Microstrip Patch Antenna

Introduction
Microstrip patch antennas are widely used because of their many advantages, such
as low profile, light weight, and conformity.

Microstrip antenna in its simplest configuration consists of a radiating patch on
one side of a dielectric substrate (e
r
s 10), which has a ground plane on the other side.
The very thin (t<<
o,
where
o
is the free space wavelength,t is the thickness of patch)
metallic strip (patch) is placed as small fraction of a wavelength (h<<
o,
usually 0.003
o


s h s 0.05
o,
where h is height above the ground plane) above a ground plane. The
patch conductors, normally of copper and gold can assume virtually any shape. Ideally,
the dielectric constant, e
r
of the substrate should be low (e
r
~ 2.5), so as to enhance the
fringe fields which account for the radiation. However, other performance requirements
may dictate the use of substrate material with higher dielectric constant.

The patch conductors, normally of copper and gold can assume virtually any

shape.

Radiating patch Dielectric Substrate












Ground plane
Microstrip Patch Antenna.


The patch antennas are narrow band devices with a bandwidth 10% of the , poor
radiation efficiency is always more than expected from these patch antennas. A good
performance from the patch antenna can be expected with a thick dielectric substrate with
a low dielectric constant as this gives better efficiency, larger bandwidth and a better
radiation. These antennas are larger than expected in the construction the radiating
elements and the feed lines are usually photo etched on the dielectric substrate.


The radiating patch may be square, Rectangular, Thin strip (dipole), Circular,
Elliptical, Triangle or any other configuration. These configurations are as shown in the
figure below. Square, Rectangular, Dipole and circular are the most common used
configuration because of easy analysis, fabrication and their attractive radiation
characteristics, especially low cross-polarization radiation.


















Common Shapes of the Patch

Feed Techniques of Microstrip Antennas:

Microstrip patch antenna has various method of feeding techniques. These
feeding techniques are being put as different categories. They are,

- Contact Feeding Technique.

- Non-Contact Feeding Technique.


Contact Feeding Technique:

Contact Feeding Technique is the one where the power is being fed directly to
radiating patch through the connecting element i.e. through the Microstrip line.












Contact Feeding Technique


Non-Contact Feeding Technique:


Non-Contact Technique is the one where an electromagnetic coupling is done to
transfer the power between the Microstrip line and the radiating patch.













Non-Contact Feeding Technique.





A feed line is used to excite to radiate by direct or indirect contact. There are
many different methods of feeding and four most popular methods are,

1. Microstrip line feed

2. Coaxial probe

3. Aperture coupling

4. Proximity coupling

Microstrip Line Feeding:

Microstrip line feed is one of the easier methods to fabricate as it is just a
conducting strip connecting to the patch and therefore can be considered as extension of
patch. It is simple to model and easy to match by controlling the inset position. However
the disadvantage of this method is that as substrate thickness increases, surface wave and
spurious feed radiation increases which limit the bandwidth.

- Microstrip patch line connected directly to the edge of the patch.

- Both elements located on the same substrate.


- Microstrip feed line is also a conducting strip smaller in width compared to the
patch.


- Easy to fabricate.

- Simple to match by controlling the inset position.


- Found experimentally that cutting such an inset does not significantly affect the
resonant frequency but it modifies the input impedances.

- Substrate thickness increases surface waves which for practical designs limit the
Band width.













Microstrip line feeding.
Coaxial Feeding:


Coaxial feeding is feeding method in which the inner conductor of the coaxial is
attached to the radiation patch of the antenna while the outer conductor is connected to
the ground plane.









Coaxial Probe

- Inner conductor of the coaxial is attached to the radiation patch.

- Outer conductor of the coaxial is connected to the Ground plane.

- Easy to fabricate and match.

- It has low spurious radiation.

- It has narrow bandwidth.

- Control line is parallel to the ground plane.


- Center conductor extends across the dielectric substrate and is connected to the
patch.

- Input impedances depended on the position of the feed.

- It is designed independently.


Advantages:

- Easy of fabrication

- Easy to match

- Low spurious radiation


Disadvantages:


- Narrow bandwidth

- Difficult to model specially for thick substrate

- Possess inherent asymmetries which generate higher order modes which produce
cross-polarization radiation.


