S-Band Bandwidth Enhanced FSS Loaded Circular
2023 International Conference on Advances in Electronics, Communication, Computing and Intelligent Information Systems (ICAECIS) | 979-8-3503-4805-7/23/$31.00 ©2023 IEEE | DOI: 10.1109/ICAECIS58353.2023.10170017
Patch Antenna for Space Bourne Applications
Kavya M Surapuramath
Electronics and Communication Electronics and Communication
Engineering
M S Ramaiah University of Applied M S Ramaiah University of Applied
Sciences
Bangalore, India
skavyasm@gmail.com manassb712@gmail.com
U Akash
Electronics and Communication
Engineering
M S Ramaiah University of Applied
Sciences
Bangalore, India
akasharjiu@gmail.com
Abstract—The paper exemplifies the design and simulation of an
S-Band circular microstrip patch antenna for satellite in Low
Earth Orbit (LEO). The antenna design comprises of a circular
microstrip patch antenna loaded with a planar array of
Frequency Selective Surface (FSS) structure made up of
rectangular structures intended for improved bandwidth and
gain. The FSS also acts as a notch filter for external frequencies
affecting the performance of the antenna. The bandwidth
performance of the antenna is limited by L shaped slots on the
ground plane. The antenna has been designed using empirical
equations and further simulated on an 3D EM solver. The
return loss performance of the developed antenna indicates the
frequency resonance from 2.4 GHz to 5.6 GHz with a return loss
of -10 dB. The operating impedance bandwidth is 3.2 GHz for
the proposed antenna design. The simulated antenna has been
further fabricated and validated for its performance. The
antenna has been suitably optimized for near omni-directional
pattern at higher frequencies.
Keywords— Frequency Selective Surface (FSS), Wideband,
Microstrip Patch Antenna, ‘L’ Shaped rectangular slots
I. INTRODUCTION
Wideband antennas are used everywhere because of
its wider bandwidth, available in low cost, low power
consumption and reduced fading from multipath, easy
availability, also easy to fabricate [1-3]. It is widely used in
wireless communication. In this paper the proposed antenna
majorly focuses on the wideband applications with FSS
structure. Microstrip antenna consists of radiating patch on
one side of dielectric substrate and ground plane on the other
side. Microstrip patch antenna refers to any simple structure
such as circular, rectangle and elliptical. In this paper a
circular patch antenna is chosen as it is easy to design and
ease of fabrication, less turnaround time. Circular patch
antenna provides large bandwidth, improved return loss,
directivity, and gain. The circular microstrip patch antenna
the patch can be made by the conducting materials such as
copper, gold. In this design copper is chosen for patch with
0.02 mm thickness [1-4].
‘L’ shaped rectangular slots are etched on the backside of
ground plane with dielectric. These slots are designed as it
has simple structure and possess the wide impedance
bandwidth [5]. These ‘L’ shaped rectangular slots help to
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Manas Badanikai Sujith Rajan B
Electronics and Communication
Engineering Engineering
M S Ramaiah University of Applied
Sciences Sciences
Bangalore, India Bangalore, India
sujithrajan2001@gmail.com
Varun D
Electronics and Communication
Engineering
M S Ramaiah University of Applied
Sciences
Bangalore, India
varun.ec.et@gmail.com
improve the performance of the antenna also enhances the
bandwidth [6].
A double square loop a FSS structure, that is etched from
the substrate FR-4 on the backside of the plane that helps to
enhance the bandwidth wider and to improve the gain and
performance as well. FSS possess some Electromagnetic
Band Gap (EBG) properties which helps to improve the
radiation efficiency. Also gain and performance of the
antenna [7-9].
The operating frequency for the proposed antenna is
operated at S-Band ranges from 2GHz - 6 GHz. S-Band
enables the satellite to communicate with the earth also it is
used for weather radar, ship radar, and wireless network [10].
The development of a simple circular patch antenna with a
FSS structure with near omni-directional radiation pattern has
not been sufficiently addressed in literature.
II. GEOMETRY AND DESIGN PROCEDURE
A. Antenna Design
Designing a microstrip patch antenna mainly requires
proper selection of three important parameters, such as
substrate and its dielectric constant, height of the substrate
and resonant frequency. FR-4 is used as substrate as it is low-
cost and cheaply available in market and is suitable for low
frequency designs.
The substrate plays important role in design as it decides
the bandwidth and size of the microstrip antenna. Bandwidth
can be increased by using low dielectric substrate material
and increasing the thickness between the ground plane and
the microstrip patch antenna [4-7]. Proper selection of
dielectric constant is required to improve the antenna
performance.
Typically for designing a circular microstrip patch antenna
the dielectric constant of the substrate, thickness and resonant
frequency are determined initially [11].
In this design a FR-4 dielectric material with di-electric
constant of 4.8 and loss tangent of 0.017 is selected, the
height of the substrate is 1.52 mm. The feeding technique
used is an inset feeding method [1].
Radius of circular patch antenna can be determined using
the following equation:
354
 𝐹
𝑎=
2ℎ 𝐹𝜋 ()
√1 + [𝑙𝑛 ( ) + 1.7726]
𝜋𝜀𝑟 𝐹 2ℎ

