Miniaturized LPDA Antenna for
Portable Direction Finding Applications
In this letter, a miniaturized log-periodic dipole array
(LPDA) antenna operating from 1 GHz to 6 GHz is proposed
for portable direction finding applications. To reduce the
lateral size of an LPDA antenna, bow-tie elements and a top-
loading technique are utilized and spacing factor is decreased
to reduce the spacing between the LPDA elements. The
proposed miniaturized LPDA antenna has the measured gain
and front-to-back ratio ranging from 1.2 dBi to 3 dBi and from
7 dB to 22 dB, respectively.
Keywords: Log-periodic dipole array (LPDA) antenna,
miniaturization, direction finding (DF), bow-tie element, top-
loading.
I. Introduction
In recent years, wideband antennas have become an essential
component for various wireless communication systems in
military and industrial applications. One interesting application
for wideband antennas is direction finding (DF). DF requires
the ability to determine the angle in the azimuth plane from
which a signal of interest originates, and to receive over a wide
range of frequencies. In the beginning, DF techniques have
been used in military applications to locate the sources of
unidentified signals, and then, have been applied to various
civilian applications for tracking and locating targets. A DF
antenna for a fixed surveillance system is usually in a form of
an array with multiple antenna elements arranged in circular
formation. For the antenna elements, a class of antennas, such
as dipole antennas, monopole antennas, bi-conical antennas,
Manuscript received Apr. 28, 2011; revised May 30, 2011; accepted June 10, 2011.
This work was supported by the Daegu University research grant.
Junho Yeo (phone: +82 53 850 6642, jyeo@daegu.ac.kr) is with the School of Information
and Communication Engineering, Daegu University, Gyeongsan, Rep. of Korea.
Jong-Ig Lee (leeji@gdsu.dongseo.ac.kr) is with the Department of Electronics, Dongseo
University, Busan, Rep. of Korea.
http://dx.doi.org/10.4218/etrij.12.0211.0178
118 Junho Yeo and Jong-Ig Lee © 2012
Junho Yeo and Jong-Ig Lee
log-periodic dipole array (LPDA) antennas, and Vivaldi
antennas, have been used [1].
A DF antenna can also be used for man-portable applications
and a compact, low-profile, light-weight, and wideband
antenna is required for this purpose. Among various wideband
antennas, LPDA antenna can achieve relatively high directivity
over a very large frequency range [2]. Therefore, we focus on
the LPDA antenna for miniaturization in this work. Various
approaches with fractal-shaped dipole elements using fractal
tree or Koch curve have been investigated to miniaturize the
size of the LPDA antenna [3], [4].
In this letter, a compact LPDA antenna operating from
1 GHz to 6 GHz is proposed for portable DF applications.
Bow-tie-shaped dipole elements and a top-loading technique
are used to reduce the lateral size of an LPDA antenna, and the
spacing factor in LPDA antenna is decreased to reduce the
spacing between the LPDA elements. The size of the proposed
antenna is compared with that of a standard LPDA antenna. All
simulation data is obtained using CST Microwave Studio [5].
II. LPDA Antenna Design and Miniaturization
In most portable DF systems, a low-noise amplifier (LNA)
with 15-dB to 20-dB gain is usually installed at the input of the
DF antenna to detect weak signals [6]. In this work, the design
specifications of a miniaturized LPDA antenna are chosen as a
realized gain greater than 2 dBi and a front-to-back (F/B) ratio
greater than 10 dB considering the miniaturization and the
LNA gain.
The geometry of the proposed miniaturized LPDA antenna
is presented in Fig. 1. First, a standard LPDA antenna by using
the design procedure similar to that presented by Carrel [3] is
modeled to achieve a directivity of about 8 dBi over a 1-GHz
to 6-GHz frequency band. The scale factor τ of 0.85 and the
ETRI Journal, Volume 34, Number 1, February 2012
 d15 0

–5

Input reflection coefficient (dB)

