DRDO Science Sepctrum, March 2009, pp.

84-86 DRDO SCIENCE SPECTRUM 2009

2009, DESIDOC

Microstrip Antenna Designs for Radar Applications

K.S. Beenamole
Electronic & Radar Development Establishment, CV Raman Nagar Post, Bangaluru-560 093

ABSTRACT
Microstrip antennas and arrays are used as an alternative for the bulky and heavy weight reflector/slotted waveguide
array antennas. For radars which demands a low profile, light weight antenna subsystem, the microstrip antennas are
an ideal choice. The fabrication technology based on photolithography enables the bulk production of microstrip
antenna with repeatable performance at a lower cost in a lesser time frame as compared to the conventional antennas.
This technology has been developed and successfully established in LRDE for X-band, L-band and S-band radar
applications. The reliability and the yield of microstrip antennas are very high because the antennas and arrays can
be analyzed using 3D EM analysis tools based on Method of Moments (MoM), Finite Element method (FEM) and
Finite Difference Time Domain (FDTD) before fabrication. The microstrip antennas are being used extensively in
communication, space and radar applications. The low profile and conformability made it suitable choice for bluetooth
and missile applications. A comprehensive review of the development of microstrip antennas and arrays in LRDE for
various radar systems and the advances that have taken place in the design and development of microstrip antennas
along with some of the new emerging trends are presented.
Keywords: Microstrip antennas, arrays, radars

1. INTRODUCTION spurious feed radiation, improve polarisation purity and

Since the late 1970s, the international antenna community
has devoted much effort to the theoretical and experimental
research on microstrip antennas, which offer the advantages
of low profile, compatibility with integrated circuit technology
and conformability to a shaped surface. The results of this
research have contributed to the success of these antennas
not only in military applications such as aircraft, missiles
and rockets but also commercial areas such as mobile satellite
communications, the direct broadcast satellite (DBS) system,
global positioning system (GPS) and remote sensing.
The basic configuration of a microstrip antenna is an
area of metallization printed above the ground plane of a
thin dielectric substrate. The metallized area can assume
any of the shapes such as the square, rectangle, circle,
ellipse, triangle, annulus, strip etc. There exists a variety
of feeding techniques to excite the microstrip antenna. The
area of metallization in a microstrip patch radiator varies
approximately from about one third to one half of the free
space wavelength for its longest dimension. A commonly
used dielectric for these radiators is teflon or poly tetra
fluoro ethylene often set in a reinforcing glass fiber matrix.
The microstrip patch antenna radiates a relatively broad
beam which is broadside to the plane of the radiator. One
of the major limitations of the patch radiator is its narrow
bandwidth, which is around 2%. The bandwidth referred
to is the impedance bandwidth. The design of microstrip
antennas focuses on to improve the bandwidth, minimise
minimize tolerance problems in fabrication.
2. BASIC RADIATOR PROPERTIES
Several theories have been proposed to explain the
behavior and characteristics of the patch radiator. These
are, transmission line model, cavity model, modal expansion
method, method of moments, finite element technique, full-
wave analysis, and finite difference time domain method.
The earliest analysis was based on transmission line and
it viewed the patch radiator as a transmission line propagating
an electromagnetic wave in the quasi-TEM mode and terminated
at both ends by two radiating apertures similar to radiating
slots. At the two edges of the strip radiator, the voltage
is a maximum and the-current a minimum so that from the
point of view of feed, it will see maximum input impedance
at the edges. Along the length of the patch radiator, midway
between the edges, the voltage is zero but the current is
a maximum so that the input impedance is zero. The transmission
line theory provides a satisfactory explanation for the variation
of input impedance along the length of the radiator. Typical
values of input impedance at the edge of the resonant
patch range from l50 w to 300 w. However, the absolute
values obtained by this model are not accurate enough
for CAD as it ignores the fringing fields. Later came the
cavity model which is more realistic as the substrate is
made thinner. The cavity model provides greater insight
into the problem of feeding the patch radiator.

