32nd URSI GASS, Montreal, 19-26 August 2017
Small Broadband Patch Antenna Design for L-Band applications
Mohamed Latrach* (1) (2), and Saiful Islam(2)
(1) ESEO-IETR, 10 Bd Jeanneteau, CS 90717, 49107 Angers cedex 2, France
(2) RF-EMC Group, ESEO, 10 Bd Jeanneteau, CS 90717, 49107 Angers cedex 2, France
Abstract
This paper presents the design of the small size broadband
patch antenna for L-band applications. The size reduction
is obtaining without changing frequency thanks to etched
six slots in antenna ground plane. The comparison between
the conventional and the designed antennas demonstrates
that the etched slots in the ground plane increases the
bandwidth by a factor of 2.3 and reduces the antenna size
up to 40%. The gain of the study antenna is 2.5 dB less than
the gain of the conventional one.
1. Introduction
With the increasing need for mobile communication and
the emergence of many other systems, it is important to
design compact size antennas to cover a wide frequency
range. The design of an efficient wideband small size
antenna, for recent wireless applications, is a major
challenge. Patch antennas have found extensive
applications in wireless communication system owing to
their advantages such as low profile, conformability, low-
cost fabrication and ease of integration with feed networks
[1]. However, the conventional patch antenna suffers from
very narrow broadband and of larger size. This poses a
design challenge for the patch antenna designer to meet the
broadband techniques, especially when the antenna size is
relatively smaller [2].
There are different well-known methods to increase the
bandwidth of antennas, including increasing of the
substrate thickness, the use of a low dielectric substrate, the
use of various impedance matching and feeding
techniques, the use of multiple resonators, and the use of
slot antenna geometry [3-6]. However, the bandwidth and
the size of an antenna are generally mutually conflicting
properties, that is, improvement of one of the
characteristics normally results in degradation of the other.
Presently, numerous techniques have been proposes to
enhance the bandwidth. In [7] a novel single layer wide-
band rectangular patch antenna with achievable impedance
bandwidth of greater than 20% has been demonstrates. In
[8] using the shorting pins or shorting walls on the unequal
arms of a U-shaped patch, U-slot patch, or L-probe feed
patch antennas, wideband and dual-band impedance
bandwidths have been achieved with electrically small size
antenna. The multilayer structures with parasitic patches of
various geometries such as E, V and H shapes, which
excites multiple resonant modes, can also be using to
enhance the bandwidth.
In this paper, a novel type of patch antenna, with slots in
the ground plane is designing to achieve broadband
performance with miniaturized size. This method is
superior to the existing methods as the miniaturization and
band with enhancement can be achieving simultaneously.
In this structure, three pairs of slots are using to get
simultaneously smaller size and wider band response. The
presence of slots in the ground plane increases the electrical
length and thereby reduces the size of the ground plane at
a fixed resonance frequency. This method utilizes the
slower phase velocity in the etched devices than that in
conventional ones. Because the slots are etching on the
finite ground plane, a different ground sized which is less
than the original ground plane size has been in effect in
such structure.
2. Antenna structure optimization and the
simulation results
The construction of the patch antenna under consideration
is show in Fig. 1. The antenna is designing on FR4
dielectric substrate of thickness of 1.6 mm. The
permittivity of FR4 dielectric substrate is 4.3, with the loss
tangent of 2.10-3. As shown in Fig. 1 (a) the air gap between
the patch and the ground plane is optimized to 1.25 cm. Fig.
1 (b) shows the top view of the ground plane with all the
slots and their relative positions. The modified ground
plane size is optimizes to 8 cm × 5 cm and the patch size is
equal to the ground plane size. There are three pairs of slots
in the ground plane. In the first pair, two identical slots of
x0 × y0 size are places on both size of the coaxial feed. The
second slot pair placed at the radiating edge is of x1 × y1
size. Finally, the thirds slot pair at the non-radiating edge
is x2 × y2 size as shown in Fig. 1 (b). The simulations of the
structure were carries out by using both CST microwave
studio and HFSS solvers. The coaxial feed position was
optimizes at 0.70 cm from the patch center to get good
impedance matching. The optimized values of above
mentioned slot dimensions are obtaining from both the
simulation solvers.
Figure 2 shows simulated surface current distribution on
both the slotted ground plane and patch element at 1.63
GHz. It is clearly shows that the etched slots in the ground
plane increases the electrical current path length (Fig. 2(a)).
 Air gap
(a)
Rectangular slot
(b)
Figure 1. Proposed antenna structure: (a) 3D view and (b)
slotted ground plane.
(a)
(b)
Figure 2. Simulated surface current distribution on : (a)
slotted ground plane and (b) radiated element.
Fig. 3 (a) and 3 (b) respectively shows the simulated return
loss versus frequency and the simulated radiation pattern of
the antenna at 1.63 GHz. Return loss versus frequency
curve indicates that there are two resonances within the
bandwidth. The geometrical antenna parameters were
optimizes to combine the resonances to get unique
wideband at L-Band operation.
(a)
(b)
Figure 3. Simulation results of proposed antenne: (a)
return loss versus frequency and (b) radiation pattern at
1.63 GHz.
Fig. 3 (a) shows the comparison of return loss versus
frequency of the antenna obtained from the CST and HFSS
simulators where both the simulations -10 dB bandwidth is
262 MHz (i.e. 1.8GHz -1.538 GHz). The voltage standing
wave ratio (VSWR) at 1.634 GHz is 1.48.The simulated
realized gain at 1.63 GHz is 5.2 dBi as indicated in the
legend of Fig. 3 (b).
3. Proposed patch antenna versus initial
antenna
In this section a comparison is made between the proposed
antenna and the original antenna i.e. antenna without slots
in the ground plane. The size of the initial antenna is 10 cm
× 10 cm. This antenna resonates at 1.63 GHz with the S11
value of -28.35 dB (Fig. 4). The size of the slotted antenna
is 5 cm × 8 cm, which is 40% less than the area of the initial
antenna. The comparison of the return loss versus
frequency of the two antennas is shows in Fig. 4. The -10
dB bandwidth of the antenna without slots in the ground
plane is 114 MHz compared to the 262 MHz bandwidth
obtained with the small-optimized study.
The effect of adding slots in the ground plane is to enlarge
the bandwidth by introducing a second resonance. By
choosing proper slot dimensions and feed position, the two
resonances can be combining to enlarge the bandwidth.
 Return loss Vs. frequency
Materials Science & Processing, Springer, 2012. DOI:
3 10.1007/s00339–012–7114–0.
0

