IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 57, NO.
3, MARCH 2009
circuits. It also has the advantage of frequency selectivity to suppress
unwanted signals in between the two working bands.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank R. Zhou and L. Wang for their help
in the antenna measurements.
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[1] Z. D. Liu, P. S. Hall, and D. Wake, “Dual-frequency planar in-
verted-F antenna,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 45, no. 10, pp.
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[3] C. -J. Lee, K. M. K. H. Leong, and T. Itoh, “Compact dual-band antenna
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[5] N. Behdad and K. Sarabandi, “Dual-band reconfigurable antenna with
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[6] P. Nepa, G. Manara, S. Mugnaini, G. Tribellini, S. Cioci, G. Albasini,
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[7] F. Tefiku and C. A. Grimes, “Design of broadband and dual-band an-
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[8] Y.-H. Suh and K. Chang, “Low cost microstrip-fed dual frequency
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0018-926X/$25.00 © 2009 IEEE
789
A Broadband Center-Fed Circular Patch-Ring Antenna
With a Monopole Like Radiation Pattern
Asem Al-Zoubi, Fan Yang, and Ahmed Kishk
Abstract—A center-fed circular microstrip patch antenna with a coupled
annular ring is presented. This antenna has a low profile configuration with
a monopole like radiation pattern. Compared to the center-fed circular
patch antenna (CPA), the proposed antenna has a large bandwidth and
similar radiation pattern. The proposed antenna is fabricated and tested.
It resonates at 5.8 GHz, the corresponding impedance bandwidth and gain
are 12.8% and 5.7 dBi, respectively. Very good agreement between the
measurement and simulation for the return loss and radiation patterns is
achieved.
Index Terms—Annular ring, circular patch antenna (CPA), microstrip
antenna, monopole.
I. INTRODUCTION
Monopole antennas radiate an omnidirectional pattern in the hor-
izontal plane, and they are widely used in wireless communications
[1]. Since the vertical monopole antenna has a relatively large height
(=4), it is not recommended when a low profile or conformal geom-
etry is desired. To realize a monopole type radiation pattern, low pro-
file microstrip patch antennas have been investigated [2]–[6]. In [3],
a monopole like radiation pattern was obtained using a circular patch
antenna (CPA). The antenna resonates at 5.8 GHz with an overall band-
width (BW) of 1.5% for a thin substrate of 0.787 mm. For a 3-mm sub-
strate thickness the BW reached 5%.
Annular ring coupled circular patches have been studied in the lit-
erature. In [7], the coaxial probe for the antenna is located away from
the center to improve the matching and it radiates in the broadside di-
rection. The maximum BW obtained was 3.7% at 5 GHz with a 10.4
dielectric constant substrate and a thickness of 1.905 mm. An annular
ring loaded spherical-circular microstrip antenna was studied theoreti-
cally using full wave analysis in the spectral domain [8]. The patch is
fed by an off-center probe to improve the matching and to excite a mode
with a broadside beam on a 2.65 dielectric constant substrate with 1 mm
thickness. The achieved bandwidth was 5.98% with a 6.34-GHz center
frequency. Also, an annular ring coupled to a shorted circular patch is
studied in [9], where shorting pin was added to reduce the size of the
patch and the annular ring was used to improve the bandwidth. The an-
tenna is printed on a 5-mm substrate with dielectric constant 1.13, and
the bandwidth obtained was 6.8% at 1.9 GHz.
In this communication, a center-fed circular microstrip patch an-
tenna loaded with an annular ring is introduced, which has different
operation mode and radiation performance than the previous designs.
The proposed antenna has a low profile configuration; the thickness of
the antenna is 1.5 mm (0.029  at 5.8 GHz). The antenna radiates a sim-
ilar pattern to a vertical monopole antenna with a low cross polarization
and good return loss, and it has a wide bandwidth. The antenna is de-
signed and fabricated. The geometry of the antenna and its parameters
are discussed in Section II. The return loss for the proposed antenna is
Manuscript received March 06, 2008; revised August 04, 2008. Current ver-
sion published March 27, 2009.
