Using Artificial Neural Network to Model Microstrip

Inset Fed Rectangular Patch Antenna

Vipul Sharma, Member, IEEE, (09412352583),Gaurav Kumar Gupta
Dept. of Electronics & Communication Engineering,
Gurukul Kangri University, Haridwar-249404 (India)
vipul.s@rediffmail.com, g_gaurav28@yahoo.co.in


ABSTRACT: Artificial neural networks (ANNs)
techniques are recently indicating a lot of promise in
application for various microwaves engineering field.
Such a use of ANNs for estimating input impedance of
Rectangular microstrip patch antennas is presented in
this paper. The performance of the neural networks
based estimators has been compared with the theoretical
values and excellent performance is indicated. Neural
networks based estimation has the usual advantage of
very fast & simultaneous response of all the outputs.

I. INTRODUCTION
Microstrip Patch antennas are increasing in popularity for
use in wireless application due to their low profile structure.
Therefore they are extremely compatible for embedded
antennas in handheld wireless device such as cellular
phones, pagers etc as they can be easily integrated with
microwave integrated circuits. The telemetry and
communication antennas on missiles need to be thin and
conformal and are often Microstrip patch antennas.
In microstrip antennas the feed line impedance (50) is
always the same as the resistance at the edge of the patch,
which is usually a few hundred ohms depending on the
patch dimension and the substrate used. As a result this
input mismatch will affect the antenna performance because
maximum power is not being transferred. Thus input
impedance of rectangular microstrip patch antenna decides
the matching between feed line and patch. Resistance of the
patch varies as a cosine squared function along the length of
the patch (According to Transmission line theory [1], [4]).
Maximum value occurs at the edge of the patch where the
voltage is maximum and current is minimum (typical values
are in the 150-300 ohms). The minimum value (zero) occurs
at the center of the patch (=L/2) where the voltage is zero
and current is maximum. As the feed point moves from the
edge towards the center of the patch, the resonant input
impedance decreases monotonically and reaches zero at the
center. When the value of feed point approaches the center
of the patch (=L/2), the square cosine function varies very
rapidly; therefore the input resistance also changes rapidly
with the position of the feed point. To maintain very
accurate values, a close tolerance must be preserved.















Top View

Figure 1. Inset Feed Patch

An error in feed point location of .01L would yield a
deviation in resonant resistance of the order of 10. Many
methods have been developed to achieve such high design
accuracy. But these involve high cost experimental
infrastructure and experimental time. In this paper we
emphasis on the validity of neural networks for calculation
of input impedance of rectangular microstrip patch antenna
up to a much higher accuracy.

II. ANALYSIS USING NEURON MODEL:
Neural network or artificial neural networks (ANNs) [2]
are the interconnection of artificial neurons that tends to
emulate the human brain. The network has the capability to
learn because of the distributed intelligence or associative
memory property. Neural networks are fast in a parallel and
distributed manner compared with slow sequential
computation in a conventional von-Neumann computer that
uses a centralized CPU and central memory. Also the neural
network has fault tolerant properties and provides noise
immune computation due to distributed knowledge
throughout the network.
We have used ANNs to evaluate the accurate feed point
impedance. A feed forward multilayer architecture is used.
And the Back Propagation Algorithm is used to train the
feed forward neural network.

























Figure 2. Structure of a Feed Forward Three Layer (1-50-1) Neural
Network Showing Back Propagation Training

A three layer1-30-1 network is used for the specific
problem. About 10 numbers of patterns are taken for
training the network. Other parameters considered in the
network are as follows:
Learning rate=0.1
20 patterns have been tested to see the accuracy of the
neuron model. Figure 2. shows the network structure used.

III. RESULT
A rectangular microstrip patch antenna having length
(L=30.36 mm) and width (W=40.61 mm), substrate used is
RT Duroid 6010 which has a dielectric constant of 10 and a
thickness of 0.508 mm at a resonating frequency of 1.575
GHz is designed using transmission line theory [1]. And the
result for the normalized input impedance thus obtained is
used as the training data. The theoretical values obtained by
the transmission line model are used to compare the results.
Figure 3. reflects the comparison made among the results
obtained from ANNs and theoretical values. Performance of
the neural network based estimators was found to be
excellent

IV. CONCLUSION





Feed Point Location (m)

Figure 3. Comparison of Normalized Input Impedance (Theoretical and
ANNs result)

The Paper successfully demonstrates the validity of feed-
forward neural networks for the estimation of normalized
input impedance of Microstrip Patch Antenna varying with
the feed point location. The neural Network estimates
theoutput (in present case normalized input impedance)
from the known feed point location. We used a Neural
Model Developed in C++ as Artificial Neural Network and
MATLAB to plot the results. After a large no. of training
steps estimators accuracy was found to be excellent. ANN
application was simple, inexpensive and more accurate. The
estimation principal can be extended to more complex
application in Microwave Engineering field such as finding
radiation pattern. Estimator neural network chips can be
easily integrated with DSP and/or ASIC chips.

REFERENCE
[1] Keith R. Carver, Member, IEEE, James W. Mink, Member, IEEE,
Microstrip Antenna Technology IEEE Transactions on Antennas
and Propagation, Vol. AP-29, N0. 1, January 1981.
[2] Shyam S Pattnaik, Dhruba C. Panda, and S.Devi, Radiation
Resistance of Coax-Feed Rectangular Microstrip Patch Antenna With
the use of Artificial Neural Networks Microwave and Optical
Technology Letters, vol.34, No.1, July 5, 2002.
[3] Shyam S Pattnaik, Dhruba C. Panda, and S.Devi, Input Impedance of
Rectangular Microstrip Patch Antenna Using Artificial Neural
Networks Microwave and Optical Technology Letters, vol.32, No.5,
March 5, 2002.
[4] K.R. Carver, A modal theory of expansion for the microstrip
antenna in Dig, Int. Symp. Antennas Propagat. Soc., Seattle, WA,
June 1979, pp. 101-104.
[5] R. E. Munson, Conformal Microstrip Antennas and Microstrip
Phased Arrays IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation,
Vol. AP-22, N0. 1, pp. 74-77 January 1974

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