A Circularly-polarized Patch Antenna using
Pin-loaded Technique with PSO
Shobith Narayanan, Ajay Krishna Manoj, Natarajamani S
Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering
Amrita School of Engineering, Coimbatore
Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, India
E-mail: s natarajamani@cb.amrita.edu
Abstract—A circularly polarized (CP) microstrip patch an-
tenna in the X-Band frequency is designed using Particle Swarm
Optimization (PSO). Circular polarization is achieved in the
proposed design by using the pin-loaded technique. First, two
shorting pins are introduced in the single-fed patch to reduce
S11 . Then, the position of the inductive pins in the initial
design, obtained by numerical approaches, is optimized using the
PSO algorithm to obtain an axial ratio <3-dB in the required
frequency range. The converged result from the PSO algorithm
satisfied the objective and design specifications of reflection
coefficient of S11 <-10 dB, axial ratio <3 dB, an omnidirectional
radiation pattern and satisfactory gain.
Index Terms—Microstrip antennas, optimization, circular-
polarization, particle swarm optimization, shorting pins.
I. I NTRODUCTION
the age of technology and innovation, there is a growing
I N
need for the components of a system to be small in
size, low in weight, reliable in performance and with a
modular approach to installation. Considering the case of high
performance vehicles, instruments of space, especially those
like spacecrafts and satellites, where design, cost, weight and
efficiency are the constraints, there is a growing inclination to
use microstrip antennas.
Antennas with circular polarization are well-suited for ap-
plications such as wireless communication due to lack of ori-
entation constraints between the transmitter and the receiver.
In this work, the technique of introducing shorting pins to
achieve circular polarization has been explored and PSO has
been utilized to optimize the position of these pins.
PSO is a population-based stochastic optimization technique
which draws inspiration from social behaviour observed in
nature like birds flocking or fish schooling. PSO is similar in
many ways to the evolutionary optimization algorithms such
as Genetic Algorithm (GA). But unlike GA, PSO does not
have operators based on evolution like that of crossover and
mutation. Instead, potential solutions are taken as particles, and
they travel through the problem space by tailing the current
best particle.
There exist various means of achieving circular polarization
in microstrip patch antennas like dual-feed mechanisms, intro-
ducing slots in the patch [1], or by trimming the edges of the
patch [2][3]. In this paper, the pin-loaded technique presented
in [4] is used. By the introduction of inductive shorting pins
978-1-5386-5314-2/18/$31.00 ©2018 IEEE 1627
in the patch, its size at resonance is appropriately enlarged.
[4] has developed a type of CP patch antenna which exhibits
a wide 3-dB ARBW. The shunt inductive effect introduced by
the pins brings an increase in the resonant frequency of the
patch and also its electrical size. The position and radius of
the shorting pins is varied to obtain an increased 3-dB ARBW.
In the work presented in [5], PSO is utilized for creating a
microstrip antenna array which is parasitically coupled. During
optimization, no constraints are applied to the shape of the
array except the upper limit of the dimensions. The design
incorporates passive parasitically coupled sub-patches with an
aim of achieving an input reflection coefficient <-10 dB, an
omnidirectional radiation pattern and satisfactory gain in the
IEEE 802.11a Wireless LAN 5-6 GHz band.
EM problems were solved in work [6] using optimization
algorithms based on particle-swarm schemes. In an example,
a PSO tool has been used along with Numerical Electro-
magnetics Code for design simulation. In order to keep the
computational power needed reasonably low, the number of
dimensions was fixed to a low value of 11 design parameters.
After 300 iterations, the PSO algorithm yielded the desired
design. Finally, it is shown that achieving demanding design
specifications is possible using optimization algorithms such
as PSO.
An intuitive microstrip antenna design is presented in [7],
which discusses the design of a CP microstrip patch antenna
with an octogonal patch operating in the X-Band frequency.
The bandwidth offered by the design is increased by modi-
fying the rectangular patch to an orthogonal shape. To obtain
circular polarization, L-shaped and inverted L-shaped strips
are employed at the ground plane corner.
The approach in utilizing evolutionary algorithms in opti-
mizing both the dimensions as well as the structure of the patch
of a microstrip patch antenna is discussed in [8], which also
explores the design of unconventional structures. The main
outcome was to interface an RF simulation software with an
evolutionary algorithm for seamless automation.
In this paper, the design of a microstrip patch antenna is
discussed followed by the optimization of the design and
introduction of circular polarization using pin-loading with
PSO. The results obtained before and after optimization is
compared and the improvements achieved by the optimization
 Fig. 1. Geometry of Antenna 1 design.

algorithm are highlighted and the future scope of this work is

discussed.

II. A NTENNA D ESIGN

A. Calculation of length and width
The substrate used is RT/duroid 5880, which has a dielectric
constant of r = 2.2 and a thickness of h = 0.787 mm. The
length (L) and width (W) of the patch is obtained by using
the equation in [9]. The effective dielectric constant is found
using equation (1).
(r + 1) (r − 1) 12h − 1
(ref f ) = + [1 + ] 2 (1)
2 2 W
The dimensions of the antenna obtained using this method
as shown in Fig.1 are W = 14.38 mm, L = 16.58 mm, W1 =
9.66 mm, L1 = 11.86 mm.

