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Microstrip Antenna

Article  in  International Journal of Scientific & Technology Research · March 2015

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INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SCIENTIFIC & TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH VOLUME 4, ISSUE 03, MARCH 2015 ISSN 2277-8616

Microstrip Antenna
Anuj Mehta

Abstract: This article presents an overview of the microstrip patch antenna and its design techniques. Basically a microstrip patch antenna comprises of
a trace of copper or any other metal of any geometry on one side of a standard printed circuit board substrate with other side grounded. The antenna is
fed using various feeding techniques like coaxial, strip line, aperture coupling or proximity coupling techniques. The working principle and the radiation
mechanism have also been described. The microstrip patch antenna is widely used military, industrial and commercial sectors.
—————————— ——————————

I. INTRODUCTION
Microstrip Antenna was initially proposed by G.A. Deschamps
in year 1953 but came in to existence in 1970’s when Robert E.
Munson and some of his fellow researchers developed it using
a low loss substrate. Also known as Patch Antenna. These
Antennas are mainly used at microwave frequency (above 1
GHz).

II. BASIC STRUCTURE

The basic design of the antenna consists of Patch (Radiating
Element), Substrate& Ground Plane. The typical range for
dielectric constant of the substrate being used is
2.2≤εr≤12these antennas are simple to design, easy to modify
according to needs, inexpensive, lightweight .One the negative Fig. 2 E-Field
sides these antennas have low bandwidth and low power.
In TM10 mode, along the length, fields along the length are 180
degree out of phase with each other and cancel out. There is
novariation is observed along the width of the patch Consider
fig 3. If the field along the width is resolved into components,
the vertical components would cancel out and horizontal
components add up resulting in a broadside pattern as shown
in fig 4. Hence, the width edges are termed as radiating edges
and length edges as non-radiating edges.

Fig.1 The Basic Structure of Mricrostrip Antenna

III. WORKING PRINCIPLE

To analyse the radiation from a patch let us take an example
of a rectangular patch considering it to be a two-dimensional
planar structure. By definition a rectangular patch is defined by
its length and width. The width of a patch is comparable to the Fig. 3 Variation of Field Lines
wavelength and thickness of the substrate is kept very much
smaller than wavelength. The fundamental TM10 mode can be
attained by keeping the length slightly less than λ/2, where λ is
wavelength in the dielectric medium (equal to λ0 /√ε, where ε is
effective dielectric constant and λ0 is the free space
wavelength). The effective dielectric constant is kept slightly
less than the dielectric constant of the substrate so that the
fields not entirely get confined to the substrate but also fringe
and spread in the air. This is shown in the Fig 2.

___________________________

Anuj Mehta, School of Electrical Engineering &

Telecommunication, UNSW, Sydney, Australia,
Z3488506@zmail.unsw.edu.au
Fig 4 Field Pattern

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Now a patch, which operates in TM10 mode, can be visualized 2. Cavity Model-
and analyzed as a transmission line, as the field lines vary Another method to analyse a patch is cavity model where the
sinusoidally along the length while are uniform along the width. region between the patch and the ground plane is treated as a
The fringing fields along the edges can be explained and cavity, which is surrounded by the electric walls on the top and
modeled as equivalent capacitance and radiation resistance of the bottom surface and the magnetic walls on the periphery.
the transmission line as shown in fig. 5. Thus, one of the basic As the substrate used is thin as compared to wavelength
methods used in the analysis of patch is by analyzing it as a inside the dielectric medium, the fields inside the cavity remain
transmission line. uniform along the thickness of the substrate while the
equivalent magnetic current around the periphery computes
the far fields and the radiation.