–10

W –15
w16 l16 A
–20

–25
θ B
–30 A
B
–35 C C
t16
–40
L 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Frequency (GHz)
Fig. 1. Geometry of proposed miniaturized LPDA antenna. (a)
8
spacing factor σ of 0.15 are selected, and the number of 6
dipole array elements is determined to be 16. The LPDA
4
antenna is assumed to be printed on FR4 substrate (εr=4.4, Realized gain (dBi)
2
thickness=1.6 mm). The length of the longest dipole element is
0
related to the lower frequency limit (1 GHz) and is selected to
be 130 mm, which is a little shorter than half-wavelength at –2
A
1 GHz. The corresponding width of the longest dipole element –4 B
and the lengths and widths of the remaining dipole elements C
–6
can be calculated by using the known equations [2]. The total –8
length of the designed standard LPDA antenna is 244 mm.
–10
The following design procedure is proceeded to miniaturize 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
the standard LPDA antenna. Since, as the flare angle θ of a Frequency (GHz)
(b)
bow-tie antenna increases, its low-frequency limit is decreased
and the bandwidth becomes broader, bow-tie-shaped dipole Fig. 2. Comparison of input reflection coefficient and realized
elements are first applied instead of the straight dipole elements gain characteristics for three different LPDA antennas:
to reduce the length of dipole elements. To further decrease the (a) input reflection coefficient and (b) realized gain.
lateral size of the LPDA, a top-loading technique is employed
to the bow-tie-shaped dipole elements. Next, to reduce the total gain is decreased about 2 dB to 3 dB over the whole frequency
length of the LPDA, the spacing factor σ decreases from 0.15 band.
to 0.106. Finally, a miniaturized LPDA antenna employing all three
Figure 2 presents the input reflection coefficient and the methods together is fabricated, as shown in Fig. 3. It is
realized gain characteristics for three different LPDA antennas: fabricated on an FR4 substrate with a dielectric constant of 4.4
original LPDA antenna (A), LPDA antenna with bow-tie and a thickness of 1.6 mm (loss tangent=0.025). A coaxial
dipole elements (B), and LPDA antenna with bow-tie elements cable is used to feed the antenna, which is soldered along the
and top-loading (C). We note that the length of the longest upper-side transmission line, and the center conductor is
dipole element is reduced to l16=88 mm owing to the bow-tie connected to the lower-side transmission line through a hole at
elements and top-loading, and the spacing factor of 0.106 is the end of the feedline. This ‘coaxial infinite balun’ provides
applied for all the three cases. The flare angle of the bow-tie the necessary wideband matching and the appropriate current
elements is set to be θ=13º, and the length of the top-loading tn phase to each dipole [4]. The length of the longest dipole
is 0.4×ln. When the bow-tie dipole elements are only added, the element is reduced to 88 mm (0.29λ0 where λ0 is free-space
low-frequency limit shifts toward lower frequency, and the wavelength at 1 GHz), and the total length of the LPDA
realized gain is decreased at low-frequency band, but it is antenna is 135 mm (0.45λ0). The width and length of the
enhanced at high-frequency band. As the top-loading elements proposed LPDA antenna is reduced to 33% and 45%,
are added to the bow-tie dipole elements, the low-frequency respectively, compared to the standard LPDA antenna
limit is further moved toward lower frequency, and the realized (0.43λ0×0.81λ0). If we compare the frequency bandwidth and

ETRI Journal, Volume 34, Number 1, February 2012 Junho Yeo and Jong-Ig Lee 119
 Simulated Simulated
1 GHz (E-plane) Measured 1 GHz (H-plane) Measured
0 0
330 0 30 0
30 –30
–10 –10
–20 60 –20
300 60 –60
–30 –30
–40 –40
0 –10 –20 –30 –40 –50
270 –50 90 0 –10 –20 –30–40–50
–50
–50 –40 –30–20 –10 0 90 –50 –40 –30 –20–10 0
–90
–40
–30 –30
240 –20 120 –120
120 –20
–10 –10
210 0 150 –150
150 0
180 (a) –180

