24-GHz Microstrip Grid Array Antenna for

Automotive Radars Application

Zihao Chen 1, Zhang Yue Ping1
School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Nanyang Technological University
50 Nanyang Avenue, 639798, Singapore
Email: zchen16@e.ntu.edu.sg; eypzhang@ntu.edu.sg
#

AbstractA single-ended microstrip grid array antenna has

been designed and measured for 24 GHz automotive radars
application. It has been designed on Rogers 5880 substrate with
dimensions of 60h60h0.787 mm3. The antenna exhibits 2.45
GHz impedance bandwidth, 19.26 dBi peak realized gain and
broadside pencil-beam radiation pattern with low side lobe and
weak cross-polarization.
Index TermsMicrostrip grid array antenna, 24 GHz,
automotive radars.

I. INTRODUCTION
The 24-GHz ISM band has been allocated for automotive
radars applications such as automotive speedometers, near
obstacle detection, collision warning and vehicle guidance. All
of these systems require high gain, compact and narrow
beamwidth antennas and antenna arrays. For example, a slot
array antenna based on substrate integrated waveguide in a
Rogers 5880 substrate achieved the maximal gain of 22.5 dBi
with 15 radiating elements at 24.15 GHz [1] and a patch array
antenna fed by a T-junction network on Arlon 25 N laminate
attained the maximal gain of 15.2 dBi with 84 radiating
elements at 24 GHz [2].
However, the designs mentioned above are suffered from
complex feeding network, sophisticated process techniques and
narrow impedance bandwidth. To avoid these disadvantages,
microstrip grid array antenna, which has all the usual benefits
of conventional patch type radiators plus wide bandwidth, high
gain and weak cross polarization [3]-[9], is adopted in our
work. In this paper, we investigate how to design a high-gain
microstrip grid array antenna with pencil beam at 24-GHz band
for automotive radar application. The radiating elements are
arranged specially into a square shape to achieve pencil beam
and the parameters of the antenna are chosen theoretically to
obtain high gain. The design procedure of the 24-GHz
microstrip grid array antenna is described in Section II. To
confirm the feasibility of the proposed design procedure, a 41element microstrip grid array antenna with a broadside beam is
fabricated. The measured antenna performance is reported in
Section III. According to all the measured results, the
developed microstrip grid array antenna can be considered as a
good candidate for automotive radars systems.

c
978-1-4673-7297-8/15/$31.00 2015
IEEE

II. 24 GHZ MICROSTRIP GRID ARRAY ANTENNA

The configuration of 24-GHz microstrip grid array antenna
is exhibited in Fig. 1. It consists of one dielectric and two
metallic layers. Rogers 5880 with dielectric constant of 2.2 and
tangent loss of 0.0009 with a thickness of 0.787 mm is chosen
as the substrate. The grid array radiator, which is on the top
surface of the substrate, is composed of rectangular meshes
whose long sides are l long and wl wide and whose short sides
are w long and ws wide. It is fed by a coaxial cable with its
outer conductor connected to the ground plane and its inner
conductor connected to the junction of the mesh near the
geometrical centre of the radiator.
The application of 24-GHz automotive radars to monitor
blind spots requires the maximal directivity of the antenna to
be larger than 20 dBi, the impedance and radiation bandwidth
to be larger than 0.25 GHz and the single-shaped beam to be
smaller than 15 [10]. Considering the specific maximal
directivity and the required pencil-beam patterns, one can find
that the required number of radiating elements to be 41, which
leads to an estimation of the length a and width b of the
substrate as 6060 mm2. The resonance of the grid array
radiator requires the length of long sides l = g 9.8mm,
where g is guided wavelength at 24.15 GHz. The width of
long sides wl controls the loss of transmission line and the
radiation of the cross-polar components. According to [4], in
order to obtain low transmission line loss and cross
polarization, the same width wl for all short sides for wl/h < 1
with the characteristic impedance smaller than 200 is chosen.
Considering realizability from fabrication and reliability for
use in automobiles, we prefer wl = 0.4mm. Similarly, the
resonance of the grid array radiator also requires the length w
to be half of l, that is w = l/2 = 4.9 mm. It is more involved to
determine the widths ws because ws sets the array radiation
coefficients with the first order approximation of the
coefficient being proportional to width [4]. For simplicity in
fabrication, the short sides keep the same width with an
optimized value ws = g/4 2.4mm. Although this antenna
configuration was presented in [9], the far field performance of
the antenna was not measured. Therefore, it was not sufficient
to show the validity of the design. The measured return loss,
antenna gain and radiation patterns will be included in the next
section, which fully verified the design with good measured
performance.

