The 22nd Asia-Pacific Conference on Communications (APCC2016)
High Gain 2.4GHz Patch Antenna Array
for Rural Area Application
Galih Mustiko Aji1 , Muhammad Ammar Wibisono2 , and Achmad Munir2†
1
Computer and Programming Laboratory, Department of Electronics Engineering, State Polytechnic of Cilacap, Indonesia
2
Radio Telecommunication and Microwave Laboratory
School of Electrical Engineering and Informatics, Institut Teknologi Bandung, Indonesia
† munir@ieee.org
Abstract—The design and implementation of high gain 2.4GHz
patch antenna array for wireless communications application in
rural area is presented. The patch antenna array with high
gain is expected to minimize the need of tower that almost
requires high cost of construction. In order to achieve high
gain, the proposed antenna is constructed by 4×4 rectangular
patches fed by microstrip line corporate feeding network which
is developed using a 𝜆/4 transformer impedance matching
technique. The antenna structure is then deployed on a Flame
Retardant (FR) 4 Epoxy dielectric substrate which the thickness
and dielectric constant of 1.6mm, and 4.4, respectively. Prior
hardware realization, some antenna parameters including return
loss, voltage standing wave ratio (VSWR), radiation pattern, and
gain are characterized through simulation to obtain an optimum
design of antenna. While from the measurement, it shows that
the characteristics of realized patch antenna array have good
agreements with the design results in which the realized antenna
has the measured gain of 15.59dB at the center frequency with the
return loss of 19.52dB which corresponds to VSWR of 1.24 and
the bandwidth response of 130MHz ranges from the frequency
of 2.31GHz - 2.44GHz.
Keywords—Bandwidth response; high gain; patch antenna
array; rural area.
I. I NTRODUCTION
Recently, the demand of antennas for numerous wireless
communication systems including wireless local area network
(WLAN), cellular phone, and satellite communication
has rapidly increased [1]– [2]. An easy to build, low
cost production, and sufficiently high gain are some of
requirements usually needed by the systems. Sometimes,
other characteristics such as multi-band support and
electrically-small size are also required for some specific
wireless communication systems [2]– [3]. In fulfilling those
requirements, a patch antenna is one of antenna types
which may answer for the application due to its inherent
capabilities such as low cost, light weight, low profile and
multi-band support [4]–[5]. In spite of a fact that the gain and
bandwidth response levels of microstrip patch antenna remain
unsatisfactory to the expectation, however, in recent years
other facts have shown that the microstrip patch antenna was
widely implemented for various applications with high gain
and large bandwidth [6]–[8].
Furthermore, for wireless communication application in
rural area, aside from having a high gain the antenna should
have good enough directivity to ensure the reliability of
communication from one point to another can be maintained
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properly. By attaining the antenna with high gain and good
directivity, it is expected to minimize the need of tower in
rural area communication that usually requires high cost of
construction. Some attempts to achieve those characteristics
are by configuring some patches in an array, known as patch
antenna array [10]– [12]. Another classical issue in rural area
is the loss of antenna directivity that is caused by the wind.
Some solution is realized using several array of antennas in
the same direction with intelligent system. When the wind
flows and hits the antenna system which possibly causes the
lose of directivity, then the intelligent system works to manage
and select one of antenna array with the best directivity to be
switched on [13]– [14].
In this paper, a high gain patch antenna array for 2.4GHz
wireless communications system is proposed for rural area
application. The proposed patch antenna array which is
designed on a 1.6mm thick FR4 Epoxy dielectric substrate
is constructed of 16 rectangular patches arranged in 4 rows ×
4 columns formation to obtain the high gain characteristic.
Each of patch is fed using a microstrip feeding line in
which each feeding line makes a configuration of corporate
feeding network. In order to have an optimum design of
patch antenna array, at first, a single patch is investigated
to obtain its characteristics. After optimizing the separation
between patches, the patch antenna array is then characterized
to satisfy the design requirement. From the optimum design,
the proposed antenna array is realized for experimental
characterization in which the measured characteristic results
including return loss, VSWR, radiation pattern, and gain are
compared with the design ones.
II. OVERVIEW OF PATCH A NTENNA A RRAY D ESIGN
A. Single Patch Antenna Design
Figure 1 shows the structure of single patch antenna which
is designed on a 1.6mm thick FR4 Epoxy dielectric substrate.
The antenna is intended to work at the center frequency (𝑓0 )
of 2.4GHz, hence the dimension of patch takes a rectangular
shape is 28.5mm length (𝐿) and 32mm width (𝑊 ). By taking
into account center frequency, relative permittivity (𝜖𝑟 ) and
thickness of dielectric substrate (ℎ), (1) and (2) are employed
for determining the length and the width of antenna patch,
respectively [5]. The antenna is excited using a 𝜆/4 microstrip
feeding line with the input signal obtained from a 50Ω
connector. The rectangular patch and microstrip feeding line
are placed on the top side of dielectric substrate, whereas the
groundplane is positioned on the bottom side.
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 The 22nd Asia-Pacific Conference on Communications (APCC2016)