where,
8.791 × 109
𝐹=
𝑓𝑟 √𝜀𝑟 ()

Here,
a = circular microstrip patch radius (mm),
h = height of the substrate (mm),
𝜀𝑟 = dielectric constant of substrate,
F = logarithmic function of the radiating element,
𝑓𝑟 = resonant frequency (GHz) [12].
(b) Bottom View
B. Antenna Dimensions and Geometry Figure 1 Dimensions of the Proposed Circular Patch Antenna
Design of the circular microstrip patch antenna:
Table 1 summarizes various design parameters and its The simulation model shown in Figure 1 is simulated using
dimensions in the proposed circular microstrip patch antenna. MoM solver and the return loss has been analyzed. In Figure
2, the graph depicts the return loss of circular microstrip patch
Table 1: ANTENNA DESIGN PARAMETERS AND ITS DIMENSION antenna. The frequency of operation is observed to be in the
Sl. No Antenna Design Parameter Values range of 2.42 - 6 GHz, with lowest return loss of -27.69 dB at
1. Width of the Substrate 35 mm
frequency of 5.599 GHz.
2. Depth of the Substrate 42 mm
3. Height of the Substrate 1.52 mm
4. Dielectric Constant of the Substrate (𝜀𝑟 ) 4.8 F/m
5. Loss Tangent (tan 𝛿) 0.017
6. Radius of the circular patch (a) 12.8 mm
7. Top width of the feedline 3 mm
8. Bottom width of the feedline 3.3 mm
9. Height of the feedline 14.8 mm
10. Thickness of copper 0.02 mm

The dimensions of the proposed circular patch antenna are 35

x 42 x 1.52 mm. The patch antenna is then fed by microstrip
feed line on the Printed Circuit Board (PCB) of FR-4
substrate with dielectric constant of 4.8, loss tangent of 0.017
and height of 1.52 mm.
The circular patch is of radius 12.8 mm with height 0.02
mm. The antenna is fed by a trapeziform shaped microstrip
feedline having bottom width of 3.5 mm, top width of 3mm, Figure 2 Simulated Return Loss of Proposed Circular Patch Antenna
height of 14.84 mm and depth of 0.02 mm [13]. The antenna
is not completely backed by ground plane as omnidirectional Design of Rectangular ‘L’ slots:
pattern is essential. The simulation results shown in Figure 2 depicts a
wideband operation of the proposed antenna. The bandwidth
of the antenna needs to be curtailed for the satellite
communication in LEO orbits. The bandwidth has been
reduced by developing rectangular slots on the ground plane
thus reducing the bandwidth. Table 2 summarizes the values
of the rectangular ‘L’ slots on the rectangular plane along
with dimensions in the proposed antenna design.

Table 2 : RECTANGULAR ‘L’ SLOTS DESIGN AND ITS

DIMENSIONS
Dimension
Sl. No Rectangular ‘L’ slots
(mm)
1. Depth of the slot 9.75
2. Width of the slot 5
3. Height of the slot 0.02
4. Thickness of the slot 1
(a) Top View

The bottom surface of antenna comprises of rectangular

ground plane of width 35 mm, depth of 14.84 mm and
thickness of 0.02 mm, upon which rectangular ‘L’ slots are

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etched. L shaped slots result in notch filter effects in the
antenna [14]. The rectangular ‘L’ slots are formed by
overlapping of two rectangular patches. The longer
rectangular patch has width of 1 mm, depth of 9.75 mm and
height of 0.02 mm. The shorter rectangular patch has depth
of 1 mm, width of 5 mm and height of 0.02 mm. The
rectangular ‘L’ slots are notched out from the ground plane
to reduce the bandwidth the proposed antenna design.
Design of the Frequency Selective Surface (FSS)
structures:
FSS is a frequency selective surface these are formed by
periodic array pattern of radiating elements that acts as filter
correspondingly to the electromagnetic waves [7].
In this paper square loop structured FSS is designed as it
gives the best performance in terms of frequency response
and has a simple structure which is easy for the fabrication
process. It effects the frequency shift and the transmission of
FSS. Due to the presence of inner square, the resonant
frequency gets shifted to lower frequency. It is known that
higher the transmission loss better the FSS obtained [7].
The equations of FSS are as follows:

