Design of a Multi-layer Transmit / Receive Dual-Frequency Microstrip Patch Antenna Array

Greg Lee liewlelt Packard Laboratories Palo Alto, CA

* Masoud Mostafavi Department of Electrical Engiueering San Jose State University San Jose, CA
Abstract. This paper describes the design of a multi-layer transmit/receive microstrip patch array antenna in the 28.5 - 29.5 GHz band for interactive wireless communications.

I. Introduction Microstrip patch array antennas of moderate to high gain up to about 30 dBi are becoming very popular due to their low cost, ruggedness, low profile and relative ease of integration with other printed-circuit devices These antennas could play an important role as transmitheceive devices in duplex or interactive systems such as those envisioned for the information super-highway. This paper describes the design of a multi-layer, dual linearly polarized nucrosrip patch array antenna with resonant frequencies at 28.9 and 29.4 GHq respectively. The array contains 256 elements (16 x 16). The patches are printed on the top surface of a two-layer back-to-back Duroid 5880 substrate with a ground layer in between. The dielectric constant of the Duroid is 2.2, the thickness of each layer is 0.025 cm, and the thickness of the adhesive is .0038 cm. Figure 1 shows a 2 x 2 sub-array. The vertical polarization is excited through a corporate feed structure on the top surface of the top layer as shown by the solid lines in Figure 1. The horizontal polarization is similarly excited by a corporate feed ( dashed lines in Fig. 1) printed on the bottom surface of the bottom layer. This corporate feed electromagneticallyexcites the slots provided in the common ground plane and they in turn couple their energy to the radiating patches. A differential 180 degree phas shifter is provided for alternate elements of each column on the bottom layer and each row on the top layer as shown in Fig. 1 so that all the elements of the array are excited in phase. The eleinen dimensions are 0.314 x 0.325 cm and the spacing between elements is 0.76 cm. The slot dimensions are 0.0225 x 0.1875 cm.
U. Results The Hewlett-Packard MDS - MOMENTUM package was used to simulate the array elements and the sub-arrays. Figure 2 a, b show the results of this simulation. It is seen from the return losses (curves A and B) that the resonant frequencies are at 29 GHz and 29.4 G&, respectively, and the isolation (S21) between the two ports is better than 32 dB.

C-7802-27lS5~~S4.000 IEEE 1995

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lie calculated directivity is 32.0 dBi. The feed structure has an insertion loss of about 3.5 dB, sulting in a gain of 28.5 dUi. Figure 3 shows the whole array. The above array is yet to be tested, but an identical design on a single layer Duroid ibstrate for just the vertical polarization with 32 x 32 elements yielded the pattern shown in Fig.
I. References [1 M. L. Zimmerman and R.Q. Lee, " Dual-Frequency Array For ACTS Ground 3 xminal," 1994 IEEE/APS International Symposium Digest, pp 1824 -1827.

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Fig. 1 2 x 2 dual-polarized sub-array.

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Fig. 2 S-parametersof the sub-array.

Fig. 3 The complete array.

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Fig. 4 The radiation pattern ( Azimuth) of the 32 x 32 element array.

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