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Analysis of the behaviour of the radiator with dielectric
substrates of different permittivities and thicknesses brings
out a linear dependence between thickness and bandwidth.
It is also to be noted that for a given permittivity of the
substrate, the radiation resistance and the efficiency of
the patch decrease, but the directivity of the radiation
pattern and the impedance bandwidth show an increase
as the substrate thickness is increased. By keeping the
substrate thickness constant and increasing the permittivity
of the substrate, the bandwidth, directivity and the efficiency
of the radiator decrease, while the radiation resistance
shows an increase. The analysis brings out that there
exists three types of waves in microstrips, the space wave,
surface wave and the leaky waves. The designer before
choosing the thickness and the permittivity of the substrate,
has to carry out trade-off studies between bandwidth and
sidelobe levels. From the point of view of radiator performance,
low permittivity and thick substrates are needed to meet
the bandwidth requirements.
3. ANTENNA CONFIGURATIONS
The metallic patch can be in any shape and have to
be designed judiciously depending upon the design
requirements. The next step in determining the configuration
is the method of feeding. The simple methods of exciting/
feeding the patch radiator are by microstrip line edge feed
or by coaxial line feed. But these feeds generate higher
order modes which produce cross-polarisation. Moreover
the spurious radiation from the feedline is another problem.
A variety of non-contact feed systems have been developed
to overcome the problems faced in the microstrip edge and
coaxial probe feeds. EM coupled patches and aperture
coupled patches have been used to couple the energy
capacitively from the probe to the antenna. The proximity
coupled configuration employs a two layer substrate with
the microstrip line on the lower substrate and the radiating
patch on the other. The microstrip line terminates in an
open stub on the lower substrate. Proximity coupling provides
independent control for the radiator and the feed line
characterisitics. It permits the patch to exist on a relatively
thick substrate for improved bandwidth, while the feed line
can be etched on an effectively thinner substrate to reduce
the spurious radiation and coupling.
4. ANTENNAS DEVELOPED AT LRDE
Microstrip antenna arrays have been developed for
different radar systems in different frequency bands X-
Band, L-Band and S-Band frequencies. The arrays have
been fabricated in numbers with repeated performance and
high reliability.
4.1 Single Layer X-Band Array
The microstrip antenna array in X-band is configured
employing single layer microstrip antenna elements fed
through a corporate feed network and is distributed over
a rectangular aperture of 0.6m x 0.4m size. The photograph
of the array is shown in Fig. 1. A total of 512 patch elements
distributed in a planar array, are photoetched on a thin
microwave laminate RT duroid 5880 with dielectric constant
2.2 and thickness 31 mil. A square patch element has been
designed and developed and to be compatible with corporate
feed excitations of the array elements, an inset fed microstrip
feed has been considered for the square patch element
excitation. The inset width, inset opening and microstrip
line width, have all been optimised for obtaining good
return loss characteristics. A fairly high value of input
impedance (180 - 220) is generally chosen at the points
of excitations so that the complete design of the complex
array feed network could utilise larger range of line widths
catering for impedance ranging from around 70 to 220.
This is again based on realisability of narrow line width
that is possible in lithography and the largest possible line
width above which spurious feed radiations affect the antenna
radiation pattern performance. The four quadrants of the
antenna array are fabricated on a single substrate of design
choice, which is glued with silver epoxy on to the antenna
back-up plate. The antenna back-up plate is the main structural
framework of the array antenna and is fabricated out of
the light weight Aluminium. The main 50 feed connection
is brought out of the back-up plate through a 4-hole SMA
connector whose centre pin is soldered to the feed point
of the antenna for wideband and low return loss match.
The careful design as well as precise photolithography
(with line widths of 125 ) and fabrication/assembly, have
resulted the novel X-band microstrip antenna array with
repeatable performance features of a high gain > 30 dB,
narrow beamwidths(3.3/4.8), input return loss < -20 dB,
low sidelobe level < -22 dB and cross polarisation < -20
dB over a bandwidth of 200 MHz in X-band. The antenna
with back-up plate weighs less than 1.2 kg, can handle
power level of 50W (avg.) and has been structurally designed
as a retrofit to other radar applications. A view of the array
mounted on the radar sensor platform of the Battle Field
