Microstrip Bowtie Patch Antenna

13-71591, 13-17352
Department of Electronics, Instrumentation and Control, and Mechatronics Engineering
College of Engineering, Architecture and Fine Arts
Batangas State University Main Campus II
Alangilan, Batangas City
jh.canariasmj02@gmail.com
zuluetaanalyn7@gmail.com

Abstract: This paper mainly focused on the design
and development of microstrip bowtie patch
antenna that operates at 2.45GHz frequency.
I. INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background
In telecommunication, a microstrip antenna (also
known as a printed antenna) usually means
an antenna fabricated using microstrip techniques
on a printed circuit board (PCB). They are mostly
used at microwave frequencies. An individual
microstrip antenna consists of a patch of metal foil
of various shapes (a patch antenna) on the surface
of a PCB, with a metal foil ground plane on the
other side of the board. Most microstrip antennas
consist of multiple patches in a two-dimensional
array. The antenna is usually connected to
the transmitter or receiver through
foil microstrip transmission lines. The radio
frequency current is applied (or in receiving
antennas the received signal is produced) between
the antenna and ground plane. Microstrip antennas
have become very popular in recent decades due to
their thin planar profile which can be incorporated
into the surfaces of consumer products, aircraft and
missiles; their ease of fabrication using printed
circuit techniques; the ease of integrating the
antenna on the same board with the rest of the
circuit, and the possibility of adding active devices
such as microwave integrated circuits to the
antenna itself to make active antennas.
The most common type of microstrip antenna is
the patch antenna. Antennas using patches as
constitutive elements in an array are also possible.
A patch antenna is a narrowband, wide-
beam antenna fabricated by etching the antenna
element pattern in metal trace bonded to an
insulating dielectric substrate, such as a printed
circuit board, with a continuous metal layer bonded
to the opposite side of the substrate which forms
a ground plane. Common microstrip antenna
shapes are square, rectangular, circular and
elliptical, but any continuous shape is possible.
Some patch antennas do not use a dielectric
substrate and instead are made of a metal patch
mounted above a ground plane using dielectric
spacers; the resulting structure is less rugged but
has a wider bandwidth. Because such antennas
have a very low profile, are mechanically rugged
and can be shaped to conform to the curving skin
of a vehicle, they are often mounted on the exterior
of aircraft and spacecraft, or are incorporated
into mobile radio communications devices.
A patch antenna (also known as a rectangular
microstrip antenna) is a type of radio antenna with
a low profile, which can be mounted on a flat
surface. It consists of a flat rectangular sheet or
"patch" of metal, mounted over a larger sheet of
metal called a ground plane. They are the original
type of microstrip antenna described by Howell in
1972;[1] the two metal sheets together form a
resonant piece of microstrip transmission line with
a length of approximately one-half wavelength of
the radio waves. The radiation mechanism arises
from discontinuities at each truncated edge of the
microstrip transmission line. The radiation at the
edges causes the antenna to act slightly larger
electrically than its physical dimensions, so in
order for the antenna to be resonant, a length of
microstrip transmission line slightly shorter than
one-half a wavelength at the frequency is used.
Microstrip antennas are relatively inexpensive to
manufacture and design because of the simple 2-
dimensional physical geometry. They are usually
employed at UHF and higher frequencies because
the size of the antenna is directly tied to
the wavelength at the resonant frequency. A single
patch antenna provides a maximum directive gain
of around 6-9 dBi. It is relatively easy to print an
array of patches on a single (large) substrate using
lithographic techniques. Patch arrays can provide
much higher gains than a single patch at little
additional cost; matching and phase adjustment can
be performed with printed microstrip feed
structures, again in the same operations that form
the radiating patches. The ability to create high
gain arrays in a low-profile antenna is one reason
that patch arrays are common on airplanes and in
other military applications.
Such an array of patch antennas is an easy way to
make a phased array of antennas with
dynamic beamforming ability.[2]