FR4 Epoxy
dielectric substrate 100Ω
FR4 Epoxy
dielectric substrate
32

75Ω
28.5mm
1.6

ground plane 32 mm
28.5
50Ω
rectangular patch and
microstrip feeding line 75Ω
14.5 ground plane

rectangular patch
Fig. 1. Structure of single patch antenna (unit in 𝑚𝑚). 1.6mm

Fig. 2. Construction of proposed patch antenna array.

𝑐
𝐿= √ − 2Δ𝐿 (1)
2𝑓0 𝜖𝑒𝑓𝑓
Epoxy dielectric substrate with the thickness of 1.6mm. The
𝑐 proposed patch antenna array comprised of 16 rectangular
𝑊 = √ (2) patches arranged in 4 rows × 4 columns formation to obtain
𝜖𝑟 + 1 the high gain characteristic. Each of patch is fed using a
2𝑓0
2 microstrip feeding line in which each feeding line makes
a configuration of corporate feeding network. The structure
in which 𝜖𝑒𝑓𝑓 and Δ𝐿 denote effective permittivity and fringing of feeding network is constructed of some branches with
extension length, respectively, as expressed in (3) and (4). T-junction power dividers. The input signal is obtained from
a 50Ω SMA connector and divided by the corporate feeding
𝜖𝑟 + 1 𝜖𝑟 − 1 network into 16 output for each patch. It shows that a 𝜆/4
𝜖𝑒𝑓𝑓 = + √ (3) transformer of 70Ω is implemented to match between the
2 ℎ
2 (1 + 12 ) impedance line of 100Ω and the feeding line of 50Ω.
𝑊
Furthermore, it should be noted that the separation between
( )
𝑊 patches has been optimized to have the distance of 0.6𝜆 to
(𝜖𝑒𝑓𝑓 + 0.3) + 0.264 avoid grating lobes generated by the coupling between the
ℎ
Δ𝐿 = 0.412ℎ ( ) (4) patches which can significantly influence the gain achievement
𝑊
(𝜖𝑒𝑓𝑓 − 0.258) − 0.8 of patch antenna array. While the 50Ω SMA connector
ℎ as an input signal is attached from the bottom side of
dielectric substrate. The construction of patch antenna array
In order to approach the experimental characterization, is characterized to obtain the optimum parameters including
the thickness of rectangular patch and microstrip feeding return loss, VSWR, gain and radiation pattern.
line which are made of metal copper is set to be 0.035mm.
Meanwhile to gain an accurate design result, all metal copper
conductive losses and dielectric substrate loss are included in III. R EALIZATION AND R ESULT C OMPARISON
the calculation. Table I summarizes the parameters of dielectric Based on the construction of patch antenna array, an
substrate use for the design. array of patch antenna is realized by deploying it on a
1.6mm thick FR4 Epoxy dielectric substrate. Figure 3 shows
B. Patch Antenna Array Design the prototype of realized patch antenna array intended for
rural area application. An SMA connector is soldered from
From the structure of single patch antenna, an array of
patch antenna are developed as illustrated in Fig. 2. The
dielectric substrate used for the deployment of patch antenna
array is the same as of the single patch antenna, i.e. FR4

TABLE I. PARAMETERS OF DIELECTRIC SUBSTRATE .