𝑑
𝑋1𝑇𝐸,𝑇𝑀 = 𝐹(𝑝, 2𝑠, 𝜆) (3)
𝑃

𝑝=𝑑+𝑔
(4)
𝑑
𝐵1𝑇𝐸,𝑇𝑀 = 4 𝐹(𝑝, 𝑔, 𝜆) (5)
(a) 𝑃

Table 3 summarizes the values of square patched looped

array Frequency Selective Surface (FSS) structures and its
dimensions in the proposed antenna design.

Table 3 : FREQUENCY SELECTIVE SURFACE STRUCTURE (FSS)

DESIGN PARAMETERS AND ITS DIMENSIONS
Sl. No Dimension
FSS Structure Design Parameter
(mm)
1.
Outer width of square patch 2.4
2.
Inner width of the square patch 1.9
3.
Width of the square patch (Outer width –
0.25
Inner width)

(b) The bottom design of the proposed antenna consists of

Figure 3 (a) Rectangular ‘L’ slot (b) Pair of Rectangular ‘L’ Slots
on the Ground Plane.
In Figure 4, the graph displays the return loss of the
proposed antenna with rectangular ‘L’ slots etched on
rectangular ground plane in the bottom surface of the antenna.
The lowest return loss of -33.084 dB is obtained at 5.2 GHz.
square patch looped array (FSS) structures, rectangular
ground plane with rectangular ‘L’ slots fed by a trapeziform
shaped microstrip feedline.
The bottom surface has a square patch looped array FSS
structures of 9 columns and 7 rows totally comprising of 63
square loop structures. Each square loop of the FSS structure
has an outer width of 2.4 mm, inner width of 1.9 mm and
height of 0.02 mm. Hence, the thickness of the square loop
FSS structure is 0.25 mm at each side. Large number of FSS
structures results in improved gain [15].

Figure 4 Simulated Return Loss Plots of the Proposed Circular Patch

Antenna with ‘L’ Slots
(a)

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(b)
Figure 5 (a) Proposed Square FSS (b) Antenna Loaded with FSS
In Figure 6, shows the return loss of the circular microstrip
patch antenna along with rectangular ’L’ slots and square
patch looped array. The lowest return loss -23.66 dB is
obtained at 2.8 GHz.
Figure 6 Graph representing return loss of antenna with FSS structures
III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The simulations are conducted using a 3D Electromagnetic
Simulation Software at the frequency range of 2 – 6 GHz. The
antenna parameters such as return loss, bandwidth etc., are
enhanced due to FSS structures and rectangular ‘L’ slots. The
trapeziform shaped feedline is connected to the ground plane
via coaxial connectors [1].
The final design of the proposed antenna is designed using
3D Electromagnetic simulation software and the fabricated
antenna of the same is shown in Figure 7
(a)
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(b)
Figure 7 (a) Fabricated Antenna (b) Simulated Antenna
The return loss obtained from the final simulated antenna
is shown in Figure 8. From the graph, the lowest return loss
is obtained at -25.53 dB at 2.798 GHz. The total bandwidth
obtained is 3.18 GHz ranging from 2.39 GHz till 5.58 GHz.
The Measured - 1 and the Measured – 2 values displayed in
the graph shown in the Figure 8 are obtained from the vector
network analyzers. The FSS structures are used to suppress
the surface waves in the proposed antenna design. Whereas
the rectangular ‘L’ slots improved the return loss of the
proposed antenna design. Figure 9 depicts the simulated far-
field of the proposed antenna with a total peak gain of 1.5 dB.
The Figure 9 also depicts the omnidirectional pattern of the
antenna in the azimuth plane.
Figure 8 Comparison of Simulated and Measured Return Loss of the
Proposed Antenna
Figure 9 3-D Far-field Plot of the Proposed Antenna
The fabricated antenna has been tested for its gain
performance in an anechoic chamber. The comparison
between the simulated and the measured far field pattern at
4.5 GHz and 5.5 GHz is observed at azimuth plane. Figure 10
depicts the gain plots of the antenna. A comparison between
the simulated and measured results are made in Figure 10.
The radiation pattern of both the frequencies 4.5 GHz and 5.5
GHz are similar and omni-directional. Thus validating the
design.
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