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MICROSTRIP ANTENNAS
INTRODUCTION
In high-performance aircraft, spacecraft, satellite, and missile applications, where size,
weight, cost, performance, and ease of installation are constraints, low-profile antennas may
be required. Nowadays, there are many other governments and commercial applications, such
as mobile radio and wireless communications that have similar specifications. To meet these
requirements, the microstrip antennas (MSA) can be used.
i- Patch Shapes
The radiator should be a material with low ohmic loss and high conductivity at the operating
frequency, such as copper, which can be fixed to a dielectric substrate. The shape can be an
ordinary rectangle, square, ellipse, circle, triangle, ring, fractal, or their variations. More
complex variations on the basic shapes are frequently used to meet particular design demands.
The selection of a particular shape is contingent on specific requirements in terms of
polarization, bandwidth, gain, etc. Generally, the antenna characteristics are defined by the
excited operating modes, which depend on the shape and dimensions of the patch, the
thickness and dielectric constant of the substrate, as well as the feed arrangement.
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ANTENNA LECTURES BY Mohammed Kamil
ii- Substrate
There are several types of dielectric materials available for substrates. Important parameters
are the dielectric constant (2.2 ≤ 𝜖𝑟 ≤ 16 in RF or microwave bands), the dielectric loss
tangent (0.0001 ≤ 𝑡𝑎𝑛 𝛿 ≤ 0.06), and the cost. Another point which must be taken into
consideration when choosing the substrate material is the effect of the dielectric constant on
the radiation characteristics. A high dielectric constant usually results in low radiation from a
microstrip patch antenna.
Microstrip line
The purpose of the inset cut in the patch is to match the impedance of the feed line to the
patch without the need for any additional matching element. This is achieved by properly
controlling the inset position. Hence this is an easy feeding scheme since it provides ease of
fabrication and simplicity in modeling as well as impedance matching. However, as the
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ANTENNA LECTURES BY Mohammed Kamil
thickness of the used dielectric substrate increases, the surface waves and the spurious feed
radiation also increase, which hamper the bandwidth of the antenna. The feed radiation also
leads to undesired cross-polarized radiation.
The impedance of microstrip line can be calculated by:
87 5.98 ∗ ℎ
𝑍0 = ∗ 𝑙𝑛 [ ]
√𝜖𝑟 + 1.41 0.8 ∗ 𝐹 + 𝑇
where:
Z0: characteristic impedance of microstrip line (Ω)
h: substrate height
Microstrip line Substrat
F: width of microstrip line
e
T: microstrip line thickness
Ground
plane
Side view of patch antenna with micro strip feed line
(a) (b)
Probe feed for rectangular patch antenna (a) side view (b) top view
The main advantage of this type of feeding scheme is that the feed can be placed at
any desired location inside the patch in order to match its input impedance. This feed method
is easy to fabricate and has low spurious radiation.
However, the major disadvantage of this type of feeding scheme is that it provides narrow
bandwidth and is difficult to model since a hole has to be drilled in the substrate and the
connector protrudes outside the ground plane, thus not making it completely planar for thick
substrates. Also, for thicker substrates, the increased probe length makes the input impedance
more inductive and leads to match problems.
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ANTENNA LECTURES BY Mohammed Kamil
Aperture coupled feed is more complex and difficult to fabricate than to other types. It
consists of two substrates separated by ground plane. On the bottom of the lower substrate,
there is a microstrip fed line whose energy is coupled to the patch through slot on the ground
plane. High dielectric material is used for bottom substrate and thick and low dielectric
constant material is used for the top substrate. A model of Aperture Coupled is shown in
figure below.
In this type of feeding the substrate electrical parameters, feed line width and especially slot
size and position can be used to optimize the design and it has the spurious radiation. On the
other side, it provides the narrow bandwidth.
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The main advantage of this feed technique is that it eliminates the spurious feed
radiation and provides high bandwidth due to the overall increase in the thickness of the
microstrip patch antenna. This scheme also provides choices between two different dielectric
media; one for the patch and the other for the feed line to optimize the individual
performances. Matching can be made by controlling the length of the feed line and the width-
to-line ratio of the patch. The main disadvantage of this feed scheme is that it is difficult to
be fabricated because of the two dielectric layers that need proper alignment. Also, there is an
increase in the overall thickness of the antenna.
