Design of Aperture Coupled Fed Micro-Strip Patch

Antenna for Wireless Communication

Joseph Gomez, Victor Villagomez, Alex Rea
School Of Electronic Engineering And Telecommunications Networks, Polytechnic High School Of Chimborazo
Riobamba, Ecuador
josephm/g omezp@hotmail.com
gabrielvllgmz16@gmail.com
xyyyyyyyy@hotmail.com

AbstractThe objective of this project is to study and put

into practice concepts of antennas in microstrip and modes
of radiation in a line fed aperture coupled patch antenna is
presented at 10 GHz using 0.762mm and .508mm thick (r=3.2)
substrates. The maximum size of proposed antenna is 35.4mm
by 35.4mm. A novel bandwidth enhancing network is described,
which is shown to improve the 10-dB bandwidth substantially.
The simulated and measured radiation pattern is suited
for wireless communication applications. The proposed antenna
should be useful for X band communication systems, and scaled
models for lower frequencies are easy to design.

I. I NTRODUCTION
A. History
The rapid development of microstrip antenna technology
began in the late 1970s. By the early 1980s basic microstrip
antenna elements and arrays were fairly well established in
terms of design and modeling. One of these applications
involved the use of microstrip antennas for integrated phased
array systems, as the printed technology of microstrip antenna
seemed perfectly suited to low-cost and high-density. The
straightforward approach of building an integrated millimeter
wave array (or subarray) using a single GaAs substrate layer
had several drawbacks. First, there is generally not enough
space on a single layer to hold antenna elements, active phase
shifter and amplifier circuitry, bias lines, and RF feed lines.
Second, the high permittivity of a semiconductor substrate
such as GaAs was a poor choice for antenna bandwidth, since
the bandwidth of a microstrip antenna is best for low dielectric
constant substrates. And if substrate thickness is increased in
an attempt to improve bandwidth.[xx]

01.jpg

Fig. 1: Slot in plane of two dimensions

The field in opening dimensions axb is:
~ = Ey y
E
Equivalent magnetic currents will be:
~ s = 2
M
z xEy (z)
y = 2Ey (z)
z
II. P OWER SUPPLY OF A PATCH
One of the most common ways is power supply through
a transmission line in the same plane of the patch. Feeding
through a coaxial connector is also quite common, especially
in some directional antennas (fig 2).

03.jpg

Fig. 2: Power supply with transmission line

The power supply through a coaxial connector is also quite
common, especially in some directional antennas (fig 3).

04.jpg
B. Theoretical framework
Radiation from an opening in a ground plane can be analyzed by the equivalence theorem from electrical and magnetic
currents.
~ M
~ s = nx
~
E
J~s = n
xH
A slot is an opening in a plane in one of the two dimensions
compared to the wavelength (fig 1).

Fig. 3: Power supply with coaxial connector

The slots can be fed through waveguides. Another way of
feeding grooves is through microstrip lines. The slot is situated
in the ground plane, and the line has an open to a 4 away from
the slot circuit (fig 4).

02.jpg

Fig. 4: Slot in the ground plane

Other forms of feed are attachment proximity, in a multilayer
structure(fig 5).

05.jpg

Fig. 5: Multilayer Structure

And also the coupling through a slot(fig 6).

06.jpg

Fig. 6: Multilayer Structure With Slot

III. M ODEL OF PATCH WITH A SLOT ANTENNA
We had looked at the possibility of using a two sidedsubstrate with printed slot antennas fed with microstrip lines,
but the bidirectionality of the radiating element was unacceptable. At some point in the summer of 1984 we arrived
at the idea of combining these two geometries, using a slot
or aperture to couple a microstrip feed line to a resonant
microstrip patch antenna.
A. Sections of the antenna
The next figure (fig 7) shows the geometry of the basic
aperture coupled patch antenna. The radiating microstrip patch
element is etched on the top of the antenna substrate, and the
microstrip feed line is etched on the bottom of the feed.

07.jpg

Fig. 7: Basic parts of aperture coupled patch antenna

The thickness and dielectric constants of these two substrates
may thus be chosen independently to optimize the distinct
electrical functions of radiation and circuitry. The use of
a rectangular slot would improve the coupling, for a given
aperture area, due to its increased magnetic polarizability.

