PIERS ONLINE, VOL. 2, NO.

6, 2006 633

Bandwidth Enhancement Technique in Microstrip Antenna for

Wireless Applications
RSA Raja Abdullah, D. Yoharaaj, and Alyani Ismail
Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM), Malaysia

Abstract— Low profile, light weight, easily mounted and broad bandwidth are the key charac-
teristics for antennae designed for wireless applications. The microstrip antenna (MSA) suits the
features mentioned except for its narrow bandwidth. The bandwidth of the microstrip antenna
usually ranges from less than 1% to several percent. This paper experimentally investigates an
alternative approach in enhancing the bandwidth of the microstrip antenna for the Wireless Lo-
cal Area Network (WLAN) application operating at a frequency of 2.45 GHz. The bandwidth
enhancement technique which is studied is the Identical Dual Patch Microstrip Antenna with
Air-Gap (IDMA). A bandwidth enhancement of more than 11% was achieved.
DOI: 10.2529/PIERS060831214339

1. INTRODUCTION
Wireless applications have undergone rapid development in recent years. One particular wireless
application that has experienced this trend is the Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN). The
wireless application that is selected to be studied is the 2.4 GHz to 2.5 GHz frequency band which
is based on the 802.11 b WLAN standard. This frequency band is very popular due to its low cost.
WLAN antenna requires being low profile, light weight and broad bandwidth. The microstrip
antenna suits the features very well except for its narrow bandwidth. The WLAN antenna should
have a minimum bandwidth of 100 MHz to fully utilize the WLAN band based on the 802.11b
standard. The conventional microstrip antenna could not fulfill this requirement as its bandwidth
usually ranges from less than 1% to several percent [1]. Although the required operating frequency
range is from 2.4 GHz to 2.5 GHz, at least double the bandwidth is required to avoid expensive
tuning operations and to cause uncritical manufacturing. Therefore, there is a need to enhance the
bandwidth of the microstrip antenna for WLAN applications.
This paper investigates a technique which can enhance the bandwidth of the microstrip antenna
without increasing the lateral size and the complexity of the microstrip antenna too much. The
Identical Dual Patch Microstrip Antenna with Air-Gap (IDMA) bandwidth enhancement technique
takes the advantage of using the air gap to lower the effective permittivity and increase the total
thickness of the microstrip antenna which is essential for bandwidth enhancement. This bandwidth
enhanced microstrip antenna can be deployed for the WLAN application operating at a frequency
of 2.45 GHz.
2. SIMULATED AND MEASURED RESULTS OF THE SINGLE-LAYER MICROSTRIP
ANTENNA
The basic single-layer microstrip antenna is designed and fabricated to serve as a benchmark for
the design of the bandwidth enhanced microstrip antenna. The rectangular probe-fed patch was
selected due to its ease of analysis and it is commonly used. The patch is fed with the 50 Ohms-SMA
connector. A low permittivity dielectric substrate was used, namely the 1.575 mm thick RT/Duroid
5880. The copper cladding for this substrate is the 35 µm thick rolled copper. A full-wave analysis
simulation tool by Ansoft was used. The fabricated microstrip antenna was measured with the
Agilent E8362B Network Analyzer.
The antenna dimensions were calculated and detail of the calculation could be found in [2].
These calculated results serve as the starting parameters for the simulation process. Numerous
iterative simulations were done to obtain the optimum configuration of the microstrip antenna.
Once the desired operating frequency and input impedance are obtained, the bandwidth is taken
at VSWR< 2. After the desired operating frequency and input impedance were obtained, the
simulated bandwidth was recorded. The optimized configuration of this design is then used to
fabricate the microstrip antenna. Table 1, Figure 1, Figure 2 and Figure 3 show the comparison
between the simulated and measured results of the single layer fabricated antenna respectively.
 PIERS ONLINE, VOL. 2, NO. 6, 2006 634

Table 1: Simulated and measured results of the single-layer MSA.

Dimensions Simulated Measured
Width 50 mm same
Length 39.5 mm same
Location of the Probe 13.25 mm same
Operating frequency 2.45 GHz 2.425 GHz
Input Impedance 50.69 Ohms 54.64 Ohms
Bandwidth 36 MHz (1.469%) 46.71 MHz (1.699%)

1.2
mag (S(Port1, Port1))

1
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
2.45
0
2 2.2 2.4 2.6 2.8 3
Frequency (GHz)

Figure 1: Simulated and measured operating frequency of the single-layer microstrip antenna.