Parameter Dimension
Dielectric substrate FR4 Epoxy
Relative permittivity 4.4
Substrate thickness 1.6mm
Dielectric loss 0.02
Copper thickness 0.035mm
Cooper conductivity 5.8 × 107 S/m Fig. 3. Prototype of realized patch antenna array; front view (left); back view
(right).

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 The 22nd Asia-Pacific Conference on Communications (APCC2016)
the back side to experimentally characterized the realized
prototype. The experimental characterization results of return
loss, VSWR, gain, and radiation pattern are plotted in Figs.
4–7, respectively, in which the simulation results are depicted
together in each corresponding parameter.
BW=
Fig. 4. Measured return loss of patch antenna array prototype with simulated
result as comparison.
Fig. 5. Measured VSWR of patch antenna array prototype with simulated
result as comparison.
Fig. 6. Measured gain of patch antenna array prototype with simulated result
as comparison.
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It is shown in Fig. 4 that the realized antenna resonates at
frequency of 2.35GHz with the value of return loss of 19.52dB
which corresponds to the value of VSWR of 1.24 shown in
Fig. 5. The measured resonant frequency is 50MHz lower than
simulated result which resonates at frequency of 2.4GHz with
the value of return loss of 21.32dB. The discrepancy between
measured and simulated results is mostly influenced by the
different value of relative permittivity used in the realization
and simulation wherein the value of relative permittivity in
realization is higher than than the simulation. As the value of
relative permittivity is higher, as a result the resonant frequency
is going to be lower.
Moreover, it seems that the patch antenna array has the
second resonant frequency which occurs at 2.83GHz and
2.9GHz for measurement and simulation, respectively. This
resonant frequency is probably evoked by the higher order
mode of rectangular patch. However, the second resonant
frequency is negligible since it is enough far from the desired
resonant frequency and its -10dB bandwidth coverage. Whilst
the measured bandwidth response is about 130MHz range
from frequency of 2.31GHz - 2.44GHz. This is 30MHz wider
than the simulated result which has bandwidth response of
100MHz range from 2.34GHz - 2.44GHz. The difference of
bandwidth response is possibly evoked of dielectric loss and
copper conductive loss in the realization which is worst than
of the simulation.
(a) elevation plane
(b) azimuth plane
Fig. 7. Measured radiation pattern of patch antenna array prototype with
simulated result as comparison.
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 The 22nd Asia-Pacific Conference on Communications (APCC2016)
From Fig. 6, it shows that the measured gain has a good
agreement with the simulated one. The measured peak gain
occurs at resonant frequency with the value of 15.59dBi.
However, this value is 3.7dB lower than the simulated peak
gain which occurs at it resonant frequency. Nevertheless,
the result has proven that the array structure is effectively
to increase the gain of patch antenna array, therefore it is
suitable for rural area application. Meanwhile, the radiation
pattern plotted in Fig. 7 clearly shows the presence of side
lobes which is mostly caused by the numbers of patches
configured in array structure affecting the additional lobes. The
presence of side lobe is also evoked by the separation between
patches and the configuration of feeding network, however
reconfiguring separation between patches and configuration of
feeding network will affect to the gain achievement. From
Fig. 7, it is noted that the realized antenna has the value of
half-power beamwidth of 40o and 50o for elevation plane and
azimuth plane, respectively, in which this is slightly different
with the simulated ones.
IV. C ONCLUSION
The design and implementation of high gain 2.4GHz
patch antenna array for rural area application have been
presented. The realized patch antenna array which has been
constructed by 4×4 rectangular patches and deployed on a
1.6mm thick FR4 Epoxy dielectric substrate has the peak
gain of 15.59dBi at 2.35GHz of resonant frequency with the
bandwidth response of 130MHz ranges from the frequency of
2.31GHz - 2.44GHz. Although the measured gain was lower
than the simulated one, however the performance of realized
patch antenna array has accomplished the specifications
required by rural area application. Furthermore, due to the
different parameter value in the realization and simulation,
there were some discrepancies in term of resonant frequency,
bandwidth response and gain achievement. In addition, some
improvement to suppress side lobe level is in progress by
implementing weighting power distribution for each patch,
where the result will be presented later.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors wish to thank Mr. Zenal Aripin from the
Radio Telecommunication and Microwave Laboratory, School
of Electrical Engineering and Informatics, Institut Teknologi
Bandung for supporting experimentation.
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