1) Antenna substrate dielectric constant: This primarily

affects the bandwidth and radiation efficiency of the antenna,
with lower permittivity giving wider impedance bandwidth and
reduced surface wave excitation.
2) Antenna substrate thickness: Substrate thickness affects
bandwidth and coupling level. A thicker substrate results in
wider bandwidth, but less coupling for a given aperture size.
3) Microstrip patch length: The length of the patch radiator
determines the resonant frequency of the antenna.
4) Microstrip patch width: The width of the patch affects
the resonant resistance of the antenna, with a wider patch
giving a lower resistance. Square patches may result in the
generation of high cross polarization levels, and thus should
be avoided unless dual or circular polarization is required.
5) Feed substrate dielectric constant: This should be selected for good microstrip circuit qualities, typically in the
range of 2 to 10.
6) Feed substrate thickness: Thinner microstrip substrates
result in less spurious radiation from feed lines, but higher
loss. A compromise of 0.01l to 0.02l is usually good.
7) Slot length: The coupling level is primarily determined
by the length of the coupling slot, as well as the back radiation
level. The slot should therefore be made no larger than is
required for impedance matching.
8) Slot width: The width of the slot als affects the coupling
level, but to a much less degree than the slot width. The ratio
1
.
of slot length to width is typically 10
9) Feed line width: Besides controlling the characteristic
impedance of the feed line, the width of the feed line affects
the coupling to the slot. To a certain degree, thinner feed lines
couple more strongly to the slot.
10) Feed line position relative to slot: For maximum coupling, the feed line should be positioned at right angles to the
center of the slot. Skewing the feed line from the slot will
reduce the coupling, as will positioning the feed line towards
the edge of the slot.
11) Position of the patch relative to the slot: For maximum
coupling, the patch should be centered over the slot. Moving
the patch relative to the slot in the Hplane direction has little
effect, while moving the patch relative to the slot in the Eplane (resonant) direction will decrease the coupling level.
B. Variations on the aperture coupled microstrip antenna
Since the first aperture coupled microstrip antenna was
proposed, a large number of variations in geometry have been
suggested by workers around the world. The fact that the
aperture coupled antenna geometry lends itself so well to such
modifications is due in part to the nature of printed antenna
technology itself, but also to the multi-layer structure of the
antenna.
C. Applications of aperture coupled microstrip antennas
While most of the rapid advances in microstrip antennas
and arrays that took place in the 1980s were driven by defense
and space markets present applications of this technology are

growing most rapidly in the comercial sector. While specifications for defense and space application antennas typically
emphasize maximum performance with little constraint on
cost, commercial applications demand low cost components,
often at the expense of reduced electrical performance. Thus,
microstrip antennas for commercial systems require low-cost
materials, and simple and inexpensive fabrication techniques.
IV. PARAMETRIC STUDY AND OPTIMIZATION
In this section discuss the influence of various parameters
on the response of ACMPA. The antenna structure is analyzed
and optimized using transmission-line matrix (TLM). As the
aperture length is reduced the input resistance of the antenna is
decreases. This might be thought of as decreasing the coupling
factor between the feed line and the antenna. This analysis
shows that slot length mostly affects the return loss, but it
slightly affects the resonant frequency of antenna as well.
The open stub length can be adjusted to obtain the desired
reactants and the aperture length can be adjusted to obtain the
desired resistive part of the impedance. It is also of interest to
analyze the influence of feed substrate dielectric constant and
the thickness on the return loss and resonant frequency. As
dielectric constant and thickness are varied in these analysis
the feed line width and stub length are modified to maintain
a characteristic impedance of 50 and a stub length of g/4.
V. BANDWIDTH ENHANCEMENT OF ANTENNA
Aperture coupled micro strip patch discussed above has a
number of useful properties, but one of the serious limitation
of this antenna is its narrow bandwidth characteristic. But
it is possible to increase the bandwidth by using impedance
matching networks or some other feeding techniques(fig 8).
08.jpg
Fig. 8: Stup in the antenna scheme
VI. F INAL MODEL OF FABRICATION
Initial values of slot length, stub length, patch length and
width, and feed line width for given resonant frequency,
dielectric constant and substrate The low cost antenna is
of compact size and easy to fabricate using conventional
photolithography technique.
09.jpg
Fig. 9: Graphic design of the antenna completed
The fields in the patch extend beyond the physical dimensions
of the patch. Based on the transmission - line model analysis,
a design procedure is outlined which leads to practical design
of microstrip antennas.

VII. C ONCLUSION
R EFERENCES
[1] Constantine A. Balanis: ANTENNA THEORY Analysis and Design
Editorial John Wiley Sons, Inc.
[2] Pozar, D.M. Microwave Engineering, 4th edition, John Wiley Sons
[Online]
Available:
http://www.electron.frba.utn.edu.ar/jcecconi/
Bibliografia/Ocultos/Libros/Microwave Engineering David M Pozar
4ed Wiley 2012.pdf/
[3] A Review of Aperture Coupled Microstrip Antennas: History, Operation,
Development, and Applications, by Professor David M. Pozar [Online]
Available: http://www.ecs.umass.edu/ece/pozar/aperture.pdf/
[4] D. M. Pozar, A Microstrip Antenna Aperture Coupled to a
Microstrip Line, Electronics Letters, Vol. 21, pp. 49-50, January
17, 1985 [Online] Available:http://https://www.google.com.ec/url?
sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=8&cad=rja&uact=8&
ved=0ahUKEwjXg zjzLDMAhUK1B4KHY2wCUAQFghTMAc&
url=http%3A%2F%2Fresearch.sabanciuniv.edu%
2F16415%2F1%2FPIERS2010 optimization.pdf&usg=
AFQjCNHHFC5e0B7MhLJ2Zt34Tymiq9hqRA&bvm=bv.120853415,d.
dmo