The authors are with the Department of Electrical Engineering, University
of Mississippi, University, MS 38677 USA (e-mail: aszoubi@olemiss.edu;
fyang@olemiss.edu; ahmed@olemiss.edu).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this communication are avail-
able online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2008.2011406
790 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 57, NO. 3, MARCH 2009
Fig. 1. Geometry of a center-fed CPA coupled with an annular ring.
Fig. 2. Return loss comparison of a CPA with the CPA loaded with a ring.
compared to a CPA. Section III presents a parametric study of the pro-
posed antenna and explains their effects. Experimental results for the
return loss and radiation patterns are presented in Section IV.
II. GEOMETRY
The geometry of a center-fed circular microstrip patch antenna cou-
pled with an annular ring is shown in Fig. 1. The patch has a radius
Rp of 18 mm. The substrate has a thickness t of 1.5 mm and dielec-
tric constant of 2.94. The coaxial probe feed is placed at the center of
the patch with probe radius of 0.34 mm. The annular ring has an inner
radius a = 19 mm and an outer radius b = 31 mm, and is concentri-
cally placed around the circular patch. The ground plane radius Rg is
75 mm.
The radiation performance of the proposed antenna is simulated
using the Ansoft HFSS commercial software [10], which is based
on the finite element method. The computed results of the proposed
antenna and the CPA (without the ring loading) are compared in
Fig. 2. The return loss for the CPA is only 8 dB, while for the proposed
antenna is 34 dB with a BW of 12.8%. The circular patch is designed to
resonate at 5.8 GHz without the presence of the annular ring; the mode
excited in this patch is the TM02 mode in which the field is invariant
in the -direction [11], [12]. This mode is not the fundamental mode,
because of this the size of the antenna is relatively large (about 1 0 ).
The dual resonance behavior of the circular patch with an annular
ring can be understood from the cavity model [11], [12]. The resonant
frequency for TM02 mode of the circular patch is 5.773 GHz which
agrees with the simulated results. If the radius of the patch increases,
the resonant frequency decreases. The input impedance for the circular
Fig. 3. Current distribution on the top surface of the antenna at 5.8 GHz.
patch itself is high because of strong electric field and weak magnetic
field at the center of the patch. Using the cavity model for the annular
ring with the parameters mentioned previously, the resonant frequency
is 6.56 GHz without the circular patch effect. The mode excited in the
ring is the TM02 mode as well. The surface current distribution of
the antenna at 5.8 GHz is shown in Fig. 3, which is invariant in the
-direction.
It is noticed that there is a shift in frequency between the analytical
and simulated resonant frequency as observed in Fig. 2, which is due
to the coupling between the patch and the annular ring. In [13], it is
shown that as the slot width decreases (coupling increases), the reso-
nant frequency decreases. Because of coupling, the quality factor Q of
the antenna decreases, which results in a wide bandwidth.
In summary, changing the patch radius Rp will affect the first res-
onant frequency ( = 5:8 GHz). If the radius Rp increases, then the
resonant frequency will decrease. For the annular ring, two parameters
affect the resonant frequency; a and b. These parameters will affect the
second resonant frequency. Increasing the value of a will cause the res-
onant frequency to increase, while increasing b will decrease the res-
onant frequency. The slot width will affect the coupling between the
patch and the ring, resulting in different operation bandwidths.
III. PARAMETRIC STUDY AND DISCUSSION
From the previous section, it noticed that several parameters affect
the resonant frequency and the matching of the antenna. In this section,
we will demonstrate the effect of each of these parameters.
Fig. 4(a) shows the return loss of the proposed antenna for different
values of the patch radius Rp . The other parameters of the antenna are:
a = 19 mm, b = 31 mm, and Rg = 75 mm. It is observed that
when the value of Rp decreases, the first resonant frequency increases.
When the value of Rp decreases, the slot width increases which means
that the coupling between the patch and the ring is decreased causing a
poor matching. From the figure, it can be seen that there is only slight
change of the second resonant frequency since the parameters a and b
are unchanged.