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An advantage inherent to patch antennas is the
ability to have polarization diversity. Patch
antennas can easily be designed to have vertical,
horizontal, right hand circular (RHCP) or left hand
circular (LHCP) polarizations, using multiple feed
points, or a single feedpoint with asymmetric patch
structures. This unique property allows patch
antennas to be used in many types of
communications links that may have varied
requirements.
The dielectric loading of a microstrip antenna
affects both its radiation pattern and impedance
bandwidth. As the dielectric constant of the
substrate increases, the antenna bandwidth
decreases which increases the Q factor of the
antenna and therefore decreases the impedance
bandwidth. This relationship did not immediately
follow when using the transmission line model of
the antenna, but is apparent when using the cavity
model which was introduced in the late 1970s by
Lo et al.[4] The radiation from a rectangular
microstrip antenna may be understood as a pair of
equivalent slots. These slots act as an array and
have the highest directivity when the antenna has
an air dielectric and decreases as the antenna is
loaded by material with increasing relative
dielectric constant.
The half-wave rectangular microstrip antenna has a
virtual shorting plane along its center. This may be
replaced with a physical shorting plane to create a
quarter-wavelength microstrip antenna. This is
sometimes called a half-patch. The antenna only
has a single radiation edge (equivalent slot) which
lowers the directivity/gain of the antenna. The
impedance bandwidth is slightly lower than a half-
wavelength full patch as the coupling between
radiating edges has been eliminated.
Figure 1 shows a patch antenna in its basic form: a
flat plate over a ground plane. This antenna is often
built of printed circuit board material and the
substrate makes up the patch antenna’s dielectric.
The distance between the patch and the ground
plane – the substrate or dielectric height h –
determines the bandwidth.
A thicker substrate increases the gain to some
extent, but may lead to undesired effects like
surface wave excitation: surface waves decrease
efficiency and perturb the radiation pattern. The
ground plane should extend beyond the edges of
the patch by at least 2 to 3 times the board
thickness for proper operation. A ground plane that
is too small will result in a reduced front to back
ratio. Making the ground plane larger also
increases the gain, but as the ground plane size
increases, diffraction near the edges plays less of a
role and increasing the size of an already “large”
ground plane has very little effect on gain.
2
Our design focused on a specific type of microstrip
patch antenna called bowtie.
Several bowtie patch-antenna configurations are
studied for their suitability for use in broad-band
indoor wireless communications. A microstrip
bowtie antenna (MBA), based on the design of
equilateral triangular patches, is first designed and
tested. The same design is used to realize a
coplanar waveguide bowtie antenna (CPWBA)
with finite ground plane. The CPWBA is coax-fed
from its apex and matched in C band. The resonant
slot length of this antenna is around three times that
of the guided wavelength. The measured gain for
the CPWBA antenna is 8.1 dB. The same MBA is
also used in the realization of (1x2)-, (2x1)-, and
(2x2)- element MBA arrays. The MBA and
resultant arrays use microstrip feed networks
matched to the input impedance at around 10 GHz.
The gain of the MBA is 6.2 dB; the gains for the
arrays vary within 13.7 and 17.3 dB. The 2 : 1
voltage standing-wave ratio bandwidths lie in the
9.7%–10.8% range for the realized antennas. The
radiation patterns can be optimized to fit the
required diversity for the specific indoor wireless
communication environment; the beamwidths are
demonstrated to vary between 15 and 85 degrees,
which allow for multipath minimization and
radiation diversity within the premises, thereby
providing interference-free illumination.
The bow-tie patch actually is the combination of
imaginary image of two triangular patches which
are fabricated in a single substrate.
The bow-tie patch microstrip antenna as a compact
one. Antenna has been proved to be an effective
technique to design small, multiband and high gain
antennas and low side lobe arrays. It is a
combination of antenna technology and fractal
geometry. Fractal antenna geometry represents self-
similarity and repeats itself in different dimensions
filling the space effectively. It has shown many
particular attributes in vast researches and
applications as follows:
 Multiple electrical dimension, multiband
or wideband, and ratio δ between adjacent
resonant frequencies are approximately
proportional to the fractal dimension D.
  Miniaturized and compact, filling space and suggested an empirical formula for the
effectively. resonant frequency of this new geodesy.
 Self-loaded to 50Ω, auxiliary reactance
and capacitance not needed. Figure 1 shows the dimension of a bow-tie
microstrip antenna, where a is the side length of the
 Mutual coupling between array elements
bow-tie strip, teta is the angle of equilateral
can be reduced substantially.
triangular, L1,L2. W1, and W2 are the dimensions
of the matching network. Resonant frequency
corresponding to the various modes described by
Objectives [7]:
 To design and develop a bowtie microstrip
patch antenna that operates at 2.45GHz
frequency.
 To use a specific software for simulation.

