as:

Where G and B are for unit length.

So, the reflected impedance at the centre of the slot ie., the feed point can be
calculated by transforming these impedances to the centre of the slot (since
we generally couple to the patch through the aperture at the center) and
adding the corresponding admittances.
The slot impedance describes the energy stored near the slot. It is inductive in
nature since the slot is electically small(in case of non-resonant apertures. But
if we use resonant aperture the slot length will be equal to nearly half of the
guided wavelength. So Yap can be modelled as:

Where Yos is the characteristic impedance of the slot.

A transformer describes the coupling from the slot to patch. The turns ratio of
the transformer model is as shown below:

Jo bessel’s function of 0th order

The final simplified input impedance can be deduced as given below:

From this the condition for resonance will be :

That is increasing length of the aperture requires a decrease in the patch

suceptance and this decreases the resonant frequency. This has more effect on
the function of the antenna if we are using a resonant aperture.

From this analysis the following qualitative conclusions can be drawn:

For non resonant slots if the slot length is small the patch is under coupled.
And resonant resistance of the antenna is less that characteristic impedance of
the feed line thus , as slot length increases the coupling to the line increases
thus increasing resonant resistance and the size of the loop. The resonant
resistance and coupling can be increased by decreasing the substrate
thickness. Thus a wide range of resistance and reactance are possible by
proper design of length and width of the aperture. Any additional antenna
reactance can be cancelled out by properly choosing the length of the feed
line stub extended from the centre feed point. So instead of directly using
analysis results qualitative parametric study of the ACMSA is done and the
results are used in the design.

Parametric study of Aperture coupled microstrip patch antenna:

There are two types of slots which can be used in the ground plane. They are
resonant slots and non- resonant slots. There are nearly a dozen parameters in
this aperture coupled antenna structure which decide the performance of the
antenna. Thus these parameters provide us enough flexibility to get a wide
bandwidth. These parameters and their affects on the antenna performance
are discussed below:

1) Antenna substrate dielectric constant:- This parameter affects the

bandwidth of the antenna directly. The substrate’s loss tangent factor
also has an impact on the radiation efficiency of the antenna. Lower the
permittivity of the antenna substrate wider the impedance bandwidth
and lesser the surface wave excitation.
2) Antenna substrate thickness:- This parameter directly affects the
bandwidth and coupling level of the antenna. Thicker the substrate
better the impedance bandwidth but lesser the coupling level. So this
parameter design involves the trade off between the bandwidth and
coupling between the feed line and the radiating patch for a given
aperture size.
3) Microstrip patch length:- This decides the resonant frequency of the
microstrip patch antenna.
4) Microstrip patch width :- The width of the antenna affects the resonant
resistance of the antenna. Wider the patch lower the resistance. Square
patches generate higher cross polarization levels and hence must be
avoided unless circular/dual polarization is required.
5) Feed substrate dielectric constant:- This has to be selected to get good
microstrip circuit qualities. Higher permittivity of the substrate leads to
less leakage of the power out of the microstrip line due to resistance. So
high permittivity of substrate is used for feed network and lower
permittivity is used for antenna substrate. This feature( different
permittivities for feed network and antenna) is possible only in
structures using multiple planes such as aperture coupled feed,
proximity feed but is not possible in coplanar feeds.
6) Feed substrate thickness:- Thinner micro strip substrates result in lesser
spurious radiation from the feed lines.
7) Slot width:- This parameter affects the coupling level from the feed lines
to the patch. Generally the ratio of the slot length to the slot width is
kept typically as 10:1.
8) Slot length:- Coupling level is primarily decided by the slot length.
Primarily two types of slots are used in ACMSA design they ate resonant
and non resonant type based on the length of the slot. If the slot length
 is comparable to the half of the wavelength of the antenna it si called as
the resonant slot. If smaller length slots are used it is non resonant slot.
If non-resonant slots are used the edges of the slot are elongated to get
more uniform field distribution to get more coupling. For this slots of H,
dog bone and hourglass shapes are used. For non resonant slots.
9) Feed line width:- this parameter decides the characteristic impedance
of the feed line. So chosen to get the required Zo.
10) Feed line position with respect to slot:- For maximum coupling
the feed line must be placed perpendicular to the centre of the slot.
Skewing the feed from the slot will reduce the coupling.
11) Position of patch w.r.t slot :- For maximum coupling the patch
should be centred over the slot. Moving the slot in H-field direction has
little effect on the antenna performance but if it is moved in E-field it
leads to reduction in coupling.
12) Tuning stub length :- Used to tune the excess reactance of slot.
Typically is of length 0.5 times the guided wavelength. Shorter subs
move the impedance circle downwards towards capacitive part of in
smith chart.

Design:

Since the aim of the project is to use a single patch design. We have a
resonant cavity due to patch and if we decide to use a non-resonant
aperture to feed the power to it, we will be left with only one resonant
cavity in the structure. And to get a wide bandwidth with this, we have to
make its Q-factor very low ie., we have to introduce heavy losses in the
cavity this introduces the trade off between coupling and bandwidth of the
antenna.

So, to ease this trade off a resonant aperture shall be used in the design
since it introduces another additional cavity. Thus, making it a two cavity
structure. Now, the parameters of the cavities have to be designed and
adjusted to stagger tune these two resonant cavities to get higher band
width.