3- Rectangular Patch
The rectangular patch is by far the most widely used configuration. It is very easy to
analyze using both the transmission-line and cavity models, which are most accurate for thin
substrates. We begin with the transmission-line model because it is easier to illustrate.
A. Fringing Effects
Because the dimensions of the patch are finite along the length and width, the fields at
the edges of the patch undergo fringing.
the ratio of the length of the patch L to the height h of the substrate (𝐿/ℎ) and the dielectric
constant 𝜖𝑟 of the substrate. Since for microstrip antennas 𝐿/ℎ ≫ 1, fringing is reduced.
The initial values of the effective dielectric constant are given by:
𝝐𝒓 + 𝟏 𝝐𝒓 − 𝟏 𝒉 −𝟏/𝟐
𝝐𝒓 𝒆𝒇𝒇 = + [𝟏 + 𝟏𝟐 ] 𝑾/𝒉 > 𝟏
𝟐 𝟐 𝑾
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𝑾
∆𝑳 (𝝐𝒓 𝒆𝒇𝒇 + 𝟎. 𝟑) ( 𝒉 + 𝟎. 𝟐𝟔𝟒)
= 𝟎. 𝟒𝟏𝟐 𝑾
𝒉 (𝝐 − 𝟎. 𝟐𝟓𝟖) ( + 𝟎. 𝟖)
𝒓 𝒆𝒇𝒇 𝒉
𝑾
(𝝐𝒓 𝒆𝒇𝒇 + 𝟎. 𝟑) ( 𝒉 + 𝟎. 𝟐𝟔𝟒)
∆𝑳 = 𝟎. 𝟒𝟏𝟐 𝒉 𝑾
(𝝐𝒓 𝒆𝒇𝒇 − 𝟎. 𝟐𝟓𝟖) ( 𝒉 + 𝟎. 𝟖)
The length of the patch has been extended by ∆𝑳 on each side; the effective length of the
patch is:
𝑳𝒆𝒇𝒇 = 𝑳 + 𝟐∆𝑳
The resonant frequency of the microstrip antenna is a function of its length. Usually it is given
by:
𝒗𝟎
𝒇𝒓 =
𝟐𝑳√𝝐𝒓
The resonant frequency includes edge effects and should be computed using:
𝒗𝟎 𝒗𝟎
𝒇𝒓 = → 𝑳𝒆𝒇𝒇 =
𝟐𝑳𝒆𝒇𝒇 √𝝐𝒓 𝒆𝒇𝒇 𝟐𝒇𝒓 √𝝐𝒓 𝒆𝒇𝒇
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ANTENNA LECTURES BY Mohammed Kamil
C. Design
1- For an efficient radiator, a practical width that leads to good radiation efficiencies is:
𝒗𝟎 𝟐
𝑾= √
𝟐𝒇𝒓 𝝐𝒓 + 𝟏
Example: Design a rectangular microstrip antenna using a substrate (RT/duroid 5880) with
dielectric constant of 2.2, h = 0.1588 cm so as to resonate at 10 GHz.
Solution:
The width W of the patch is found by:
v0 2 3 ∗ 108 2
W= √ = √ = 0.01186 m = 1.186 cm (0.467 in)
2fr ϵr + 1 2 ∗ 10 ∗ 109 2.2 + 1
1.186
(1.972 + 0.3) ( + 0.264)
0.1588
∆L = 0.412 ∗ 0.1588 1.186
= 0.081 cm (0.032 in)
(1.972 − 0.258) ( + 0.8)
0.1588
v0 3 ∗ 108
Leff = = = 0.01068 m = 1.068 cm (0.421 in)
2fr √ϵr eff 2 ∗ 10 ∗ 109 √1.972
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ANTENNA LECTURES BY Mohammed Kamil
H.W
Design a rectangular microstrip antenna so that it will resonate at 2 GHz. The idealistic
lossless substrate (RT/Duroid 6010.2) has a dielectric constant of 10.2 and a h = 0.127 cm.
• Narrow bandwidth.
• Low efficiency.
• Low gain.
• Low power handling capacity.
• Surface wave excitation.
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