IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL.

13, 2014 39

Broadband Monopolar Microstrip Patch Antenna

With Shorting Vias and Coupled Ring
Juhua Liu, Member, IEEE, Shaoyong Zheng, Yuanxin Li, Member, IEEE, and Yunliang Long, Senior Member, IEEE

Abstract—A center-fed circular patch antenna with shorting

vias and a coupled annular ring is proposed. With a low-profile
configuration, the antenna provides a wide bandwidth by merging
three resonant modes, including the TM mode of the circular
patch, the TM mode generated by the shorting vias, and the
TM mode of the coupled annular ring. The antenna operating
in these modes would produce an omnidirectional pattern in
the horizontal plane similar to that generated by a monopole
antenna. A reduced structure is used to simplify the simulation in
optimizing the bandwidth of the antenna. Measured results show
that the antenna achieves a bandwidth of 27.4% for a profile of
0.029 wavelengths and has a gain of about 6 dBi.
Index Terms—Annular ring, circular patch antenna, microstrip
antenna, monopole, shorting vias.
Fig. 1. Geometry of the monopolar microstrip circular patch antenna with
shorting vias and a coupled annular ring.
I. INTRODUCTION

M ONOPOLE antennas are widely used for omnidirec-

tional radiation in wireless communications. However,
the monopole antenna has a profile of (where is the
In 2009, Al-Zoubi et al. [12] proposed a center-fed circular
patch antenna with a coupled annular ring. The antenna has a
simple structure and a very low profile and can be easily fabri-
wavelength in free space), which is too high for some circum-
cated on a PCB. It achieves a bandwidth of 12% with a profile of
stances that need a low profile or conformal radiator.
. Later, a center-fed circular patch antenna with shorting
Microstrip antennas have received extensive research in re-
vias [13] was proposed for bandwidth enhancement. The cir-
cent decades because they have advantages of low profile, low
cular patch antenna with shorting vias achieves a bandwidth of
cost, and can be fabricated on a printed circuit board (PCB).
18% for a profile of . Dual-resonance behaviors are ob-
A center-fed circular patch antenna [1] would generate a
served in the antennas [12], [13].
monopole-like radiation pattern and has a much lower pro-
In this letter, we propose a monopolar circular patch antenna
file compared to the monopole antenna. Unfortunately, the
loaded with shorting vias and a coupled annular ring to achieve
center-fed microstrip circular patch antenna has a narrow
an even wider bandwidth by coupling three modes. The antenna
bandwidth of 1.5% for a thin substrate with or 5% for
has a very low profile and can be easily fabricated on a PCB.
a thick substrate of . A wire-patch antenna presented
In the optimization of the bandwidth of the presented antenna, a
by Delaveaud et al. [2] has a small size and also generates a
half-sector structure is introduced to save the time in simulation.
monopole-like radiation pattern, but it also has a demerit of a
The effects of the height of the antenna on the bandwidth are
narrow bandwidth (only 1.8% for a profile of ).
discussed. A prototype is fabricated, and measured results show
Several useful techniques [3]–[11] adopting air substrate
that the antenna achieves a bandwidth of 27.4% for a profile of
were proposed to achieve a very wide bandwidth for a
and has a gain of about 6 dBi.
monopolar circular patch antenna. However, the thickness of
the air substrate in the antennas [3]–[11] is mostly larger than II. GEOMETRIES
, and the feeding structures are complicated. A. Structure
The geometry of the antenna is shown in Fig. 1. The circular
Manuscript received September 04, 2013; revised November 28, 2013; ac- patch is fabricated on a ground-plane backed substrate with a
cepted December 16, 2013. Date of publication December 18, 2013; date of
current version January 23, 2014. This work was supported by the Nature Sci- relative permittivity of and a thickness of . The ground plane
ence Foundation of China under Grant 61172026 and the Research Project of has a radius of . The circular patch has a radius of . The
Guangdong under Grant 2012B091100050. patch antenna is fed at the center by a coaxial probe with a char-
The authors are with the Department of Electronics and Communication En-
gineering, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510125, China, and also with acteristic impedance of . In order to generate another
the SYSU-CMU Shunde International Joint Research Institute, Shunde 528300, mode, a series of shorting vias are used to load the patch
China (e-mail: liujh33@mail.sysu.edu.cn). symmetrically around the -axis. Each sector that includes one
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this letter are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org. shorting via has an angle of . Each shorting via has
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/LAWP.2013.2295686 a radius of and is placed at a distance of from the center

1536-1225 © 2013 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
40
Fig. 2. Half-sector of the antenna in Fig. 1.
of the patch. To introduce a third mode, a parasitic annular ring
with an inner radius of and an outer radius of is also em-
ployed to load the patch.
B. Half-Sector Structure
In order to generate a monopole-like radiation pattern that is
omnidirectional in the horizontal plane, the field must be sym-
metric around the -axis, and the semi-planes
(where ) must be perfect magnetic planes
(it is assumed that one of the shorting vias is placed at the
semi-plane, as shown in Fig. 2). Therefore, in order to save the
time in simulation, only a half sector with an angle of
shown in Fig. 2 needs to be concerned instead of simulating the
full structure shown in Fig. 1.
The simulation using the half-sector structure is different
from the one used in [13]. The simulation in [13] uses “Eigen-
mode” to analyze the resonance modes, and therefore the
feeding part is not included, while here the simulation uses
“Driven Modal” to calculate the reflection coefficient and the
feeding part must be employed. The feeding position for the
half-sector structure is at the corner, as shown in Fig. 2. When
using the half-sector structure in the simulation, care must be
taken in calculating the input impedance for its corresponding
full structure. Since the current of the full structure is times
that of the half-sector structure, the input impedance of the full
structure is times that of the half-sector structure.
III. ANTENNA DESIGN
Simulated result for the reflection coefficient for the pro-
posed antenna is shown in solid line in Fig. 3, in which three
resonant modes are observed. The mode relating to the lowest
resonant frequency is the TM mode, which is generated by
the shorting vias; the mode with the medium resonant frequency
is the TM mode of the circular patch; and the mode with the
highest resonant frequency among them relates to the TM
mode of the annular ring. In order to merge the three modes to
yield a wide bandwidth, the resonant frequencies of the three
modes must be tuned to be rightly close, and the coupling
strength between the circular patch and the parasitic annular
ring must be appropriate.
In the design of the presented antenna, we need first to find the
dimension of the center circular patch [13] because the center
frequency is mainly dominated by the patch, or more specifi-
cally, the TM mode of the circular patch. Then, to optimize
the bandwidth, we need secondly to tune four parameters of
the antenna: the number and position of the shorting vias
whose effects on bandwidth can be found in [13], and the inner
radius and outer radius of the annular ring whose effects on
IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL. 13, 2014
Fig. 3. Refection coefficients for a circular patch antenna without shorting via
or coupled ring (dotted line), a circular patch antenna with only shorting vias
(dashed line), a circular patch antenna with only a coupled annular ring (dot-
dashed line), and a circular patch antenna with both shorting vias and a coupled
annular-ring loading (solid line). The parameters of these patch antennas are
given in Table I. The results are obtained from simulation using HFSS.
TABLE I
PARAMETERS FOR THE CIRCULAR PATCH ANTENNAS IN FIG. 3
bandwidth have been discussed in [12]. In the optimization, the
half-sector structure shown in Fig. 2 can be used to save the sim-
ulation time.
IV. COMPARISONS OF FOUR TYPES OF ANTENNAS
When the parameters of the presented antenna are properly
tuned, an optimized bandwidth can be obtained. As shown in
solid line in Fig. 3, the simulated reflection coefficient for the
proposed antenna is less than 10 dB in the band from 5.07
to 6.45 GHz, with a fractional bandwidth of 24%. As shown
in dotted line in Fig. 3, the reflection coefficient for the an-
tenna without shorting vias or coupled ring is high because its
input impedance is not coincidently matched to the character-
istic impedance of the coaxial probe (50 ). The 10-dB re-
turn-loss band for the circular patch antenna with shorting vias
is from 5.25 to 6.1 GHz (as shown in dashed line in Fig. 3), with
a fractional bandwidth of 15%. The 10-dB return-loss band for
the circular patch antenna with a coupled annular ring is from
5.76 to 6.59 GHz (as shown in dot-dashed line in Fig. 3), with a
fractional bandwidth of 13.4%. Hence, the bandwidth of the pre-
sented antenna is over 1/2 wider than that of the circular patch
antenna with only shorting vias or that of the circular patch an-
tenna with only a coupled annular ring.
LIU et al.: BROADBAND MONOPOLAR MICROSTRIP PATCH ANTENNA WITH SHORTING VIAS AND COUPLED RING 41

Fig. 4. Refection coefficients for the proposed antennas with different heights.
The geometry is shown in Fig. 1, and the parameters are given in Table II. The Fig. 5. Reflection coefficients for the fabricated antenna. The photograph is
results are obtained from simulation using HFSS. shown in the inset. The geometry of the antenna is shown in Fig. 1, and the
dimensions are given in the last column of Table I.

TABLE II
PARAMETERS FOR THE ANTENNAS WITH DIFFERENT HEIGHTS IN FIG. 4

V. EFFECTS OF THE THICKNESS OF THE SUBSTRATE

When the height of the proposed antenna increases, its band-
width would also increase in a certain degree. We simulate five
antennas with their heights of mm mm
mm. Optimized parameters for the five antennas with dif-
ferent heights are given in Table II, and simulated results for
their reflection coefficients are shown in Fig. 4. It shows that
the bandwidth would increase when the height increases from
mm to mm. However, the bandwidth would not
increase further along with the increase of the height when the
height of the antenna is larger than mm because the in-
ductance of the probe would increase and the impedance match
of the antenna would be deteriorated. Fig. 4 shows that the band-
width of the antenna with a height of mm is smaller than
that of the antenna with a height of mm. The fractional
bandwidths (BWs) of the antennas are given in the last row in
Table II. It shows that this type of antenna could have a band-
width of 50% with a profile of mm (about ).

VI. EXPERIMENT
A prototype of the presented antenna is fabricated, with a sub-
strate which has a relative permittivity of , a thickness
Fig. 6. Elevation radiation patterns for the fabricated antenna at: (a) 5.25,
of mm, and a tangent loss of . The pro- (c) 5.75, and (e) 6.25 GHz. Azimuth radiation patterns at: (b) 5.25, (d) 5.75,
file of the antenna is very close to the one used in [12], which and (f) 6.25 GHz.
42 IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL. 13, 2014

VII. CONCLUSION
A center-fed circular patch antenna loaded with shorting vias
and a coupled annular ring is presented. Triple-resonance be-
havior is observed in the antenna, which contributes a wide
bandwidth for the antenna with a very low profile. Measured
result shows that the antenna has a bandwidth of 27.4% with a
profile of and produces a monopole-like radiation pat-
tern with a gain of about 6 dBi. The bandwidth of the proposed
antenna is over 1/2 wider than those of the antenna with only
shorting vias and the antenna with only a coupled ring. An in-
crease of the height of the antenna would yield a wider band-
width in a certain degree. Simulated results show that this type
of antenna could have a bandwidth of 50% when the height in-
creases to .

Fig. 7. Gains and radiation efficiency for the fabricated antenna.
is 1.57 mm. The geometry is shown in Fig. 1, and the dimen-
sions are given in the last column of Table I. The reflection co-
efficients are shown in Fig. 5. Measured results show that the
reflection coefficient is less than 10 dB in the band from 5.05
to 6.65 GHz. The fractional bandwidth is 27.4%. The profile is
, with respect to its center frequency 5.85 GHz.
Simulated results are reasonably close to the measured results,
although a difference is observed.
The elevation and azimuth radiation patterns for the antenna
working at 5.25, 5.75, and 6.25 GHz are shown in Fig. 6. It
shows that the antenna produces a conical radiation pattern in
the elevation plane and an omnidirectional radiation pattern in
the azimuth plane, similar to those generated by a monopole an-
tenna. Theoretically, the cross polarization should be very low,
as observed in the simulated results. Due to fabrication errors,
the cross polarization of the fabricated antenna is about 15 dB
below the copolarization. The back lobes (below the ground
plane) are about 10 dB below the principal lobe. It is found
from simulation that more than 88% of the radiated power is
into the upper half-space in the band of interest.
The maximum gains for the antenna are given in Fig. 7. Mea-
sured result shows that the antenna produces a gain of about
6 dBi. The measured gain is a little higher than the simulated one
in the band from 5.5 to 5.75 GHz due to measurement error and
a difference between the simulated and measured return losses.
Realized radiation efficiency (which accounts the return loss) is
also shown in Fig. 7. It shows that the antenna has a high radi-
ation efficiency above 90% in the band of interest.
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