60
50.69
Impedance (Ohms)

50
40
30
20
10
0
2 2.2 2.4 2.6 2.8 3
Frequency (GHz)

Figure 2: Simulated and measured input impedance of the single-layer microstrip antenna.

3
VSWR (Port1)

0
2.4 2.42 2.44 2.46 2.48 2.5
Frequency (GHz)

Figure 3: Simulated bandwidth and measured of the single-layer microstrip antenna.

 PIERS ONLINE, VOL. 2, NO. 6, 2006 635

thickness of
copper, td2 thickness of
dielectric, hd2

thickness of
air-gap, ha
thickness of
copper, td1
thickness of
thickness of ground dielectric, hd1
plane, tg

50 Ohms-SMA
connector

Figure 4: Structure of the IDMA bandwidth enhancement technique.

3. SIMULATED AND MEASURED RESULTS OF IDENTICAL DUAL-PATCH

MICROSTRIP ANTENNA WITH AIR-GAP (IDMA)
The Identical Dual-patch Microstrip Antenna with Air-gap (IDMA) takes the advantage of the air
gap which lowers the effective permittivity and increase the total thickness of the microstrip antenna
which is an essential factor for bandwidth enhancement. The operating frequency of the fabricated
microstrip antenna can easily be tuned without the need of a new design by just varying the size
of the air gap. The structure of this bandwidth enhanced microstrip antenna is shown in Figure 4.
Similar to the design of the single-layer microstrip antenna, the same type of substrate, RT/Duroid
5880 was used and the patch is fed by a 50 Ohms-SMA connector. The stacked patch is identical to
the probe-fed patch whereby both these patches are rectangular in shape. The main focus in this
design is the effective permittivity of this three-layer microstrip antenna. This parameter and the
total thickness of this microstrip antenna influence the bandwidth. The equations that were used
in this design are [3–5]:

600
Bandwidth (MHz)

500
400
300
200
100
0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
Spacing (mm)

Calculated Simulated

Figure 5: Comparison between the calculated and simulated bandwidth of IDMA.

 
 (εr hd1 + εr ha + εr hd2 ) 
εav = 
 µ ¶ 
 (1)
ht
3
where ht = hd1 + ha + hd2
√ µ ¶µ ¶µ ¶µ ¶
2p 1 2 1 ht W
BW = 1− + 2 (2)
45π εav 5εav εav λ L
where µ ¶ µ ¶
a2 3 1
p=1+ (k0 w)2 + a4 4
(k0 w) + b2 (k0 L)
20 560 10
 PIERS ONLINE, VOL. 2, NO. 6, 2006 636

where a2 = −0.16605, a4 = 0.00761, b2 = −0.09142 and k0 = 2π/λ

Once the desired operating frequency, input impedance and bandwidth were obtained in the
simulation, the optimized configuration of the microstrip antenna was taken. The calculated and
the simulated results are compared in order to determine the exact size of the air gap. The results
of these comparisons are shown in Figure 5.
Once the optimum bandwidth is obtained which is ∼ 250 MHz, the spacing between the probe-fed
patch and the stacked patch can be determined. To further increase the accuracy of the simulated
results, fine-tuning is done and the maximum achievable simulated bandwidth is ∼ 270 MHz. The
final configuration of the microstrip antenna is shown in Table 2 and Figure 6 through Figure 8
show the simulated results.

Table 2: Simulated results of IDMA. Table 3: Measured results of IDMA.

Dimensions Simulated Parameter Measured results
Width 51 mm Operating Frequency 2.44 GHz
Length 41 mm Impedance 61.63 Ohms
Location of the Probe 3.5 mm Bandwidth 287.77 MHz (11.794%)
Spacing (air-gap) 9 mm
Operating frequency 2.45 GHz
Input Impedance 50.15 Ohms
Bandwidth 270 MHz (11.020%)

1.2 60
mag (S(Port1, Port1))

50.15
Impedance (Ohms)

1 50
0.8 40
0.6 30
0.4 20
0.2 2.45 10
0 0
2 2.2 2.4 2.6 2.8 3 2 2.2 2.4 2.6 2.8 3
Frequency (GHz) Frequency (GHz)

Figure 6: Simulated operating frequency of IDMA. Figure 7: Simulated input impedance of IDMA.

