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Microstrip Patch Antenna

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1 views

Microstrip Patch Antenna

Uploaded by

bharathsakhir
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Unit II

Microstrip Patch Antenna

 A micro strip antenna consists of radiating patch on one side of a dielectric substrate
which has a ground plane on the other side.

 The patch is generally made of conducting material such as copper or gold and can take
any possible shape.

 The radiating patch and the feed lines are usually photo etched on the dielectric substrate.

Consider the microstrip antenna fed by a microstrip transmission line.


 The ground plane are made of a high conductivity metal.
 L – Patch Length, W- Patch width, h- substrate height, 𝜀𝑟 – permittivity of substrate
material.
 The radiating patch is generally square, rectangular, circular, triangular, and elliptical or
some other common shape.
 Most commonly used are rectangular, square, circular shape patch.
 Square patches are used to generate pencil beam.
 The substrate materials for microstrip antenna are FR4 Glass epoxy , Roger Duroid,
Taconic TLC, Bakelite, Ceramic

 Length L of the patch is usually 0.333𝜆𝑜 < 𝐿 < 0.5𝜆𝑜 , 𝜆𝑜 is free space wavelength
 The patch is selected to be thin such that 𝑡 ≪ 𝜆𝑜 , t is patch thickness
 Height h of the dielectric substrate is usually 0.003𝜆𝑜 ≤ ℎ ≤ 0.05𝜆𝑜
 Dielectric constant of the substrate 𝜀𝑟 is in the range 2.2≤ 𝜀𝑟 ≤ 12
Figure 1 shows three different shapes of microstrip antennas along with feed arrangement.

Advantages:
• Light weight
• Smaller size
• Lesser volume
• Can be molded to any desired shape
• Fabrication process is easy
• Fabrication cost is low and they can be manufactured to large quantities
• Support both linear and circular polarization
• Capable of dual and triple frequency operation
Limitations:
 Low bandwidth
 Low efficiency
 Low gain antenna
The limitations can be addressed by
 Using thick substrate
 Cutting slots in the metallic patch

Fig 2 illustrates the basic structure of the rectangular microstrip antenna.

 The dimension L is taken to mean long dimension, which causes resonance at its half
wavelength frequency.
 The radiating edges are at the edges of L-dimension of the rectangular, which sets up the
single polarization.
 Radiation if any occurs at the ends of the W-dimension is far less and is referred to as the
cross polarization.

Fig 3 shows the distribution of E field under the patch. For effective radiation from microstrip
antenna, the structure need to be a half wavelength resonator with a thicker dielectric substrate
material of low dielectric constant.

Fringing effects:

Fringing fields have a great effect on the performance of a microstrip antenna. In microstrip
antennas the electric filed at the center of the patch is zero. The radiation is due to
the fringing field between the periphery of the patch and the ground plane.
 To increase the radiation mechanism, increase the fringing effects.
 Increase the fringing effects by
(i) Increase width of the patch
(ii) Increase the height of the substrate
(iii) Selecting lower dielectric constant
 The frequency of operation of the patch antenna is determined by the Length L. The
centre frequency 𝑓𝑐

c- velocity of light, 𝜀𝑟 – permittivity of dielectric substrate.

 The frequency of operation of a patch antenna also depends on W along with the length
L, and the equation is given by

The expression for dominant mode is given by (m=0),

 ∆L and ∆W – are the incremental length and width which account for the fringing of field
at the respective edges.
 Width W controls the input impedance.

The normalized pattern of an antenna can be obtained by plotting the field 𝐸𝜃 and 𝐸∅ which is
given by
2𝜋
 𝜃 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝜙 are elevation and azimuth angle, K- wave number (K = )
𝜆

The net magnitude of electric field at any point as a function of 𝜃 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝜙 are

Aplications:

 Used in spacecraft and aircraft system


 Satellite communication and Microwave communication
 GPS antenna
 Used for beam scanning and beam steering purposes.
 Mobile phones

MICRSTRIP PATCH ANTENNA -FEEDING TECHNIQUES


Microstrip patch antennas can be fed by a variety of methods. The methods can be
classified into two categories,
(i) Contacting method – In this method, the RF power is fed directly to the radiating
patch using a connecting element such as a microstrip line.
(ii) Non Contacting method – In this method, electromagnetic field coupling is done to
transfer power between the microstrip line and the radiating patch.
The four most popular feed techniques used are the microstrip line, coaxial probe (both
contacting schemes), aperture coupling and proximity coupling (both non-contacting
schemes)
1.Microstrip Feed Line:

 In microstrip feed line technique, a conducting strip is directly connected to the radiating
patch as shown in Figure .
 The width of the conducting strip is smaller as compared to that of the radiating patch.
Types:
(i) Centre feed : wherein the microstrip line is in the centre of the patch
(ii) Offset Feed: wherein the microstrip is not at the centre of the patch
(iii) Inset Feed: Wherein the transmission line extends by a distance R from the end. The
purpose of the inset cut in the patch is to match the impedance of the feed line to patch without
the need for any additional matching arrangement.
(iv) Quarter wave feed line: The microstrip antenna can also be matched to a transmission line
of characteristics impedance Zo by using a quarter wave section of characteristics impedance Z1.
If the antenna impedance is ZA, the input impedance of quarter wave section is,

Advantages:
 In this arrangement, feed can be etched on the same substrate which provides a planar
structure.
 Easy fabrication and simplicity in modeling
Disadvantages:
 Spurious feed radiation.
 Feed radiation also leads to undesired cross polarized radiation.
2. Coaxial Feed Line:

 The Coaxial feed is called as probe feed technique.


 The coaxial feed consists of two conductors namely inner conductor and outer conductor.
The inner conductor of the coaxial cable passes through the dielectric substrate and is
connected to the radiating patch as shown in Figure
 The outer conductor is connected to the ground plane.
Advantages:
 The feed can be placed at any desired position inside the patch in order to obtain
impedance matching.
 It is easy to fabricate and has low spurious radiation effects.
Disadvantages:
 It provide narrow bandwidth
 It is difficult to fabricate since a hole has to be drilled into the substrate.
 Thicker substrate leads to matching problems.
3. Aperture Coupled Feed:
 In this type feed technique, the radiating patch and the microstrip feed line are separated
by the ground plane.
 Coupling between the patch and the feed line is made through a slot or an aperture in the
ground plane. A coupling aperture is usually centered under the patch.
 Generally, a thick, low dielectric constant material is used for top substrate and a high
dielectric material is used for bottom substrate.
 The main advantage of this feed is that the effect of spurious radiation is minimized.
Advantages:
 Spurious feed radiation is minimized.
 Lower cross polarization.
Disadvantages:
 This feed technique is that it is difficult to fabricate due to multiple layers, which also
increases antenna thickness.
 This feeding scheme also provides narrow bandwidth.
4. Proximity Coupled Feed:

 In Proximity coupled feed technique two dielectric substrate are used.


 The feed line is placed between the substrates and the radiating patch is printed on top of
the upper substrate as shown in Figure

Advantages:
 Minimizes spurious feed radiation.
 Provides very high bandwidth.
Disadvantages:
 This feed scheme is that, it is difficult to fabricate because of the two dielectric layers
which need proper alignment.
 Also there is an increase in the overall thickness of the antenna.

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