554 PIERS Proceedings, Kuala Lumpur, MALAYSIA, March 2730, 2012

Eect of U-slot Applications on Circular Microstrip Patches

Modeling with Articial Neural Networks on Impedance
Bandwidth
D. Uzer, M. S. Uzer, S. S. Gultekin, and N. Yilmaz
Electrical and Electronics Engineering Department
Faculty of Engineering and Architecture, Selcuk University, Konya, Turkey
Abstract In this study, eects of etching U-slot on circular patches on their bandwidths are
investigated. The study is carried out by etching U-slots on the present microstrip patches in the
literature by simulating them with HFSS. Simulation results are used for training and testing of
an Articial Neural Network model for dierent microstrip patches bandwidth predictions. The
obtained simulation results are compared with Articial Neural Network results. In comparison
of the simulation and Articial Neural Network results, accuracy rates of training and testing
were found as 93.28% and 94.19%, respectively. It is obtained that by etching U-slot, the band-
widths can be enhanced for the present circular microstrip patches. It is shown that possible the
bandwidth behavior of U-slot circular microstrip disc antenna with this Articial Neural Network
model is powerfully estimated.
1. INTRODUCTION
Recently, most applications need larger bandwidths, so in these application areas, microstrip an-
tennas biggest handicap is the narrow bandwidth. Because of this, there are lots of studies going
on and various bandwidth enhancement techniques are found [19]. These techniques to increase
bandwidth include introducing multiple resonances into the structure. This may take the form of
stacked patches, coplanar parasitic patches, or patches that have novel shapes such as the U-shaped
slot patch [19]. Using special feed networks or feeding techniques to compensate for the natural
impedance variation of the patch is another method [7]. Etching U-slot on the patch is may be
the simple design [13]. This design avoids the use of stacked or coplanar parasitic patches, either
of which increases the thickness or the lateral size of the antenna. So, while changing the current
distribution on the microstrip patch, enhancing the impedance bandwidth with sometimes more
than one resonant frequency are obtained.
In this study, U slots with various dimensions etched on present circular disc antennas in lit-
erature are tested and it is seen that their bandwidths can be enhanced by sacricing a bit from
the initial resonant frequencies. The simulation measurement without U slots give near resonant
frequencies to the experimental results; but all the bandwidths are under %10. U-slot loading
enhances the bandwidth up to %55; but there are little shifting from resonant frequencies due to
the alternations of slot dimensions.
2. CIRCULAR DISC MICROSTRIP PATCH ANTENNA WITH U-SLOT
Circular disc antennas have better performance than rectangular ones, because they are smaller
and can use easily in array applications. U-slot loaded circular disc antenna can be represented
with an equivalent circuit that the slots are modeled by two impedances parallel to the classic RLC
circuit of circular disc microstrip patch. Then, for calculating slot dimensions, input impedance of
the patch and feed line impedance will be eective [8, 9].
From Figure 1(a), r is the patch radius, a is the feed point, L
s
is the vertical slot length, L
b
is the horizontal slot length, T
s
and T
b
are slot widths in the vertical and horizontal, respectively.
From Figure 1(b), Z
Uh
is the horizontal slot impedance, Z
Uv
is the impedance of vertical slots, L
p
is the coaxial feed line impedance, R, L and C are the resistance, inductance and capacitance of
the circular patch. By etching U slot, the impedance seen from the feed point will be changed and
realizing impedance matching for a larger bandwidth will be obtained [10].
3. ARTIFICIAL NEURAL NETWORKS
Articial Neural Networks (ANN) are biologically-inspired, intelligent techniques and they have
a number of simple and highly interconnected layers of neurons. Multilayered perceptron neural
networks (MLPNNs) are the simplest ANN architectures, and therefore most commonly used [11
13]. A MLPNN has mainly three layers: an input layer, an output layer, and an intermediate or
Progress In Electromagnetics Research Symposium Proceedings, KL, MALAYSIA, March 2730, 2012 555
(a) (b)
Figure 1: (a) U slot loaded circular microstrip disc antenna. (b) Equivalent circuit of antenna fed by a
50-ohm coaxial probe.
hidden layer. The input layer neurons distribute the input signals x
i
to neurons in the hidden
layer(s). Each hidden layer neuron j sums up its input signals x
i
after weighting them with the
strengths of the respective connections w
ji
from the input layer and computes its output y
j
as a
function f of the sum:
y
j
= f
_