6 GHz (E-plane) Simulated 6 GHz (H-plane) Simulated

(a) 0
Measured 0 Measured
0 30 0 –30
330 30
Upper side –10 –10
Coaxial cable
–20 60 –20
300 60 –60
–30 –30
–40 –40
0 –10–20 –30 –40–50 0 –10 –20 –30–40 –50
270 –50 90 90 –50 –90
–50 –40 –30 –20 –10 0 –50 –40 –30 –20 –10 0
–40 –40
Soldering –30 –30
Lower side 240 120 120 –120
–20 –20
(b) –10 –10
210 150 150 0 –150
0
180 –180
Fig. 3. Photograph of fabricated miniaturized LPDA antenna fed (b)
by coaxial cable: (a) antenna and (b) feeding part.
Fig. 5. E-plane and H-plane radiation patterns of proposed LPDA
antenna: (a) 1 GHz and (b) 6 GHz.
0

–5
dimensions of the proposed LPDA antenna with other
Input reflection coefficient (dB)

–10 miniaturized LPDA antenna, 6-element log-periodic Koch

–15 dipole array antenna in [4] operates 2.05 GHz to 3.2 GHz
–20
(1:1.56), and its width is 51.2 mm (0.34λ0 where λ0 is free-
space wavelength at 2 GHz).
–25
Figure 4 compares the simulated and the measured input
Simulated
–30 reflection coefficient and realized gain characteristics. It is
Measured
–35 observed from Fig. 4(a) that the frequency bandwidth
–40 satisfying –6.5-dB input reflection coefficient requirement is
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
1:8.31 (0.87 GHz to 7.23 GHz) for the simulated result and
Frequency (GHz)
(a) 1:8.53 (0.87 GHz to 7.42 GHz) for the measured one. These
6 results meet the design frequency specifications of the
miniaturized LPDA antenna. The simulated gain of the antenna
4
is from 2.4 dBi to 4.9 dBi, while the measured gain ranges
Realized gain (dBi)

2 from 1.2 dBi to 3 dBi. We conjecture that the difference might

be related to the impedance mismatch and loss caused by the
0
coaxial balun. Figure 5 shows the E-plane and H-plane
–2 radiation patterns at 1 GHz and 6 GHz. It is seen that the
Simulated
simulated and the measured results are in good agreement and
–4
Measured the F/B ratio ranges from 7 dB to 22 dB.
–6
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Frequency (GHz) III. Conclusion
(b)

Fig. 4. Simulated and measured input reflection coefficient and We have proposed a miniaturized LPDA antenna operating
realized gain characteristics for fabricated LPDA antenna: from 1 GHz to 6 GHz for portable DF applications. The width
(a) input reflection coefficient and (b) realized gain. and length of the proposed LPDA antenna are reduced to 33%

120 Junho Yeo et al. ETRI Journal, Volume 34, Number 1, February 2012
and 45%, respectively, compared to the standard LPDA
antenna, and it has the measured gain of 1.2 dBi to 3 dBi over
the 1-GHz to 6-GHz bands. The proposed LPDA antenna can
be used for portable direction finding and spectrum monitoring
applications.

References
[1] X. Liang and Y.W.M. Chia, “New Precision Wideband Direction
Finding Antenna,” IEE Proc. Microw., Antennas Propag., vol.
148, no. 6, Dec. 2001, pp. 363-364.
[2] R. L. Carrel, “The Design of Log Periodic Dipole Antenna,” Proc.
IRE Int. Con. Rec., 1961, pp. 61-75.
[3] B. Wang, A. Chen, and D. Su, “An Improved Fractal Tree Log-
Periodic Dipole Antenna,” Asia-Pacific Symp. Electromagn.
Compatibility, May 2008, pp. 831-834.
[4] D.E. Anagnostou et al., “A Printed Log-Periodic Koch-Dipole
Array (LPKDA),” IEEE Antennas Wireless Propag. Lett., vol. 7,
2008, pp. 456-460.
[5] CST Microwave Studio. http://www.cst.com
[6] C. Cho, I. Park, and H. Choo, “Design of a Small Antenna for
Wideband Mobile Direction Finding Systems,” IET Microw.
Antennas Propag., vol. 4, no. 7, 2010, pp. 930-937.

ETRI Journal, Volume 34, Number 1, February 2012 Junho Yeo and Jong-Ig Lee 121