The return loss of the proposed antenna with different values of b
is shown in Fig. 4(b), while other parameters are: Rp = 18 mm,
a = 19 mm, and Rg = 75 mm. It can be noticed from the figure that
as the value of b increases, the second resonant frequency decreases
and there is no change in the first resonant frequency. Also, as b de-
creases the return loss of the second resonance increases so that the
10-dB bandwidth of the antenna decreases.
Fig. 4(c) shows the return loss of the antenna for different values of
a (or slot width) with the parameters: Rp = 18 mm, b = 31 mm, and
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 57, NO. 3, MARCH 2009
Fig. 4. Return loss for the CPA loaded with a ring for different values of
(a) patch radius; (b) ring outer radius b, and (c) slot width.
Rg = 75 mm. It can be noticed from the figure that as the slot width
increases (as a increases), the coupling becomes weak which causes
the matching to be poor. Also, there is a slight increase in the resonant
frequency when a increases which agrees with the cavity theory.
IV. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
To verify the results of the proposed antenna, the antenna with di-
mensions given in Section II is fabricated and tested. Fig. 5(a) shows a
photo of the antenna fabricated on a 1.524-mm-thick RT/duroid 6002
791
Fig. 5. (a) Photo of the fabricated antenna. (b) Comparison between measured
and simulated return loss of the antenna.
high-frequency laminate ("r = 2:94). A 50- SMA connector is sol-
dered to the center of the patch. The simulated and measured results for
the return loss of the antenna are almost identical as shown in Fig. 5(b).
The antenna has a 10 dB return loss bandwidth of 12.8%. A small nu-
merical glitch is noticed at 5.75 GHz, because the meshing in HFSS
is not circularly symmetric and some spurious modes appear in the
simulation.
The radiation patterns for the proposed antenna are simulated
and measured at different frequencies within the bandwidth. The
frequencies are 5.7 GHz which is the lower frequency within the band,
6.3 GHz which is the higher frequency, and the design frequency
5.8 GHz. The measured radiation patterns agree well with the HFSS
simulations, and a monopole like pattern is obtained. Fig. 6(a), (c), and
(e) shows the simulated and measured E-plane radiation patterns at
5.7, 5.8, and 6.3 GHz, respectively. They have a deep null in the broad
side while the main beam is at around 45 . The cross polarization
is about 18 dB below the copolarization level. The H-plane patterns
are shown in Fig. 6(b), (d), and (f). The pattern is omnidirectional
and the cross polarization level is more than 15 dB below that of the
copolarization level. The simulated gain of the antenna at 5.8 GHz is
5.7 dBi.
V. CONCLUSION
A center-fed circular microstrip patch antenna with a coupled an-
nular ring is introduced in this communication. This antenna has a
monopole like radiation pattern over the whole bandwidth. It has an at-
tractive low-profile configuration with a 1.5-mm height only (< 0:03
792 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 57, NO. 3, MARCH 2009
Fig. 6. E-plane radiation patterns of the proposed antennas at: (a) 5.7 GHz;
(c) 5.8 GHz; and (e) 6.3 GHz. H-plane radiation patterns at: (b) 5.7 GHz;
(d) 5.8 GHz; and (f) 6.3 GHz.
at 5.8 GHz). An antenna prototype was designed, fabricated, and tested.
The 10-dB return loss bandwidth of the antenna is 12.8% and a gain of
5.7 dBi at 5.8 GHz. This antenna has a good potential for mobile wire-
less communications.
REFERENCES
[1] W. L. Stutzman and G. A. Thiele, Antenna Theory and Design, 2nd
ed. New York: Wiley, 1998.
[2] J. Huang, “Circularly polarized conical patterns from circular mi-
crostrip antennas,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 32, pp.
991–994, Sep. 1984.
[3] L. Economou and R. J. Langley, “Patch antenna equivalent to simple
monopole,” Electron. Lett., vol. 33, no. 9, pp. 727–729, Nov. 1999.