w
ji
x
i
_
(1)
where f is a sigmoid or hyperbolic tangent function. The output of neurons in the output layer is
computed similarly.
Training a network consists of adjusting weights of the network using a learning algorithm. The
Back-Propagation [14] learning algorithm is used in this study. It is a gradient descent algorithm
that gives the change
wij
(k) in the weight of a connection between neurons i and j as follows:
w
ji
(k) =
j
x
i
+ w
ji
(k 1) (2)
where x
i
is the input, is the learning coecient, is the momentum coecient, and
i
is a factor
depending on whether neuron j is an output neuron or a hidden neuron. For output neurons,

j
=
f
net
j
_
y
T
j
y
i
_
(3)
Here net
j
=

x
i
w
ji
and y
T
j
is the target output for neuron j. For hidden neurons,

j
=
f
net
j

q
w
q

q
(4)
As there are no target outputs for hidden neurons in Eq. (4), the dierence between the target
and actual output of a hidden neuron j is replaced by the weighted sum of the
q
terms already
obtained for neurons q connected to the output of j. Thus, iteratively beginning with the output
layer, the term is computed for all neurons in all layers except the input layer and weights were
then updated according to Eq. (2).
In the training of neural network, gradient descent with adaptive learning rate algorithm is used
and K-fold cross-validation is used for the test result to be more valuable [15, 16]. We used this
method for nding the best ANN architecture. After training and test phase, the mean absolute
error (MAE) and mean square error (MSE) calculation given in Eq. (5) and Eq. (6) was used as
performance criterion. Expressions in Eqs. (5)(8) can be suggested for dierent ANN applications.
In this study Eq. (9) was arranged aiming to compare other literature studies.
%MAE =
_
1
n
n

n=1
|t
i
t
h
|
_
100 (5)
%MSE =
_
1
n
n

n=1
(t
i
t
h
)
2
_
100 (6)
556 PIERS Proceedings, Kuala Lumpur, MALAYSIA, March 2730, 2012
Here, t
i
is the desired outputs values, t
h
is the ANN output values and n is the data number.
In addition, the test results satisfying the minimum errors were subjected to r-square correlation
test given in Eq. (7) and Eq. (8). These correlation values were used as another criterion for the
determination of optimum ANN structure:
r =
_
t
i
t
i
_ _
t
h
t
h
_
_
_
t
i
t
i
_
2
_
t
h
t
h
_
2
(7)
RSQ = r
2
(8)
Accuracy rates of training and testing were calculated in Eq. (9) [17].
The accuracy rate = (100 %MAE) (9)
4. DESIGN SPECIFICATIONS
In this study, for an antenna that was designed on Rexolite 2200 dielectric substrate (
r
= 2.62,
h = 1.6, 3.2 and 4.7 mm) and had three dierent patch dimensions (14.1, 13.5 and 13 mm) the eects
of etching U slots about the bandwidth were investigated [18, 19]. While designing the circular disc,
classic circular disc antenna formulas and design steps n the literature were used [4]. The U-slot
designs were simulated with HFSS software and from S
11
graphics in dB; bandwidth values were
taken [20]. For each time, only one parameter was changed systematically and searched the eect
of each dimension on bandwidth of the antenna. At rst, L
s
was changed between 4.29 and 24 mm
with 1 mm steps. L
b
was tested for 4, 6 and 8 mm values. The best results were taken for 8 mm,
so for later designs it was taken constant and other parameters were changed in order. T
s
and T
b
dimensions were changed between 0.5 and 2 mm with 1 mm steps, and then the best results were
taken for T
s
= 0.5 and T
b
= 1 mm values.
At the end of simulations, 63 data were produced. 2 experimental data from literature were
added to them and the whole data set has 65 elements. 20% of this set is left for testing and the
rest of the data are used for training. The experimental data are in the training set. The inputs
were L
s
, L
b
, T
s
, T
b
,
r
and h. The bandwidth was the ANN output. Consequently, the number of
nodes for input ANN and output ANN were formed as 6 and 1, respectively. The developed ANN
structure included one hidden layer. MLP feed forward back-propagation was used as an ANN
structure. Hidden layer node numbers of optimum ANN structure was found as 12, experimentally.
For this hidden node, minimum training and test errors were obtained.
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)
(f)
Figure 2: (a) System average error at testing phase. (b) System average error versus iteration number at
training phase. (c) ANN test output results comparison with simulation values. (d) ANN train output results
comparison with simulation-measurement values. (e) Correlation between ANN outputs antenna bandwidth
outputs for testing. (f) ANN train output results comparison with simulation-measurement values.
Progress In Electromagnetics Research Symposium Proceedings, KL, MALAYSIA, March 2730, 2012 557
Table 1: Circular microstrip disc antennas ANN Test parameters and results.
No
r
h L
s
L
b
T
s
T
b
BW Sim BW ANN
(mm) (%)
1 2.62 1.6 17 8 0.5 0.5 10.090 10.288
2 2.62 1.6 21 8 1 1 10.330 11.150
3 2.62 1.6 19 8 0.5 1 10.650 11.263
4 2.62 1.6 20 8 0.5 1 10.760 11.267
5 2.62 1.6 18 8 1 1 11.150 10.515
6 2.62 3.2 19 8 1 0.5 19.730 20.201
7 2.62 3.2 21 8 1 1 22.540 21.815
8 2.62 3.2 24 8 0.5 0.5 33.040 24.284
9 2.62 3.2 21 8 0.5 0.5 54.580 44.484
10 2.62 4.7 16 8 1 0.5 40.500 34.033
11 2.62 4.7 21 8 0.5 1 11.060 14.048
12 2.62 4.7 18 8 0.5 0.5 41.430 41.935
13 2.62 4.7 22 8 0.5 0.5 10.580 10.449
5. RESULTS
Simulation results show if L
s
1.45r, for all three patch dimensions, large bandwidths are obtained.
When L
s
is increasing, the bandwidth increases, too, but for the resonant frequency, there is a small
shifting toward to lower values. For T
b
= 0.5 mm and T
b
= 1 mm, the bandwidth is enhanced to
better results. In the training, rst a scan process for nding the best hidden node number and best
iteration number was run random search where the iteration number is adjusted from 500 to 10000
with 500 intervals and the hidden nodes number is adjusted from 3 to 30. After this process, the
iteration number and node number of hidden layer was found to be 9500 and 12, respectively, while
initial learning coecient of the network as = 0.9, initial momentum coecient adjusting the
learning speed as = 0.7 was selected. In Table 1, ANN test parameters of circular disc antennas
and results are given.
The mean square errors of training and testing at the best ANN architecture were found to be
1.11% and 0.62%, respectively. Correlation analysis was performed. The results of this analysis of
train and test phase were found to be r
2
= 0.89 and 0.958, respectively. The above given average
error and average correlation values of testing and training phases versus iteration number were
determined by the help of measured and simulated antenna bandwidths for U-slot circular disc
antennas and developed ANN model outputs, and they were presented graphically in Figure 2,
the correlation between outputs of ANN and simulation outputs are given for testing and training,
respectively.
6. CONCLUSION
By etching U slot on conventional circular disc microstrip patch antennas in the literature an
enhancement for bandwidth of them is carried out. There can be more applicable antennas designed
by giving some sacricing from the resonant frequency. From the analysis of simulation and ANN
results, it is seen that U-slot loaded disk patch exhibit wide bandwidth characteristics and the
antenna bandwidth depends on the various parameters of U-slot.
In the training of neural network, K-fold cross-validation is used for test results to be more
valuable. The measurement values obtained from experimental studies and the results of trained
and tested ANN model are compatible with each other in great proportion. The accuracy ratios
of training and testing stages in obtained optimum ANN were found to be 93.28% and 94.19%,
respectively. Our subsequent studies will be about the measuring of simulation bandwidths and
some other parameters like resonant frequencies and radiation patterns, experimentally.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This study is supported by Selcuk University Scientic Research Projects Oce.
558 PIERS Proceedings, Kuala Lumpur, MALAYSIA, March 2730, 2012
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