3. Pozar D.M., Schaubert D.H. (1995), Microstrip

-10 Antennas. New York: IEEE press, 2006.
S11[dB]

-20
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-30
1.2 1.5 1.8 2.1 2.2
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Frequency[GHz] 2006.

Figure 4. Bandwidth comparison of slotted and non slotted
antenna.
The gain versus frequency curves of slotted ground antenna
and the original antenna are showing in Fig. 5. The peak
gain of the small-optimized antenna is 5.2 dBi in compare
to the 7.68 dBi pick gain of the initial antenna one.
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J.G., Park H.K., “Bow-tieshaped meander slot antenna for
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stacked patch antenna for wideband applications”, IEEE
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shaped patch antennas for wireless communications”,
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8. Guo Y.X., Luk K.M., Lee K.F., Chair R., “A quarter-

wave U-shaped antenna with two unequal arms for
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1082–1087, 2002.

Figure 5. Gains variation comparison.

4. Conclusion
A slots etching methodology in the ground plane patch
antenna is presenting in this paper, which reduces the
antenna size up to 40% and increases the bandwidth of the
antenna by a factor of 2.3. Simulation results present 5.2
dBi of the realized gain and the -10 dB bandwidth of 262
MHz of the slotted ground antenna compared to the 7.68
dBi with 114 MHz bandwidth of the initial antenna. This
study shows that the developed technique can be using to
reduce size and to enhance the bandwidth simultaneously.
Fabrication and testing of the designed antenna are ongoing
to demonstrate the experimental verification.

5. References
1. He W., Jin R., Geng J., “E-Shape patch with wideband
and circular polarization for millimeter-wave
communication”, IEEE Transactions on Antennas and
Propagation, vol. 56(3), pp. 893-895, 2008.

2. Ullah M. H., Islam M. T., Mandeep J. S., Misran N., “A

New Double L Shape Multiband Patch Antenna on
Polymer Resin Material Substrate”, Applied Physics A: