Array antenna characteristics enhancement for

electronic scanning radar application: parasitic

patches and multi layer techniques
Nadia Chater
Laboratory of Electrical and
Telecommunication Engineering
National School of Applied Sciences
Kenitra, Morocco
nadiachater1992@gmail.com
Tomader Mazri
Laboratory of Electrical and
Telecommunication Engineering
National School of Applied Sciences
Kenitra, Morocco
Tomader20@gmail.com
Mohammed Benbrahim
Laboratory of Electrical and
Telecommunication Engineering
National School of Applied Sciences
Kenitra, Morocco
benbrahimsimo@yahoo.fr

Abstract— This paper presents characteristics improvement
of patch array antenna used for electronic scanning radar
application. This basic array antenna, designed on low cost
substrate FR-4 and fed by microstrip technique, consists of 8
patches and operates at frequency 3GHz. However, this structure
has two disadvantages a low gain value by dint of using a lossy
material FR4 as a substrate, and a narrow bandwidth which is
due to microstrip antenna limitations. Hence, the objective of this
work is to increase the gain and the bandwidth of this structure.
Therefore two techniques will be proposed separately in this
paper: parasitic patches and multi layer substrate. For the first
one, it consists of adding a defined number of parasitic patches,
the distance between driven and parasitic patches will be
evaluated to ensure strong coupling between them. For the
second technique, a second layer of FR4 coated with an annealed
copper of 0.035mm is added to the substrate. An air gap of 0.04x
is used to separate between both FR-4 layers. The design and
simulation of the array antenna and the modified structures will
be performed using Advanced Design System (ADS) software.
Simulation results of each technique will be compared first to
basic array antenna simulation results and compared thereafter
to each other.
Keywords— patch; array antenna; parasitic patch; multi-layer
substrate; microstrip; FR-4; Advanced Design System
I. INTRODUCTION
The huge improvement in technologies related to Radars
has resulted in new approaches. The most promising approach
is electronic scanning radars. With electronic scanning, it is
possible to obtain practically instantaneous slewing of an
antenna beam to any position in a designated sector. Electronic
scanning is defined as a method of positioning an
electromagnetic beam in space by electronic means with the
antenna aperture remaining fixed in space and no mechanical
mechanism involved in the scanning process. [1] Steerable
antenna arrays are used in electronic scanning radar. They fall
within two main categories, mechanically steerable and
electronically steerable. The second of these is preferred
because the first has disadvantages such as a complex high
maintenance mechanical structure, slow orientation speed, high
power requirements and large physical size. [2] In many
applications it is desirable to use phased array antennas,
especially in aviation and spatial applications.
Since the early 80's, microstrip antennas have received
much attention because of their low cost, thin profile and light
weight, conformability on curved surface and compatibility
with integrated circuitry. [3] A microstrip patch antenna in its
basic form consists of a metallic radiating patch on one side of
dielectric substrate, which has a ground plane on other side.
The radiating elements and feed lines are usually photo etched
on the dielectric substrate. [4] Microstrip antennas have
matured considerably during the past 35 years, and many of
their limitations have been overcome. [5] For this reason,
microstrip antenna type is chosen for basic array antenna
design.
As mentioned before, although microstrip patch antenna
has numerous advantages, it has inherent limitation of narrow
bandwidth, low gain. To overcome its inherent limitation of
narrow impedance bandwidth and low gain, many techniques
have been suggested and investigated for MSA. We can
mention multilayer structures, broad folded flat dipoles, curved
line and spiral antennas, impedance matched resonator
antennas, resonator antennas with capacitive coupled parasitic
patch element, log periodic structures, modified shaped patch
antenna (H-shaped ). [6]
Among these techniques, multilayer structure and parasitic
patches techniques are investigated in this work to improve our
array antenna characteristics. In our case, a comparison
between results of those two techniques application will be
studied.
The basic array antenna already studied in a previous work
[7] is first described then parasitic patches technique is detailed
in chapter 3, a study of distance between driven patches and
parasitic patches is performed and the value of distance giving
best results is considered. Afterwards, multilayer structure
technique is described in chapter 4, different values of air gap
thickness between FR4 layers are studied to find the optimal
thickness. Simulation results of these approaches are compared
to basic array antenna simulation results. Finally, chapter 5
details comparison between both techniques applied to our
design and highlights the best results obtained. It proposes also
points to improve about the structure. The design and
simulations, are done in this work, under ADS Software of
Keysight Company which is based on method of moments
(MOM).

978-1-5386-4396-9/18/$31.00 ©2018 IEEE

 II. BASIC ARRAY ANTENNA The range of frequencies for which the return loss value is
The aim of this section is to present briefly the array antenna less than -10dB points is usually treated as bandwidth. [8] For
our design, the frequency bandwidth is equal to 160MHz.
design and afterwards simulations results obtained. A
previous work [7] describes in details the design and
simulation results of array antenna. It explains the choice of
substrate, the different steps to reach the final design including
calculations and discusses the simulation results.
A. Design
The array antenna is composed of 8 elementary patches
mounted in parallel using microstrip feeding technique. The
patches are designed using notches for adaptation. The
substrate used for the design is FR-4 and has the following
characteristics ( =4.3, h=1.55mm, Tgį=0.02, copper
thickness=0.035mm). The design and simulations are realized
under the tool Advanced Design System (ADS) of Keysight
company.
Fig. 2 S11 parameter of array antenna
Fig1 shows the design of array antenna. The parameters of
the geometry are presented in Table1.
The radiation pattern extracted from the 3D view of farfield
at 3GHz is illustrated in Fig.3.

Fig. 1 Array antenna design

Fig. 3 Radiation pattern of array antenna

Table 1 Array antenna dimensions
Parameters Values (mm)
a 7
b 3.5
c 6.5
d 3.5
e 6.5
f 2.5
h 25
P 45
Lpatch 16.215
Parameters Values (mm)
i 52 Fig.4 shows in details some characteristics of the array
j 115 antenna including gain and directivity values. The value of the
k 13
gain is G=6.11dBi. The directivity value at operating frequency
L 29
M 13
is 15.60dBi.
N 39
O 15
Wpatch 20.9579

B. Simulation results
The simulation results of the array antenna are described in
this section. Fig. 4 Array antenna gain and directivity values
The parameter S11, also known as reflection coefficient, The inconvenience of this design is that the gain and the
represents how much power is reflected from the antenna. At impedance bandwidth are low. For this reason, we need to
resonance frequency, the parameter S11 should be less than - improve the antenna characteristics. Techniques used in this
10dB to say that the antenna is well matched. work are adding parasitic patches to the design or using multi
Simulation results of S11 parameter magnitude in dB as layers substrate. These solutions are going to be discussed in
function of frequency are illustrated in Fig2. S11 is equal to - the rest of this paper.
17.234dB at target frequency 3GHz which shows a good
resonance. This means that we have a good adaptation of the
design at operating frequency.
 III. PARASITIC PATCHES Table 2 Distance between patches Vs. Gain
Distance between 0.635 2.974 6.096 12.827
patches (mm)
A. Introduction
Gain for 16 parasitic 3.13 5.80 6.44 6.52
When a parasitic element is placed in close proximity to an patches (dBi)
active element, a current is induced in the parasitic element by
mutual coupling and so the input impedance and radiation
characteristics are modified. If the current distribution of the From Table 2, we can notice that maximal gain value is
parasitic element is changed there is also a change in the input 6.52 obtained for a distance of 12.827 mm. Even though, the
impedance and radiation characteristics of the array. This is the gain value is still very low. The radiation pattern corresponding
basic principle underlying switched parasitic arrays. [9] to this case is shown in Fig 8 and gain and directivity values
are shown in Fig 9. The gain value equals 6.53dB and
The mutual coupling between driven and parasitic antenna directivity equals 14.20dB at target frequency.
elements depends on radiation characteristics of each element,
relative separation between the elements and orientation of
each element [10]. For patch antenna application, the number
of parasitic element needs to be kept minimum in order to
maintain the low-profile characteristic patch antenna. [11]

B. Design and simulation results

Since bandwidth and gain are found to increase as the
number of parasitic patches increase, 16 parasitic patches are
added to the design. This operation is performed in order to
make a comparison at the end between both ways in terms of
gain and impedance bandwidth. Fig. 8 Radiation pattern of array antenna with parasitic patches

Fig 6 shows 16 gridded parasitic patches organized as two

rows of 8 rectangular patches coupled to the array antenna
electromagnetically.

Fig. 9 Gain and directivity of array antenna with parasitic patches

Concerning impedance bandwidth, the value was not much

affected when parasitic patches were added. The bandwidth
value is still almost the same than before adding parasitic
patches, BW=158MHz. Fig.10 shows S11 parameter
magnitude value in dB as function of frequency and also the
bandwidth of the design. At target frequency, S11 equals to -
17.245 dB.