Fig. 5 Resulting Pattern

IV.METHODS TO ANALYSE A PATCH

As discussed earlier that a patch antenna can be treated as a Fig. 8 Cavity Model
two-dimensional planar structure and most of methods for
analysis are based on this assumption. The chart below shows 3. MNM-
the basic methods used to analyze a patch. This method models the electromagnetic fields underneath
and outside the patch separately and the patch is analyzed as
a two dimensional planar network with multiple ports around
the periphery. By segmentation multiport impedance matrix is
obtained and is solved. The far fields and radiation are
obtained by the voltage distribution around the periphery. The
above-mentioned analytical methods offer simplicity and
physical insight however last two utilize corresponding voltage
distribution obtain magnetic current distribution around the
Fig.6 Methods for Analysis of Patch periphery. These methods work accurately for regular shaped
patches but sometimes turn inaccurate when applied to a
A. Analytical Methods patch of arbitrarily shaped geometry. For arbitrarily shaped
geometries numerical techniques discussed below are
1. Transmission Line Model- suitable.
In the transmission line mode, the patch is viewed as a
transmission line resonator with no transverse fields while the B. Numerical Methods
radiation mainly occurs due to the fringing fields at the open 1. MOM-The method of moments is one of the most
circuited ends.The effective dielectric constant is kept slightly commonly used numerical techniques. Here the surface
less than the dielectric constant of the substrate so that the currents are used to model a patch. An integral equation
fields not entirely get confined to the substrate but also fringe is formed that is expanded in terms of some basis and
and spread in the air. Here, two slots that are spaced by the testing functions and transformed into a matrix form that
length of the resonator represent the patch. Since the can be easily solved by a computer. This method takes
transmission line model does not take care of variation of field into account effect of fringing fields so provides more
in the orthogonal direction to the direction of propagation, all exact solution.
types of configurations cannot be analyzed using this model. 2. FEM-Finite Element Method is suitable for volumetric
However, it is easy to use. configuration. In this method, the region of interest is
divided into a number of finite surfaces. These
discretized units may be any well-defined geometrical
shapes such as triangles, tetrahedral etc. depending
whether configuration is planar, 2D or 3D. This method is
very handy when the shape of the patch is arbitrary. But
its only limitation is that it needs a truncation boundary to
be applied, which may result into some inaccuracies.
3. FDTD-Finite Difference Time Domain method
conveniently models patch antennas. It utilizes spatial as
well as time grid for electric and magnetic fields over
which solution is required. The entire domain is divided
Fig. 7 Transmission Line &its Equivalent Model into small units called cells. The Maxwell’s equations in
differential form are used in this method. The discrete
time variations of the fields are determined at desired
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locations. Using line integral of electric fields the voltage VI.TYPES OF PATCH ANTENNA
across two locations can be obtained. The current is These antennas can be made of various designs. The basic
computed by using loop integral of magnetic field. shapes like circular, rectangular, square, semi-circular etc.
form a major section of the research in this field. They can be
V. TYPES OF FEEDS modified according to the use by adding slots, monopoles,
arrays etc. Shown below are examples of some basic types of
A. Direct Feeding- patch antennas.
1. Microstrip Line Feed-The Figure 9 shows the Microstrip
Line feed used in the patch antennas. This is the most
basic and easy method used in the feed for microstrip
patch antennas. The antenna is provided with excitation
using the microstrip line.

Figure 12 Common Shapes of Patch

VII. WHY PATCH ANTENNA?

Important question that arises is why should we use patch
antenna? Here are some answers to that:
Fig. 9 Microstrip Transmission Line These antennas are lightweight, small in size and low
profile.
2. Coaxial Feed-The Figure 10 below shows the coaxial Both liner and circular polarizations can be obtained using
feeding method in which the central conductor directly them.
touches the patch and thus provides the excitation to the Can be made compact.
patch. The outer part of the probe is connected to the Ease of mass production using the printed circuits makes
ground plane in order to complete the circuit. The input them a cheaper option to use.
signal is provided using the coaxial coupler. Major advantage is that they can work in multiband of
frequencies.

VIII. CONCLUSION
This article presents a review on microstrip patch antenna.
The design and analysis methods of a patch antenna have
been discussed. Different shapes of the patch have been used
and discussed according to the applications. Although a lot of
work has been done on microstrip antenna, still lot has to be
done. With the advancement of microwave and millimeter
Fig. 10Coaxial Feed wave technologies, systems are now going towards
miniaturization.
B. Indirect Feeding-
These types of feeding are used when there is no actual REFERENCES
contact between the patch and the input radiating material. [1] David R. Jackson Jeffery T. Williams Donald R. Wilton
These methods include Aperture Coupled Feed and Proximity “Chapter 9: Antennas II Applied Electromagnetics
coupled Feed. Laboratory” Department of Electrical and Computer
1. Aperture Coupled Feed-The Figure 11 below shows the Engineering University of Houston.
aperture coupled feeding in which there is a small
aperture or a slot cut into the ground plane in order to [2] www.antenna-theory.com
provide patch with radiation using the transmission line
[3] http://www.brainwareknowledgehub.com

[4] George Casu, Cătălin Moraru , Andrei Kovacs “Design

and Implementation of Microstrip Patch Antenna Array “

[5] Priya Upadhyay, Vivek Sharma, Richa Sharma, Design of

Microstrip Patch Antenna Array for WLAN Application,
IJEIT, Volume 2, Issue 1, July 2012.

Fig 11 Aperture Coupled Feed

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[6] G. A. Deschamps, “ Microstrip Microwave Antennas”,

presented at Third USAF symposium on Antennas, 1953

[7] C. A. Balanis, “Antenna Theory, Analysis and Design,”

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[8] R Garg, P Bhartia, I Bahl, and A. Lttipiboon, Microstrip

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[9] Sunil Kumar Thakur“DESIGN & ANALYSIS OF

MICROSTRIP PATCH ANTENNA USING
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[10] Richards, W.F., Microstrip Antennas, Chapter 10 in

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[11] JR James & P S Hall, “Handbook of Microstrip Antennas”,

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[12] S. Gupta. "Design of Ultra Wideband Microstrip Antenna",

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