Investigation on Performance of Microstrip Patch Antenna for a Practical Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) Application

The performance of a microstrip patch antenna for a practical wireless local area network application is investigated in this research. This design is built around the transmission line concept. The antenna design substrate is FR4 (lossy) with a dielectric constant (Er) of 4.3 dielectric material, and the ground and patch materials are copper (annealed). The substrate is 71.62mm in width and 55.47mm in length. The height of the dielectric material is 1.6mm, which is the normal size for FR4 material. The conducting patch element has a width of 35.81mm and a length of 27.73mm for a resonance frequency of 2.573 GHz. A simulation with CST studio suite was used to optimise the antenna design. Keywords: Microstrio patch antenna, CST suite, WLAN application, Transmission line, Antenna design

Implementation of a Miniaturized Planar Tri-Band Microstrip Patch Antenna for Wireless Sensors in Mobile Applications

Antennas in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are characterized by the enhanced capacity of the network, longer range of transmission, better spatial reuse, and lower interference. In this paper, we propose a planar patch antenna for mobile communication applications operating at 1.8, 3.5, and 5.4 GHz. A planar microstrip patch antenna (MPA) consists of two F-shaped resonators that enable operations at 1.8 and 3.5 GHz while operation at 5.4 GHz is achieved when the patch is truncated from the middle. The proposed planar patch is printed on a low-cost FR-4 substrate that is 1.6 mm in thickness. The equivalent circuit model is also designed to validate the reflection coefficient of the proposed antenna with the S11 obtained from the circuit model. It contains three RLC (resistor–inductor–capacitor) circuits for generating three frequency bands for the proposed antenna. Thereby, we obtained a good agreement between simulation and measurement results. The proposed antenna has an elliptically shaped radiation pattern at 1.8 and 3.5 GHz, while the broadside directional pattern is obtained at the 5.4 GHz frequency band. At 1.8, 3.5, and 5.4 GHz, the simulated peak realized gains of 2.34, 5.2, and 1.42 dB are obtained and compared to the experimental peak realized gains of 2.22, 5.18, and 1.38 dB at same frequencies. The results indicate that the proposed planar patch antenna can be utilized for mobile applications such as digital communication systems (DCS), worldwide interoperability for microwave access (WiMAX), and wireless local area networks (WLAN).

Performance Improvement of Aperture Coupled MSA through Si Micromachining

In recent times rectangular patch antenna design has become the most innovative and popular subject due to its advantages, such as being lightweight, conformal, ease to fabricate, low cost and small size. In this paper design of aperture coupled microstrip patch antenna (MSA) on high index semiconductor material coupled with micromachining technique for performance enhancement is discussed. The performance in terms of return loss bandwidth, gain, cross-polarization and antenna efficiency is compared with standard aperture coupled antenna. Micromachining underneath of the patch helps in to reduce the effective dielectric constant, which is desirable for the radiation characteristics of the patch antenna. Improvement 36 percent and 18 percent in return loss bandwidth and gain respectively achieved using micromachined aperture coupled feed patch, which is due to the reduction in losses, suppression of surface waves and substrate modes. In this article along with design, fabrication aspects on Si substrate using MEMS process also discussed. Presented antenna design is proposed antenna can be useful in smart antenna arrays suitable in satellite, radar communication applications. Two topologies at X-band are fabricated and comparison between aperture coupled and micromachined aperture coupled are presented. Index Terms—Microstrip Patch Antenna, Aperture Coupled, Micromachining, High Resistivity Silicon

High Gain Beam Steering Antenna Arrays with Low Scan Loss for mmWave Applications

In millimeter-wave (mmWave) communications, the antenna gain is a crucial parameter to overcome path loss and atmospheric attenuation. This work presents the design of two cylindrical conformal antenna arrays, made of modified rectangular microstrip patch antenna as a radiating element, working at 28 GHz for mmWave applications providing high gain and beam steering capability. The microstrip patch antenna element uses Rogers RO4232 substrate with a thickness of 0.5 mm and surface area of 5.8 mm × 5.8 mm. The individual antenna element provides a gain of 6.9 dBi with return loss bandwidth of 5.12 GHz. The first antenna array, made by using five conformal antenna elements, achieves a uniform gain of approximately 12 dBi with minimal scan loss for extensive scan angles. In the second antenna array, a dielectric superstrate using Rogers TMM (10i) was used to modify the first antenna array. It enhanced the gain to approximately 16 dBi while still maintaining low scan loss for wide angles. The proposed array design method is very robust and can be applied to any conformal surface. The mathematical equations are also provided to derive the array design, and both array designs are verified by using full-wave simulations.

DESIGN AND ANALYSIS OF A MICROSTRIP PATCH ANTENNA AT 7.5 GHz FOR X-BAND VSAT APPLICATION

In this paper, a microstrip patch antenna is designed to be used for X-band VSAT application at 7.5 GHz. The antenna is proposed to replace the massive and commonly used parabolic reflector antennas (46.0 inch × 29.3 inch × 13.5 inch (116.84 cm × 74.42 cm × 34.29 cm) with weight of 66.2 kg) in terms of portability due to its compact and lightweight features, with overall dimensions of 19.00 mm × 30.55 mm. The 7.5 GHz frequency is chosen based on the X-band frequency used in Malaysia, as reported by STRIDE. The microstrip patch antenna is first designed and simulated using CST Microwave Studio (CST MWS) and exhibits a good return loss (S11) of -42.09 dB, a bandwidth of 399 MHz, directivity of 7.63 dB and gain of 7.18 dB. The antenna is then fabricated using RT/duroid ® High Frequency 5880 substrate with a dielectric constant of ?r = 2.2, loss tangent of ? = 0.0009 and thickness of t = 1.574 mm. Next, the return loss and radiation pattern measurements are carried out to confirm the simulated results. The measurement of the antenna prototype provides a return loss S11 of -30.53 dB, bandwidth of 455 MHz, directivity of 5.51 dB and gain of 3.88 dB. ABSTRAK: Di dalam kajian ini, antena jalurmikro dicadangkan untuk tujuan aplikasi jalur-X VSAT pada 7.5 GHz. Antena jalurmikro ini dicadangkan untuk menggantikan antena reflektor parabola yang besar dan biasa digunakan (46.0 inci × 29.3 inci × 13.5 inci (116.84cm × 74.42cm × 34.29cm) dengan berat 66.2kg), kerana cirinya yang mudah alih dengan fizikalnya yang kecil dan ringan, dan dimensi keseluruhan 19.00 mm × 30.55 mm. Frekuensi 7.5 GHz dipilih berdasarkan frekuensi jalur-X yang digunakan di Malaysia, seperti yang dilaporkan oleh STRIDE. Antena jalurmikro ini direka dan disimulasi menggunakan perisian CST Studio Gelombang Mikro (CST MWS) dan menghasilkan kehilangan pulangan yang baik S11 -42.09 dB, lebar jalur 399 MHz, keterarahan 7.63 dB dan gandaan 7.18 dB. Antena jalurmikro ini kemudiannya direalisasikan dengan menggunakan substrat RT / duroid ® Frekuensi Tinggi 5880 dengan pemalar dielektrik ?r = 2.2, tangen kehilangan ? = 0.0009 dan ketebalan t = 1.574 mm. Seterusnya, pengukuran kehilangan pulangan dan corak radiasi dilakukan untuk mengesahkan keputusan simulasi. Pengukuran prototaip antena jalurmikro menunjukkan kehilangan pulangan S11 -30.53 dB, lebar jalur 455 MHz, keterarahan 5.51 dB dan gandaan 3.88 dB.