Using the optimized configuration of the microstrip antenna in the simulation results, this design
is fabricated. The measured results of this bandwidth enhanced microstrip antenna are shown in
Table 3 and Figure 9 through Figure 11 respectively.

6
5
VSWR (Port1)

4
3
2
1
0
2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7
Frequency (GHz)

Figure 8: Simulated bandwidth of IDMA. Figure 9: Measured operating frequency of IDMA.

 PIERS ONLINE, VOL. 2, NO. 6, 2006 637

Figure 10: Measured input impedance of IDMA. Figure 11: Measured bandwidth of IDMA.

4. DISCUSSION
Based on the results from the simulations and measurements, it is found that the single-layer mi-
crostrip antenna has a very narrow bandwidth that is less than 2% which is not sufficient to fully
cover the WLAN band based on the 802.11b standard. There is a need to use a bandwidth enhance-
ment technique in this microstrip antenna and the IDMA is deployed. Using this technique, both
the simulated and measured results give a bandwidth enhancement at more than 11%. Further-
more, there is a very good agreement between the simulated and measured results. The comparison
between the simulated and measured bandwidths of the single-layer microstrip antenna and IDMA
are shown in Figure 12 and Figure 13 respectively.

5 3
VSWR (Port1)

VSWR (Port1)

4 2.5
3 2
1.5
2
1
1 0.5
0 0
2.40 2.41 2.42 2.43 2.44 2.45 2.46 2.47 2.48 2.49 2.50 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6

Frequency (GHz) Frequency (GHz)

Simulated Measured Simulated Measured

Figure 12: Simulated and measured bandwidth of Figure 13: Comparison between the simulated and
the single-layer microstrip antenna. measured bandwidth of IDMA.

The comparison between the simulated bandwidth of the single-layer microstrip antenna and
the IDMA is shown in Figure 14. Table 4 shows the summary of this experimental investigation.
It is shown clearly that the simulated and measured results are very similar. Figure 15 shows the
fabricated microstrip antennas.

Table 4: Comparison between the simulated and measured results of the single-layer microstrip antenna and
IDMA.

Single-Layer
IDMA
Parameters Microstrip Antenna
Simulated Measured Simulated Measured
Operating Frequency (GHz) 2.45 2.4248 2.45 2.44
Impedance (Ω) 50.69 50.15 51.238 61.63
35 41 270 287.77
Bandwidth (MHz)
(1.429%) (1.4699%) (11.020%) (11.794%)
 PIERS ONLINE, VOL. 2, NO. 6, 2006 638

VSWR (Port 1)
2

0
2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6
Frequency (GHz)

Single-Layer MSA IDMA

Figure 14: Comparison of the simulated bandwidth.

Air Gap

(a) (b)

Single layer

IDMA

(c)

Figure 15: The fabricated microstrip antenna (a) side view of IDMA, (b) top view of IDMA and (c) single-
layer microstrip antenna and IDMA.

5. CONCLUSION
The technique for enhancing bandwidth of the Microstrip antenna has been shown and it can be
used for WLAN applications as it fully utilizes the entire 2.4 GHz–2.5 GHz band. As mentioned,
this technique has its advantages such as it does not increase the lateral size of the microstrip
antenna and disadvantages such as it increases the height of the microstrip antenna. Therefore,
trade-off issues need to be considered in this design.
REFERENCES
1. Ramesh, G., B. Prakash, B. Inder, and I. Apisak, Microstrip Antenna Design Handbook, Artech
House, Inc, USA, 2001.
 PIERS ONLINE, VOL. 2, NO. 6, 2006 639

2. Yoharaaj, D., R. S. Azmir, and A. Ismail, “A new approach for bandwidth enhancement
technique in microstrip antenna for wireless applications,” International RF and Microwave
Conference, RFM06, Putrajaya, Malaysia, 12–14 September 2006.
3. Nirun, K., N. Chalermpol, and T. Taspong, “Parametric study of the rectangular microstrip
antenna with an air gap,” R&D Journal, Vol. 24, No. 2, King Mongkut’s University of Tech-
nology Thonburi, 131-142, Bangkok, May–August 2001.
4. Jackson, D. R. and N. Alexopoulos, “Simple approximate formulas for input resistance, band-
width and efficiency of a resonant rectangular patch,” IEEE Transactions on Antennas and
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5. Balanis, C. A., Antenna Theory: Analysis and Design, John Wiley & Sons, Inc, USA, 2005.