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Design and analysis of microstrip Yagi antenna for Wi-Fi application

Conference Paper · December 2012

DOI: 10.1109/APACE.2012.6457677

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 2012 IEEE Asia-Pacific Conference on Applied Electromagnetics (APACE 2012), December 11 - 13, 2012, Melaka, Malaysia
Design and Analysis of Microstrip Yagi Antenna for
Wi-Fi Application
Nuraiza bt. Ismail, M.T Ali
Microwave Technology Centre (MTC),
Faculty of Electrical Engineering,
Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM),
40450 Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia.
nuraiza_ismail@yahoo.com, mizi732002@yahoo.com
Abstract—This paper presents the design and analysis of the
microstrip Yagi antenna appropriate for wireless fidelity (Wi-Fi)
application. The antenna comprises of two elements which are
driven and parasitic that consists of reflector and directors. The
analysis has been carried out to identify the effects of each
element to the performance of antenna that will achieve a high
gain. A gain enhancement method using Yagi antenna concept is
designed with array application. Two branches of microstrip
Yagi antenna have been connected in a composite array format
using corporate-feed network. The designed antenna with
microstrip line feeding based on quarter wave impedance
matching technique is simulated using Computer Simulation
Tool (CST) Microwave Studio. The simulation result of return
loss shown that the operating bandwidth at frequency range of
5.47-5.57 GHz coverage standard of IEEE 802.11 in 5 GHz Wi-Fi
band between 5.15-5.875 GHz. The antenna is fabricated on the
low cost FR-4 substrate with dielectric constant of 4.7 and
thickness of 1.6 mm. Simple fabrication techniques can be
utilized to the proposed antenna design due to the placing feeding
network is on the same layer with the antenna patch elements.
The microstrip Yagi antenna is measured using Vector Network
Analyzer (VNA). Both the simulation and experimental results
are compared and analyzed.
Keywords-microstrip antennas; Yagi antenna; parasitic
elements, array; return loss; gain
I. INTRODUCTION
Over the last several years, there have been many
contributions in the design and optimization of printed
microstrip antenna arrays [1]–[4]. Recently, having attractive
features such as low profile, light weight, easy fabrication and
so on, microstrip antennas are widely used around the world
[5]-[6]. Furthermore, microstrip antennas also have the unique
features on the dielectric substrate material which can reduce
losses exhibited by high frequency signals when ordinary PCB
is used [7]. The use of Yagi antenna designs in microstrip
technology was first proposed by Huang in 1989 for mobile
satellite (MSAT) applications, which required a low-cost low-
profile antenna that covers a 40 beamwidth [1].
In [8], a new printed microstrip Yagi array antenna is
proposed that can achieve a high gain and low backside
radiation for various applications up to the millimeter-wave
frequency range. The high front-to-back (F/B) ratio (up to 15
9978-1-4673-3115-9/12/$31.00 ©2012 IEEE
N.N.S.N. Dzulkefli, R. Abdullah, S. Omar
Faculty of Electrical Engineering,
Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM),
Cawangan Terengganu,
23000 Dungun, Terengganu, Malaysia.
nik_shaadah@yahoo.com, rinaa5158@tganu.uitm.edu.my,
suzia5374@tganu.uitm.edu.my
dB) is attributed to the constructive interference that takes
place between the individual printed Yagi arrays in the design.
In essence, there are two types of antenna elements: driven
and parasitic (non-driven). Driven element is directly
connected to the transmission line and receives power from or
is driven by the source. Whereby parasitic elements are not
connected to the transmission line; they receive energy only
through mutual induction with a driven element or another
parasitic element. A parasitic element that is longer than the
driven element from which it receives energy is called a
reflector. A reflector affected the signal strength by reducing in
its direction but increases it in the opposite direction. Hence, it
acts as if it were a concave mirror. A parasitic element that is
shorter than its associated driven element is called director. A
director usually is added to increases field strength in its
direction and reduces it in the opposite direction. Therefore, it
acts as if it were a convergent convex lens [9]. In the microstrip
antenna, parasitic elements can be placed around a driven
element in order to enhance the gain of the single driven
element by several decibels.
This paper introduces a technique to enhance gain using
two branches of microstrip Yagi antenna with array
application. The proposed antenna achieves a higher gain of
9.5 dB than the one branch of only 6.89 dB. Both the
simulation and experimental results show good agreement
which covers the 5GHz band in Wi-Fi operation.
II. ANTENNA DESIGN AND STRUCTURE
The microstrip Yagi antenna of one branch is depicted in
Figure 1. It consists of a driven patch element and a few
parasitically coupled director and reflector patch elements. The
driven element, D is excited by a simple feeding structure
through a small gap of the reflector elements. The reflector
elements, R will be treated as one element with a gap through
the middle of feeding element. The feeding structure consists
of a 50 Ω microstrip feedline is fed to the center of the driven
element through the use of a quarter-wave transformer. The
remaining patches consist of two directors D1 and D2 are used
to establish the directionality of the beam as well as to increase
the antenna gain.
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 2012 IEEE Asia-Pacific Conference on Applied Electromagnetics (APACE 2012), December 11 - 13, 2012, Melaka, Malaysia