Significance of the Study

Upon understanding the idea of microstrip antenna,
especially in the design focused on bowtie type where
patch antenna, the next researchers can easily
fr - is the resonance frequency
design their own patch antenna according to their
design specifications. kmn – is the resonating modes
m and n – are number of modes
Scope and Limitations c - is the velocity of light in free space.
This research is focused and limited only on the a – is the side length of the bow tie strip
design of microstrip bowtie patch antenna. Other
type of patch antenna is not included in this
research.
the above equation is used for the design and
dimension of bowtie microstrip antenna.

II. REVIEW OF LITERATURE

In recent years, microstrip antennas have been
widely used in both theoretical research and
engineering applications due to their light weight
and thin profile configurations, low cost of
fabrication, reliability, conformal structure and ease
of fabrication. The bow-tie microstrip antennas Where
have been designed for wireless LAN application,
where the operating frequency is at 2.4 GHz. The aeff -Effective side length
bow-tie patch actually is the combination of h- Height of substrate
imaginary image of two triangular patches which
are fabricated in a single substrate. Figure 1 shows εr- dielectric constant
the bow-tie strip of a bow-tie microstrip antenna.
Bow-tie microstrip antennas have become The above expression is valid when the triangular
attractive candidates in the present day resonator is surrounded by a perfect magnetic wall.
communication scenario due to their compact The effect of a non-perfect magnetic wall on the
nature compared to rectangular patches. The ever resonant frequency can be included in an empirical
increasing demand for compact wireless fashion for easy calculation.
communication equipment explicitly necessitates
research in compact antenna options and which
sparked interests of many researchers worldwide in
the field of bow-tie microstrip antennas. However
in the literature, only very few attempts have been
made towards the analysis of this type antenna. The
bow-tie patch microstrip antenna as a compact one,

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 depends on the angle of the equilateral triangular,
where the angle, angle teta is not less than 0 degree
and not bigger than 180 degrees. Therefore, the
bow-tie microstrip antenna can be design at any
degree of angle teta. There is an impedance
matching network with the microstrip transmission
line feeding which are fabricated simultaneously
with the antenna structure. The impedance
matching network is the most important part in the
design of a microstrip antenna in order to minimize
the return loss. The acceptable return loss of the
antenna is -10dB or below. It is better if the
microstrip antenna having the return loss of power
Figure 1 : Dimensions of Bowtie Microstrip than -20dB.
Antenna
III. DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY
It’s well known that bow-tie antenna is a planar
form of UWB finite biconical antenna. It is a Side length of the antenna:
practical angle-dependent frequency independent
antenna. Because of its ultra-broadband, light 2c
a=
weight, thin profile configurations, low cost and 2fr√∈ r
easiness of fabrication, reliability and
conformability, bow-tie antenna has been widely 2(3 ∗ 108 )
a=
studied and used in engineering applications. Also, 2(2.45 ∗ 109 )√4.4
the simple geometries make it compatible to be
connected to planar feeding system in an integrated 𝒂 = 𝟓𝟖. 𝟑𝟕𝟓𝟑𝒎𝒎
architecture. In this paper, a new Kochlike fractal
Effective value of side length:
curve is designed and introduced into modification
of the typical bow-tie antenna. The novel Koch-like h
sided bow-tie dipole can behave both like a eff = a +
√∈ r
multiband and UWB with conspicuous advantages
over its conventional counterpart, printed dipole 1.542762mm
and Sierpinski gasket in dimension, bandwidth, a eff = 58.3753mm +
√4.4
gain and efficiency, which makes it a good choice
for applications of WLAN, WiFi, WiMAX, and 𝒂𝒆𝒇𝒇 = 𝟓𝟗. 𝟏𝟏𝟎𝟕𝒎𝒎
other communication systems.
Effective dielectric constant:
A number of suggestions have been made with
regard to how to yield an accurate expression for a ∈r+1 ∈r−1
∈eff = +
triangular microstrip patch antenna that is not 2 12
4 + √1 +
enclosed by a perfect magnetic wall. Most of the a
suggestions are about replacing the side length a by
an effective value aeff and leaving the substrate 4.4 + 1 4.4 − 1
∈eff = +
dielectric constant unchanged. The other set of 2 12
4.4 + √1 +
suggestions proposes replacing both a and cr with 58.3753mm
their effective values. An expression for aeff has
been arrived at by curve fitting the experinmental ∈𝒆𝒇𝒇 = 𝟑. 𝟒𝟒𝟎𝟔𝟑𝟑
and theoretical results for the resonant frequency
Wavelength in free space:
for TM10 mode.
c
The bow-tie patch antenna is a combination of ∂=
f
imaginary image of two triangular patches which
are fabricated in a single substrate. Therefore, the 3 ∗ 108
design of bow-tie microstrip antenna is based on ∂=
2.45 ∗ 109
the design of triangular microstrip antenna. Those
formula used in the design of triangular microstrip 𝝏 = 𝟎𝟏𝟐𝟐𝟒
antenna to calculate the side length, effective value
of side length and effective value of dielectric
constant, are also applicable in the design of bow- Wavelength of the antenna:
tie microstrip antenna. For the design of bow-tie
antenna, the side length is calculated and fix at a ∂g = ∂/√∈eff
certain operating frequency. While the length is