Surveillance Radar is shown in Fig. 2.
Figure 1. Microstrip antenna Figure 2. Antenna mounted
array on the radar
sensor
4.2 L-Band Multifunction Planar Printed Array
Designed and developed U-Slot antenna elements to
share a single antenna aperture at two different frequency
bands to serve the main and IFF functions. The upper
band U-Slot rectangular element (1.2GHz-1.4GHz) described
is characterized for its radiation patterns, bandwidth and
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easy integration with the antenna array, to operate over
a bandwidth of >12%. A gain of around 10 dB and sidelobe
level less than -13 dB has been measured over a 15 %
bandwidth in L-Band. Both the elements are investigated
for its broadband features, good pattern characteristics
and repeatable performance as suitable for array applications.
The requirement for a lightweight antenna subsystem puts
a constraint in choosing the substrate thickness, so the
selection of the array element configuration has become
very critical in the present design. A light weight substrate
such as FR4 has been selected to design the array elements.
The thickness has been increased to 0.1 0 (approx.) by
providing an air gap between the patch and the ground
plane using a honeycomb layer. Coaxial probe, feeding the
element at the centre of the patch, offers an inductive
reactance to the antenna input impedance due to its probe
length. This inductive effect is compensated with the capacitive
reactance offered by introducing the slot compensation
technique to enhance bandwidth performance of the antenna
in addition to impedance matching. Here the slot compensation
is done by introducing a U-Slot around the probe at the
centre of the patch. U-Slot structure resonates in the vicinity
of the TM10 mode of the patch resulting in larger bandwidth
and directivity as compared to other grounded rectangular
patch antennas.
4.3 S-Band Active Aperture Array
Phased array antennas employ a large number of antenna
elements. To realize an active phased array with light weight,
lower cost and ease of fabrication, the radiating elements
play an important role. The element has to provide a wide
bandwidth and wide beamwidth to use in an active phased
array. A microstrip antenna element formed using meandered
microstrip lines has been designed and developed. The
impedance match between the feed and the meander line
antenna element has been achieved by adjusting the width
and length of the microstrip open end. The feed point,
length and width of the element and the antenna substrate
(its thickness and dielectric constant) have all been optimized
to provide a wide scan angle as well as wide bandwidth
performance. A rectangular array grid has been chosen for
location of array elements, so as to meet with a maximum
scan angle requirement of > 60 in azimuth, while providing
a limited scanning of 2.5 in elevation. The spacing are
0.50 and 0.80 in azimuth and elevation planes, respectively.
A (32x10) element active aperture array has been realized
using these meander line array elements and the array
performance has been evaluated. The azimuth beam pattern
with low sidelobe levels of 30dB is realized through complex
excitations programmed in the T/R modules. The elevation
amplitude taper for realizing a broad beam with sidelobe
levels < -25dB has been realized with inbuilt feed networks
as shown in Fig. 3. The cross polarization level is better
than -20dB over the visible zone.
Figure 3. S-band array (a) Backup plate, (b) Feed network.
5. EMERGING TRENDS IN MICROSTRIP
ANTENNAS
Multifunction arrays and adaptive smart skin apertures
are coming up in defense and communication areas.
Superconducting microstrip antennas are coming up owing
to their high efficiency and low loss characteristics. Another
area is the active microstrip antennas where the antenna
element is built integrated with the other active electronics
in a system. Fractal antennas, tapered slot antennas and
new configurations to realize ultra wide band antennas are
another area where extensive researches are going on.
Photonic band gap structures and metamaterials also introduced
new design opportunities for microstrip antennas. In the
field of software defined radio (SDR) and modern EW there
is a need for Ultra wide band antennas and microstrip
antennas with new techniques have been coming up to
meet the challenges.
6. CONCLUSION
Over the last two decades, microstrip antennas have
evolved from simple single patch structures to complex
multilayer configurations. Modern military uses of antennas
have presented new challenges to the antenna designer.
The low profile microstrip antennas met the needs of most
communications, electronic warfare (EW) and surveillance
applications. In case of radars, with new needs like active
phased arrays and wide band transceiver technologies
antennas have new challenges to meet with the wideband,
small and agile platforms and the microstrip antennas are
an optimum choice to meet with these requirements.

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