design is chosen to become a complete design for one branch

because when more directors are added to the array, the gain
and return loss is decreased. All patches element and the
ground plane are separated by a dielectric substrate.
The proposed microstrip Yagi antenna design is consist of
two branches as shown in Figure 2. This design is a derivative
of the microstrip Yagi antenna of one branch. The major
advantages of this structure in comparison to the structure of
one branch are the increased gain and better return loss (S11).

Figure 1: Geometry of the microstrip Yagi antenna (one branch).

The first step of the design procedure is started by

designing a single element. This element is a rectangular
microstrip patch of one branch which is called a driven
element. It is designed to operate at a resonant frequency, fr =
5.8 GHz using Flame Retardant 4 (FR-4) substrate material.
The dielectric constant of the substrate is εr = 4.7, the tangent
loss 0.019 and thickness of the substrate h = 1.6 mm. The
physical width and length dimensions of the driven patch
element are calculated using following equations.
Figure 2: Geometry of the proposed microstrip Yagi antenna.
1 2 vo 2
W (1)
2 fr o o r 1 2 fr r 1 The feeding method that is used to feed the microstrip Yagi
antenna is microstrip line. The microstrip line feed is chosen
vo is the velocity of light in free space. The calculation of because it is easy to fabricate, simple to match by controlling
the inset position and rather simple to model. The optimized
effective dielectric constant εreff is given by length of feed, LF and LF1 are designed as λg/√2 and λg/2
1 respectively. The quarter-wavelength impedance transformer
r 1 r 1 h 2 technique is used to match the antenna to the transmission line.
reff 1 12 (2)
2 2 W In order to match 100 Ω patch elements to a 50 Ω matching
characteristic impedance of microstrip line, the equation (4) is
The actual length, L of the patch can be determine as used by simply varying the width (w) of the center conductor.
follows
87 5.98h
1 Zo ln (4)
L 2 L (3) r 1.41 0.8W
2 f r reff o o
In the proposed microstrip Yagi antenna design, two
As mentioned before, the design antenna is started with microstrip Yagi antenna of one branch have been connected in
driven element and then it is accomplished by having the a composite array format using corporate-feed network. The
parasitic elements in the forward beam act as directors while center-to-center spacing between the driven elements is 1.57λg.
those in the rear act as reflectors. The microstrip Yagi antenna The size of the substrate is 65x80 mm2. All values were chosen
for one branch consists of five designs with array application. to optimize gain of the antenna with good return loss. The
First design is driven patch element (D). Second design is spacing between elements, g is 0.1λg where λg is given by the
driven and director (D, D1), followed by third design of driven following equation:
and reflector elements (D, R). Fourth design is driven with one
o
director and reflector (D, D1, R). The last design consists of g (5)
driven, two directors and one reflector (D, D1, D2, R). This reff

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 2012 IEEE Asia-Pacific Conference on Applied Electromagnetics (APACE 2012), December 11 - 13, 2012, Melaka, Malaysia

The directors’ width, WD1 and WD2 are slightly shorter than
driven element width, WD around 5% and 10 % respectively.
While the reflector width, WR is 5% longer than the driven
element width. Through simulation, the length of reflector and
directors are designed to be about ¼ of their total width. The
dimensions of the optimization microstrip Yagi antenna for
both branches are shown in Table I.
TABLE I. DIMENSIONS OF THE OPTIMIZATION ANTENNA

Parameter Dimension (mm)