Fig. 6 Array antenna with 16 additional parasitic patches

Simulation results have been analyzed while varying the

distance between driven and parasitic antenna elements. In fact,
these distances were choosing while performing a design of
experiment. The objective is to get a strong coupling between
different patches.
Table 2 shows different values of distance between rows of
patches and corresponding gain value.
Fig. 10 array antenna S11 parameter and bandwidth
 IV. MULTILAYER TECHNIQUE where is free space wavelength. The corresponding directivity
In this section, another technique is used in order to is 17.85dBi.
improve structure characteristics. This technique is based on However, the air gap thickness of 7 mm could be chosen in
using multi layer substrate. case the volume is not a primary key.
In fact, antenna bandwidth can be increased by increasing Fig. 12 illustrates the radiation pattern of the modified
substrate thickness. Thus, surface waves increase consequently structure with air gap thickness of 4 mm.
and pass through the substrate and scatter at bends of the
radiating patch which can cause antenna performance
degradation. However, by using air gap with dielectric constant
=1, surface waves are not anymore excited easily.
In addition to that, the second layer of FR4 helps to get
higher gain, higher front to back ratio by redirecting the
propagation density from back lobe to main lobe. It acts as a
reflector.
Vias made of Teflon PTFE (polytetrafluoroethylene) are
used as spacers between the two FR4 layers. Teflon
permittivity is 2.1. Fig. 12 radiation pattern corresponding to air gap thickness 4 mm
In Fig.11, the new substrate composed of two FR4 layers Fig 13 shows some characteristics of modified array
separated by air gap with certain thickness is shown. including gain and directivity values. The gain value equals to
16.62 dB and Directivity value equals to 17.85dB.

Fig 11 Substrate layers

When performing substrate modification, the array antenna Fig. 13 Gain and Directivity values corresponding to air gap 4mm
dimensions have to be adjusted in order to realize impedance
matching and antenna tuning. Besides, this approach permits to get better impedance
bandwidth. In fact, by tuning air gap thickness, the resonant
To determine air gap thickness in order to get better value frequency of the microstrip structure is varied and the antenna
of gain without affecting radiation pattern form, a comparison bandwidth can be enhanced.[12] Simulation results of S11
between different values of air gap to see the impact on gain parameter show that the impedance bandwidth value is equal to
value is performed. Table 3 shows gain value versus air gap 440 MHz. The value of impedance increased by 278MHz
thickness. compared to the original design. Fig. 14 shows S11 parameter
Table 3 Air gap thickness Versus Gain and directivity values in dB as function of frequency and also the bandwidth.
Air gap 0.1 1 2 3 4 7 10
thickness
(mm)
Gain (dBi) 2.16 9.22 13.94 15.84 16.62 17.29 17.21