In the designed antenna, the patch resonance decides the higher frequency
response in the band (ie., patch is the higher frequency resonant cavity )
 and the aperture resonance decides the lower frequency band(ie., aperture
is the lower frequency resonant cavity ). The thickness and permittivity of
the antenna substrate decide the losses caused in the aperture cavity and
thus decide its Q-factor. Based on the above discussed theory two designs
one having slightly different ground structure are attempted both were
simulated and the first one of them was fabricated. The design details and
simulation results and measured results are presented below.

In both the designs air/foam(permittivity=1/1.07) has been used as antenna

substrate with a thickness of 17mm. FR4 material(permittivity=4.4 and
thickness=1.58mm loss tangent=0.0023) is used for feed line substrate and
material with permittivity=2.5, thickness=1.58mm and loss tangent=0.0023
is used for the radome substrate of the antenna.

Design-I

The 3D view of the design is shown below followed by the layout of the
design:
Layout:

Parameters:
Patch: Lp=48mm Wp=66mm patch substrate(radome): er=2.5 thickness=1.58mm loss tangent=0.0023

Aperture: La=40 Wa=7mm antenna substrate : er=1.07 thickness=17mm loss tangent=0.0009

Feed line: width=3mm stub length=5.5mm feed line substrate: er=4.4 thickness=1.58mm loss tangent=0.0009
 Simulation results:

S11 vs frequncy plot

In the S11 versus frequency plot we can clerly see that there are two
resonances happening. The 10dB impedance band width is seen to be from
1.751GHz to 2.24GHz thus yeilding 489MHz bandwidth amounting to 24.69%
bandwidth.

This antenna structure was fabricated and tested as shown below:

The measured S11 versus frequency graph is as shown below:

It can be seen that here there is a shift in the 10dB impedance band and the
bandwidth is from 1.842GHz to 2.299GHz thus yeilding 457MHz bandwidth
amounting to 23% bandwidth. The minor deviation of the measured reults
from the simulation results are due to fabrication tolerances.

The simulated input impedance circles of the antenna in the smith chart are
shown. It can be observed that for the frequencies with in 10 dB impedance
bandwidth the ipedance pints lie within the VSWR=2 circle. To increase the
bandwidth one can introduce another cavity tuning which properly results in
another loop within the VSWR=2 circle thus increasing the band width.
The simulation results of the radiation pattern at 2.1GHz are shown below:

It can be observed from the simulation plots that the gain of the antenna is
8.185dB and the front to back ratio is 8.185-(-5.251)=13.436dB
The measured radiation pattern at 2.1GHz is shown below:

The red colored trace is for co polarization radiation pattern and the blue one
us for cross polarization radiation pattern. It can be seen that the designed
antenna is a linearly polarized antenna.
The 3D view of the radiation patter is shown below:

The simulated gain of the antenna in the impedance bandwidth range is shown
below:

The gain is seen to vary by nearly 1.3dB across the impedance bandwidth.
Some other important simulation results are presented below:
Design-II:
This design was simulated an it was observed that introducing additional
slots in the ground plane has the affect of slightly shifting the band
downwards with same patch dimensions thus increase the percentage
bandwidth. The design details and simulation results are presented below:

Layout:

Patch: Lp=48mm Wp=66mm patch substrate(radome): er=2.5 thickness=1.58mm loss tangent=0.0023

Aperture: La=40 Wa=7mm antenna substrate : er=1.07 thickness=17mm loss tangent=0.0009

Feed line: width=3mm stub length=6mm feed line substrate: er=4.4 thickness=1.58mm loss tangent=0.0023

Additional slot dimensions: 15mmx15mm each

It can be observed that all the dimensions are same except the difference of
0.5mm in the stub length.
From the above figure it can be seen that the impedance band width is
from 1.69GHz to 2.189GHz ie., 499MHz yielding 25.94% bandwidth with
similar patch dimensions as above design.
A few other relavent observations are presented below:
Conclusions:
Aperture coupled microstrip patch antenna was designed for 25%
bandwidth and was fabricated and was measured to have 23% band width.
The design used foam substrate with 17mm thickness. The structure
designed was only a two cavity structure but to increase the bandwidth
further increase the number of resonant cavities in the structure which
leads to other wide banding techniques such as design with stacked
patches, slots on ground plane. Also making the s11 flat all through the
band helps in having uniform gain all over the band. Hence along with the
presently designed structure if additional resonant cavities are added it
leads to significant improvement in the band width.
References:
1) Antenna theory analysis and design—C A Balanis
2) Microstrip antenna design handbook—Ramesh Garg,Prakash Bhartia,
Inder Bahl, Apisak Ittipiboon.
3) Broadband Microstrip antennas—Girish Kumar, K.P Ray
4) Analysis of an aperture Coupled Microstrip Antenna-- Peter.L.Sullivan,
Daniel H.Schaubert
5) Large Bandwidth Aperture Coupled Microstrip antenna—F Croq, A
Papiernik
6) Broadband T-shaped microstrip-fed U-slot coupled patch antenna—
Y.W.Jang.
7) A Review of Aperture Coupled Microstrip antennas —Prof.D.M Pozar.