Aperture Coupling:

Aperture coupling consist of two different substrate separated by a ground plane.
On the bottom side of lower substrate there is a microstrip feed line whose energy is
coupled to the patch through a slot on the ground plane separating two substrates. This
arrangement allows independent optimization of the feed mechanism and the radiating
element. Normally top substrate uses a thick low dielectric constant substrate while for
the bottom substrate; it is the high dielectric substrate. The ground plane, which is in the
middle, isolates the feed from radiation element and minimizes interference of spurious
radiation for pattern formation and polarization purity.






- The radiating patch and Microstrip line are being divided by the ground plane.


- Main features wider bandwidth and the shielding of the radiating patch from the
radiation gets from substrate.

- Coupling between patch and feed line through the aperture in the ground plane.

- Lower and upper substrate parameter are chosen separately to increase the
between and for the optimization of the feed and radiation separately.

- There is a feature of improving the polarization purity.

- The aperture slot can be of any size shape.













Aperture coupling

Advantages:

- Allows independent optimization of feed mechanism element.

Disadvantage:

- Difficult to fabricate as this has got multiple layers, due to this thickness of the
antenna increases.

Proximity Coupling:

Proximity coupling has the largest bandwidth, has low spurious radiation.
However fabrication is difficult. Length of feeding stub and width-to-length ratio of patch
is used to control the match.

- It has largest bandwidth (13% as high).

- Easy to model and has low spurious radiation.

- It uses a two layer substrate.
1. Microstrip lineLower layer.

2. Patch Antenna upper layer.

- This feed is better known as an electromagnetically coupled Microstrip feed.

- Coupling between the patch and the Microstrip is capacitive in nature.

- The open end of the Microstrip line can be terminated in a stub.

- Stub parameter can be used to increase the bandwidth.


- The substrate parameters of the two layers can be selected to increase the
bandwidth of the patch and to reduce spurious radiation from the end of
the Microstrip.

- For this, lower layer should be thin.

- Radiating patch being placed on the double layer gives the layer bandwidth.


- Fabrication is slightly more difficult because of the requirement for
accurate alignment between the patch and feed line.

- The length of the stub and the width-to-line of the patch can be used to control the
match.

















Proximity Coupling






Characteristics of the different feed techniques

Microstrip Coaxial Probe Aperture Proximity

Characteristics
Line Feed
Feed
Coupled Coupled Feed


Feed



Spurious feed

radiation
More Very Less Less Less




Poor due to

Reliability Better
soldering
Good Good




Soldering and Alignment Alignment

Ease of fabrication Easy
drilling needed required required




Impedance matching Easy Easy Easy Easy



Bandwidth (achieved

with impedance
2-5% 2-5% 13% 21 %


matching)






Rectangular Microstrip Antennas:

The Rectangular MSA is one of the simplest and widely used MSA
configurations. For a simple Microstrip line, the width is much smaller than wavelength.
However, for rectangular MSA, the width is comparable to the wavelength to enhance the
radiation field from edges.

For the fundamental TM
10
mode, the length L should be slightly less than / 2 ,

where is the wavelength in the dielectric medium. Here, is equal to o /
e , where
o

is free space wavelength and
e
is the effective dielectric constant of the patch. The
value of
e
is slightly less than
r,
because the fringing fields around the periphery patch
are not confirmed in the dielectric substrate but are also spread in the air.
The expression for calculating the value of
e
is given,



(r +1) (r 1)12h (
1/ 2


e =

+

1 +





2

2

w
(


Radiating Patch






substrate
Feed point



Ground Plane








Rectangular Microstrip Antenna

It may be observed from Fig that the vertical components of the electric field (E-
field) at the two edges along the width are in opposite directions and hence they cancel in
broad side direction, whereas the horizontal components are in same direction and hence
they add. Therefore, the edges along the width are termed as radiating edges. The fields
due to the sinusoidal distribution along the length get cancel in broadside direction, and
hence the edges along the length are known as non-radiating edges. The fringing fields
along the width are modeled as radiating slots as shown in the below figure.



















Fringing Fields

Radiation from Microstrip Antenna:

- Radiation may be ascribed mostly to fringing fields at the open circuited edges of the
patch.

- The fields at the end can be resolved into normal and tangential components with
respect to the ground plane.

- The normal components are out of the patch line is /2 long, therefore the far field
produced by them cancel in broad side direction.

- The tangential components (those parallel to the ground plane) are in phase, and the
resulting fields combine to give maximum radiated field normal to the surface of the
structure; i.e. the broad side direction.

- Therefore, the patch may be represented by two slots /2 apart excited in phase and
radiating in the half space above the ground plane.