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 ∂g = 0.12244/√3.440633 Directivity at 2.4GHz

𝝏𝒈 = 𝟎. 𝟎𝟔𝟔𝟎𝟏𝟒

Feedline:
L1 = d ∂g
𝑳𝟏 = 𝟏𝟐. 𝟐𝟒𝟓𝒎𝒎
∂g
L2 =
4
𝑳𝟐 = 𝟑𝟎. 𝟔𝟏𝟐𝟓𝒎𝒎
1.91285
W1 = ( )<2
d
𝑾𝟏 = 𝟒𝒎𝒎
1.91335
W2 = ( )>2
d
𝑾𝟏 = 𝟖𝒎𝒎

In 3 Dimensional view,

Final Design
We gathered all this information through books,
PDFs, and internet.
We use the software CST for our simulation.
Through that, we obtain the radiation pattern of our
design. Then, we use the software AutoCAD for
the layout of our design. We use ordinary PCB for
our prototype.

IV. SIMULATION AND RESULTS

The designer used CST software to simulate the
radiation pattern.

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Gain: Realized Gain:

6
E-Field: H-Field:

7
Power Gain S-Parameter:

Reference impedance

Power in Watt(w)

Where:

8
VSWR There is an impedance matching network with the
microstrip transmission line feeding which are
fabricated simultaneously with the antenna
structure. The impedance matching network is the
most important part in the design of a microstrip
antenna in order to minimize the return loss. The
acceptable return loss for a microstrip antenna is -
OdB or below. It is better if the microstrip antenna
having the return loss of lower than-20dB. By
comparing the simulation results and the
measurement results, we can notice that the return
loss of the antennas with same angle is different. It
is may be caused by these factors, they are:
inaccurate in preparing the layout, impurities of the
equipment for fabrication and the quality of
substrate and connector.
Tabular data for simulation in CST Software

Simulated value
Directivity 3.939dB
Gain (IEEE) 0.8087dB
Realized gain -0.1484dB
E-Field -14.62dBV/m
Time Signal
H-Field -36.9062dBA/m
Power gain -11.14dBW/m2
VSWR 2.6035

VI. CONCLUSION
In this project, the angle of the bowtie microstrip
antennas does not affect its return loss. Bow-tie
antenna is desirable for the modern wireless
communication applications.

REFERENCE
V. DISCUSSION [1]
The bow-tie patch antenna is a combination of http://www.antenna-
imaginary image of two triangular patches which theory.com/antennas/patches/antenna.php
are fabricated in a single substrate. Therefore, the
design of bow-tie microstrip antenna is based on
the design of triangular microstrip antenna. Those
formula used in the design of triangular microstrip [2]
antenna to calculate the side length, effective value
of side length and effective value of dielectric https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microstrip_antenna
constant, are also applicable in the design of bow-
tie microstrip antenna. For the design of bow-tie
antenna, the side length is calculated and fix at a [3]
certain operating frequency. While the length is
depends on the angle of the equilateral triangular, http://orbanmicrowave.com/wp-
where the angle, 0 is not less than 00 and not content/uploads/2014/12/Orban-Patch-Antennas-
bigger than 1800. Therefore, the bow-tie microstrip 2009-rev.pdf
antenna can be design at any degree of0.

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[4]
Bow-tie Microstrip Antenna Design(Rahim,
M.K.A., et.al)
[5]
Design of Bow-tie Microstrip Antenna with Fractal
Shape for W-Lan Application(Bhosale, A.C., et.al)

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