[4] C. B. Ravipati, “Compact circular microstrip antenna for conical
pattern,” in Proc. IEEE AP-S Int. Symp. Dig., Jun. 2004, vol. 4, pp.
3820–3823.
[5] C. B. Ravipati, D. R. Jackson, and H. Xu, “Center-fed microstrip an-
tennas with shorting vias for miniaturization,” in Proc. IEEE AP-S Int.
Symp. Dig., Jul. 2005, vol. 3B, pp. 281–284.
[6] A. Al-Zoubi, F. Yang, and A. Kishk, “A low-profile dual band surface
wave antenna with a monopole-like pattern,” IEEE Trans. Antennas
Propag., vol. 55, pp. 3404–3412, Dec. 2007.
0018-926X/$25.00 © 2009 IEEE
[7] D. M. Kokotoff, R. B. Waterhouse, C. R. Birtcher, and J. T. Aberle,
“Annular ring coupled circular patch with enhanced performance,”
Electron. Lett., vol. 33, no. 24, pp. 2000–2001, Nov. 1997.
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Antennas Propag., vol. 45, pp. 1581–1583, Nov. 1997.
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coupled to a shorted patch,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 45,
pp. 913–920, May 1997.
[10] HFSS: High Frequency Structure Simulator Based on Finite Element
Method, v.10.0 Ansoft Corp., 2005.
[11] R. Garg, P. Bahl, and A. Ittipiboon, Microstrip Antenna Design Hand-
book. Dedham, MA: Artech House, 2001.
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London, U.K.: IEE Electromagnetic Wave Series 28, 1989.
[13] T. Chakravarty, S. Biswas, A. Mujumdar, and A. De, “Computation
of resonant frequency of annular-ring-loaded circular patch using
cavity model analysis,” Microw. Opt. Technol. Lett., vol. 48, no. 3, pp.
622–626, Mar. 2006.
Modal Analysis of Microstrip Antenna on Fiber
Reinforced Anisotropic Substrates
S. M. Yang and C.-C. Hung
Abstract—In this communication, microstrip antenna on fiber reinforced
anisotropic substrates has been considered in aerospace applications; how-
ever, the antenna’s optical axis may not necessarily be colinear with any
of the substrate’s principal axes and that leads to a nondiagonal permit-
tivity matrix (tensor). This work extends the studies of microstrip antenna
on isotropic substrate and on uniaxial substrate to analyze antenna perfor-
mance on fiber reinforced anisotropic substrates, where the permittivity
matrix has five dielectric constants because of the substrate’s fiber direc-
tion. The solution is based on modal analysis so that the wave immittance
can be derived in a closed form. Analyses and experimental verification
show that the antenna performance is strongly influenced not only by the
permittivity along the principal axes but also by the fiber direction of the
substrate.
Index Terms—Anisotropic substrate, microstrip antenna, spectral
domain analysis.
I. INTRODUCTION
In high-performance aerospace applications, where weight, per-
formance, and aerodynamics are of major constraints, low-profile
microstrip antenna may be desirable. By adding fiber (continuous,
woven, or random), quartz, or ceramic to organic or synthetic mate-
rials, one can tailor desirable mechanical and electrical properties of a
composite laminate. Individual continuous fiber/matrix lamina can be
oriented in certain direction and bonded together to form a laminate
[1]. In addition to the desired mechanical properties, composite lami-
nates such as woven glass ploytetrafluoroethylence (PTFE) and carbon
fiber offer another advantage of embedding microstrip antennas in
airframe. Although composite laminates have been used in aerospace
Manuscript received February 12, 2008; revised September 29, 2008. Current
version published March 27, 2009.
S. M. Yang is with the Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, National
Cheng Kung University, 701 Taiwan (e-mail: smyang@mail.ncku.edu.tw).
C.-C. Hung is with the Department of Aeronautical Engineering, Chung
Cheng Institute of Technology, National Defense University, 335 Taiwan.
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this communication are avail-
able online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2009.2013443