WD 15.30
WD1 14.54
WD2 13.81
Figure 4: Simulated return loss of each patch in one branch comparing with
WR 8.03 proposed antenna of two branches
WF 2.89
WF1 3.00 TABLE II. TABULATED RESULTS OF SIMULATED RETURN LOSS, VSWR,
LD 11.37 GAIN AND BANDWIDTH
LD1 3.63 Parameters
Elements
LD2 3.45 Frequency S11 Gain Bandwidth
VSWR
LR 4.02 (GHz) (dB) (dB) (%)
LF 12.80 D 5.76 -10.55 1.84 6.69 1.15
D, D1
One Branch
LF1 18.10 5.76 -10.76 1.82 6.79 1.33
g 2.56 D, R 5.76 -10.45 1.86 6.80 0.94
D, D1, R 5.76 -12.21 1.65 6.83 1.47
D, D1, D2,
III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS 5.77 -11.17 1.76 6.89 1.89
R
The design process is started using CST simulator, aiming a Two Branches
(Proposed) 5.52 -20.38 1.21 9.50 2.00
return loss bigger than 10 dB and frequency at 5 GHz band for
Wi-Fi application. After an optimized design was obtained, the
proposed antenna was fabricated on an FR-4 substrate as The simulation results indicate that each design in one
shown in Figure 3. The fabricated antenna is fed by a SMA branch has return loss bigger than 10 dB at frequency around
connector to connect to the VNA for measurement process. 5.7 GHz which is cover 5 GHz Wi-Fi band (5.725-5.825 GHz).
As more the microstrip array is added with parasitic elements,
it seems that the gain is increased up to 6.89 dB when the
design is consists of driven element parasitically coupled with
reflector and two directors. However, there is a limit beyond
which the gain is decreased by the addition of more directors.
This may be due to the progressive reduction in magnitude of
the induced currents on the more extreme elements.
The simulated result of the proposed microstrip Yagi
antenna is clearly found that the return loss of 20.38 dB and
antenna gain of 9.5 dB is much better compared to one branch.
The proposed antenna designed of two branches shows that the
gain is increased by 2.61 dB from 6.89 dB of one branch. Thus,
the percentage of gain enhancement from one branch to two
branches is 16 %. High gain antennas is preferred because it
have the benefit of longer range and signal quality is better
compared to low gain.
The simulated far-field radiation pattern as shown in Figure
Figure 3: Illustration of fabricated microstrip Yagi antenna. 5 indicate the value of gain and the forward directional pattern
of the proposed microstrip Yagi antenna in three dimensional
The simulated return losses versus frequency comparing pattern. The main and side lobes can be observed in the
each patch for one branch and two branches of proposed simulated two dimensional radiation pattern as shown in Figure
antenna are presented in Figure 4. All simulated results for both 6. From this figure, the front-to-back ratio is 17.8 dB.
branches are tabulated in Table II in terms of return loss,
VSWR, gain and bandwidth.

285
 2012 IEEE Asia-Pacific Conference on Applied Electromagnetics (APACE 2012), December 11 - 13, 2012, Melaka, Malaysia
Figure 5: Simulated three dimensional radiation pattern of the proposed
microstrip Yagi antenna.
Figure 6: Simulated two dimensional radiation pattern of the proposed
microstrip Yagi antenna.
The measured result of return losses of the proposed
microstrip Yagi antenna compared with the simulation is
shown in Figure 7. It can be seen that the measured frequency
response of 37.575 return loss is shifted to 5.85 GHz as
compared to the simulated result. Deviations may be partly due
to the inaccuracies in antenna fabrication process such as
during soldering and losses occurred because of the FR-4 board
itself. However, the measured result still covering the 5 GHz
Wi-Fi band (5.725-5.875GHz).
Figure 7: Simulated and measured return loss of the proposed design antenna.
View publication stats
286
IV. CONCLUSION
A microstrip Yagi antenna design with array application
has been presented for coverage standard IEEE 802.11 in 5
GHz band for Wi-Fi frequency range of 5.15-5.875 GHz. The
simulation tool CST is utilized to perform the antenna design
and optimization process. The antenna consists of driven patch
element and a few parasitically coupled director and reflector
patch elements. The effect of each element to the antenna
performance has been studied in achieving high gain with good
return loss. The analysis has been carried out in term of return
loss, VSWR, gain and bandwidth. The best design of
microstrip Yagi antenna for one branch has been chosen to
design the proposed antenna of two branches. Simple
fabrication technique that is inexpensive can be employed to
realize the design using FR-4 substrate with feeding structure
on the same layer as the antenna. The result of proposed
antenna shows that the antenna performance is better compared
to antenna design of one branch. The percentage increasing of
gain from one branch to two branches is 16 %. Hence, by
designing the microstrip Yagi antenna of two branches, a good
return loss and a high gain can be achieved by placing parasitic
patches around driven element in array format.
For future development, more branches of microstrip Yagi
antenna is recommended that aim higher gain and better return
loss than the two branches.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The author would like to first thank her supervisor, Dr.
Mohd Tarmizi b. Ali for his strong support and advices.
Special thanks also to husband, friends and members in
Microwave Technology Centre (MTC), Universiti Technologi
Mara (UiTM) for their helps in completing this project.
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APSSymp., Jun. 1989, vol. 2, pp. 894–897.
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satellite service,” in Proc. IEEE-APS Symp., Jun. 1991, vol. 2, pp. 616–
619.
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