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Fig. 1. Configuration of 24-GHz microstrip grid array antenna.

Fig. 3. Simulated and measured |S11|.

Fig. 2. Photograph of the fabricated 24-GHz microstrip grid array antenna.

III. SIMULATED AND MEASURED RESULTS

The designed 24-GHz microstrip grid array antenna is
fabricated for experiments. Fig. 2 shows the photo of the
fabricated antenna with dimensions of 60600.787 mm3. Four
holes with diameter of 4 mm at the four corners of the substrate
are reserved for stabilizing the radiator in order to flatten the
whole antenna structure. The S-parameter measurements were
carried out with a Rohde-Schwarz ZVA 67 four-port vector
network analyzer up to 67 GHz.
Fig. 3 shows simulated and measured |S11| as a function of
frequency. The simulated input impedance bandwidth is 1.99
GHz from 22.46 GHz to 24.45 GHz (or 8.24% at 24.15 GHz).
The measured impedance bandwidth is 2.45 GHz from 22.23
GHz to 24.68 GHz (or 10.14% at 24.15 GHz). Both of the
simulated and measured |S11| cover the 24-GHz band from 24
GHz to 24.15 GHz and they are in good agreement. Fig. 4
shows the simulated and measured peak realized gain as a
function of frequency. The simulated 3-dB gain bandwdith is
1.54 GHz from 23.45 GHz to 24.99 GHz with a maximal gain
of 20.55 dBi at 24.15 GHz. The measured 3dB bandwidth is
1.65 GHz from 23.54 GHz to 25.19 GHz with a maximal gain
of 19.26 dBi at 24.32 GHz. The 3-dB gain bandwidths also
cover the 24-GHz band. The radiation patterns at 24.15 GHz in
E-plane and H-plane are shown in Fig. 5 and Fig. 6,

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Fig. 4. Simulated and measured peak realized gain as a function of frequency.

0
330

0 dB

30

-10 dB
-20 dB

300

Measured co-pol
Simulated co-pol
Measured cross-pol
Simulated cross-pol
60

-30 dB
-40 dB

270

90

240

120

210

150
180

Fig. 5. Radiation pattern at 24.15 GHz in E-plane.

respectively. The simulated and measured 3-dB beamwidths

are 16 in both E-plane and H-plane. They clearly demonstrate
that the developed microstrip grid array antenna radiates
pencil-beam patterns.

2015 IEEE 5th Asia-Pacific Conference on Synthetic Aperture Radar(APSAR)

0
330

0 dB

30

-10 dB
-20 dB

300

Measured co-pol
Simulated co-pol
Measured cross-pol
Simulated cross-pol
60

[2]

-30 dB
-40 dB

[3]

270

90

[4]
240

120

[5]
210

150
180

[6]
Fig. 6. Radiation pattern at 24.15 GHz in H-plane.

IV. CONCLUSION
A 24-GHz microstrip grid array antenna on Rogers 5880
substrate has been designed and measured for automotive
radars application. The results of the simulation and
measurement show a good agreement. The measured results
demonstrate 2.45 GHz impedance bandwidth, 19.26 dBi peak
realized gain and broadside pencil-beam radiation pattern with
low side lobe and weak cross-polarization.

[7]

[8]

[9]

[10]

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