In order to evaluate air gap thickness effect on gain, we

simulated different thickness values. These values are chosen
in such a way to ensure a good gain while keeping in the same
time the thickness as small as possible.
From table 5, we notice that by increasing air gap thickness
until 10 mm, the gain increases. It's only from 1 mm that gain
becomes bigger than basic array gain value. For thickness
values 7 mm and 10 mm, the gain is almost the same. Hence, Fig. 14 S11 parameter and bandwidth corresponding to air gap thickness 4
mm
starting from thickness 2mm until 7mm, we can notice that
corresponding gain values are acceptable for antenna array.
Therefore, as a tradeoff between gain value and the air gap
thickness which impacts the whole design volume, we choose
to take 4mm as air gap thickness which corresponds to 0.04x
 V. COMPARISON BETWEEN BOTH TECHNIQUES
In this paper, the characteristics enhancement of array
antenna is investigated by means of two different methods:
adding parasitic patches and using multi-layer substrate. The
design and simulations are done using the tool ADS. In this
section, a comparison between both methods results is
presented.
According to Table 2 and Table 3 of previous sections, we
can make a comparison between different techniques in terms
of gain and impedance bandwidth. Table 4 shows methods
adopted in this paper to improve antenna characteristics and
illustrates best values of gain and impedance bandwidth
obtained.
Table 4 Comparison between parasitic patches and multilayer techniques
Distance Air gap Gain Impedance
between thickness (dBi) bandwidth
parasitic (mm) (MHz)
patches
(mm)
16 parasitic patches 12.827 - 6.21 155
Multi layer substrate - 4 mm 16.6 440
From table 4, we notice while using parasitic patches
technique that the gain remains almost the same as basic array
antenna when the distance between the driven and the parasitic
patches is around 12.827mm. This distance gives us the best
result. Meanwhile the multi layer technique provides the
significant gain value which is equal to 16.6dBi for air gap
thickness of 4 mm.
The result of using two FR4 layers separated by air gap
thickness of 4mm has increased the gain by 10.5 dBi, besides
the impedance bandwidth has also raised by 278 MHZ which
gives us a value of 440MHZ.
So the best values for the gain and the impedance
bandwidth are obtained when we use the Multi layer substrate
technique. Although the design still should be improved by
applying some law of amplitude weighting to reduce sidelobes
in radiation pattern
CONCLUSION
The aim of this work was to investigate some techniques to
enhance array antenna characteristics. In the first section,
design and simulation results of basic array antenna are
presented briefly. The structure is composed of 8 patches
operating at 3GHz for electronic scanning radar application.
The substrate used for design is FR4. As mentioned in the
introduction, many techniques could be used to improve
antenna characteristics, for this study, we focused on parasitic
patches and multilayer substrate techniques. The first technique
detailed is parasitic patches. 16 patches were added to the
design. The objective is to analyze the effect of parasitic
patches on gain and bandwidth. The analysis is done while
varying the distance separating the driven patches and the
parasitic patches. For the second technique, which corresponds
to multilayer substrate, two layers of FR4 were used separated
by air gap. The thickness of air gap was evaluated in order to
reach good gain value without making the design volume too
big. Each technique is analyzed, and simulation results are
compared to basic array antenna. Then, a comparison between
both techniques is performed. It has been concluded that the
technique which improves clearly gain and bandwidth in our
case is Multi-layer substrate with air gap thickness of 0.04x .
As a perspective, the radiation pattern diagram should be
improved by applying law of amplitude weighting in order to
reduce side lobes. In addition to that, beam forming structure
should be designed to guide the radiation to desired angles.
REFERENCES
[1] Wu, Q., Liu, M., & Feng, Z. R. (2008, July). A millimeter-wave
conformal phased microstrip antenna array on a cylindrical surface. In
2008 IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society International Symposium
(pp. 1-4). IEEE.
[2] Preston, S. L., Thiel, D. V., Lu, J. W., O’keefe, S. G., & Bird, T. S.
(1997). Electronic beam steering using switched parasitic patch
elements. Electronics Letters, 33(1), 7-8.
[3] Clenet, M., Ravipati, C. B., & Shafai, L. (1998, August). Effect of
parasitic patch on the bandwidth characteristics of U-slot rectangular
microstrip antenna. In Antenna Technology and Applied
Electromagnetics, 1998. ANTEMvol1 1998. Symposium on (pp. 229-
232). IEEE.
[4] Constantine A. Balanis: “Antenna Theory, Analysis and design” (John
Wiley & Sons)
[5] Khraisat, Yahya SH, and Melad M. Olaimat. "Comparison between
rectangular and triangular patch antennas array." Telecommunications
(ICT), 2012 19th International Conference on. IEEE, 2012.
[6] Parmar, P. B., Makwana, B. J., & Jajal, M. A. (2012, May). Bandwidth
enhancement of microstrip patch antenna using parasitic patch
configuration. In Communication Systems and Network Technologies
(CSNT), 2012 International Conference on (pp. 53-57). IEEE.
[7] Chater, N., Mazri, T., & Benbrahim, M. (2017, April). Design and
simulation of microstrip patch array antenna for electronic scanning
Radar application. In Wireless Technologies, Embedded and Intelligent
Systems (WITS), 2017 International Conference on (pp. 1-5). IEEE.
[8] Kaoutar, A., Mohammed, J., & Tomader, M. (2014, December). Design
& simulation of UMTS microstrip multilayer antenna. In Microwave
Symposium (MMS), 2014 14th Mediterranean (pp. 1-4). IEEE.
[9] Slimani, A., Bennani, S. D., El Alami, A., & Harkat, H. (2015, May).
Optimization parameters of ultra wideband microstrip array antenna for
wireless communication usign beam steering. In RFID And Adaptive
Wireless Sensor Networks (RAWSN), 2015 Third International
Workshop on (pp. 12-17). IEEE.
[10] Preston, S. L., Thiel, D. V., Lu, J. W., O’keefe, S. G., & Bird, T. S.
(1997). Electronic beam steering using switched parasitic patch
elements. Electronics Letters, 33(1), 7-8.
[11] J. Huang, “Planar microstrip Yagi array antenna,” in Antennas and
Propagation Society International Symposium. AP-S. Digest, June 1989,
[12] Wong, K. L. (2004). Design of nonplanar microstrip antennas and
transmission lines (Vol. 163). John wiley & sons