B. Effect of change in pin position

The presence of the shorting pins introduces a shunt induc-
tance, as given by equation (2) which is mentioned in [10],
causing the frequency at which the patch radiates to be raised
and also enlarging the electrical size at the resonant frequency.
Two shorting pins to the right of the coaxial feed input have
been taken as shown in Fig. 1. The location of the shorting pins
is obtained by an iterative procedure on the transmission line
model of the microstrip using MATLAB to obtain impedance
matching at xf using equation (2).
120f h c√
Xp (probe) = Xs (shortedpin) = c ln( πf Dγ e f f ) (2)
(xf,yf) - position of feed input, γ - Euler’s Constant, R - radius
of shorting pins = 0.5 mm, D = diameter of the pin = 2R
The design obtained by the above process (Antenna 1) is
shown in Fig. 1.
Fig. 2. Process flow for the optmization of pin-position using PSO.
C. Position of shorting Pins using PSO algorithm
The usage of shorting pins for obtaining circular polariza-
tion presented a need for finding the optimum position for
these pins for obtaining the best values for S11 , gain and axial
ratio. This can be achieved through trial and error or analytical
methods, but these methods prove to be inaccurate, tedious and
most often do not yield the best possible design that can be
achieved. Optimization algorithms help in overcoming such
shortcomings by providing speedy and accurate results and
PSO has been employed in this work to achieve this. The
process flow is shown in Fig. 2.
The optimization process incorporated two components: a

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 Fig. 3. Geometry of Antenna 2 design.
Fig. 4. Simulated S11 (dB) of Antenna 1 and Antenna 2.

tool for implementing the PSO algorithm and a software

for the simulation and analysis of the design. For setting
up and running the PSO algorithm, the Global Optimization
Toolbox of MATLAB was used and Ansys HFSS was used to
simulate the design and obtain the values of various parameters
considered for optimization. A HFSS-MATLAB API was
used for linking the two components together. A swarm of
ten particles was initialized, each of which carried the x-
and y- coordinates for the two shorting pins. The values of
these coordinates were restricted within the dimensions of the
radiating patch. The fitness value of each particle is calculated
by altering the position of the shorting pins in Antenna 1 in
accordance to the values carried by the particle and simulating
the design in HFSS. The best performing particles are used as
a reference for updating the particles in the next iteration. The
optimization continues till the desired fitness value is attained
or the number of iterations reaches the maximum limit. The
fitness function used for calculating the fitness of each particle
is given in equation (3).
F itness = wt1 ∗ Axialratio + wt2 ∗ S 11 − wt3 ∗ Gain (3) Fig. 5. Simulated axial ratio (dB) of Antenna 1 and Antenna 2.

The fitness function is based on three parameters: S11 , gain

and axial ratio. Each of the three parameters are assigned
individual weights based on their priority and the values
obtained for S11 , axial ratio and gain during the simulation run
are multiplied with the weights and added to or subtracted with
each other depending on whether the value is to be minimized
or maximized respectively. The final design obtained after the
process of pin-position optimization (Antenna 2) is shown in
Fig. 3.
III. R ESULT AND D ISCUSSION
A. Input reflection coefficient
Fig. 4 shows the input reflection coefficient S11 of Antenna
1 and Antenna 2 in dB. S11 gives the reflection coefficient
at the at the coaxial input to the microstrip antenna. For
satisfactory operation, it should be less than -10 dB. At 10
GHz, the value of S11 for Antenna 1 is -10.95 dB. Antenna
2 makes improvements over this figure, with an S11 of -13.23
dB at both 10 GHz and 10.04 GHz. The -10 dB impedance
bandwidth of Antenna 2 is 460 MHz (9.8 to 10.3 GHZ). The
resonant frequency is 10.2 GHz where the measured reflection
coefficient is -17.56 dB.
B. Axial ratio
The axial ratio value showed a significant improvement
after optimization, evidenced by Fig. 5. The simulated value
before optimization of pin position was 45.64 dB at 10 GHz.

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 [2] Wen-Shyang Chen, Chun-Kun Wu, Kin-Lu Wong, ”Novel Compact
Circularly Polarized Square Microstrip Antenna”, IEEE Trans. On
Antennas and Propagation, vol. 49, no. 3, 2001.
[3] Nidhi Sharma and Anjana Goen, ”Circularly Polarized Square Patch
Antenna with Trimmed Corners”. International Journal of Advanced
Research in Electrical, Electronics and Instrumentation Engineering, Vol.
4, no. 1, p.422-426, 2015.
[4] Zhang, X., Zhu, L. and Liu, N., ”Pin-Loaded Circularly-Polarized Patch
Antennas With Wide 3-dB Axial Ratio Beamwidth”. IEEE Transactions
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[5] Anthony A. Minasian and Trevor S. Bird, ”Particle Swarm Optimization
of Microstrip Antennas for Wireless Communication Systems”, IEEE
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6217, 2013.
[6] J. Robinson and Y. Rahmat-Samii, ”Particle Swarm Optimization in
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[7] Divya Bharathi S, Natarajamani S, ”A Broadband Circularly Polarized
Microstrip Patch Antenna for X-Band Applications”, IEEE International
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[8] Gopika Sudhakaran, Bindu Kandipati, Bhuvan Surya G, V. Karthikhaa
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Fig. 6. Simulated radiation patterns of Antenna 1 and Antenna 2. [10] A. K. Singh and M. K. Meshram, ”Shorted Rectangular Microstrip An-
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Society International Symposium, Albuquerque, NM, 2006, pp. 2661-
2664.
After optimization, the axial ratio was brought down to 2.39
dB at 10 GHz with a minimum of 0.59 at 10.04 GHz. This
shows that the circular polarization exhibited by the antenna
is appreciable at the desired frequency. The 3-dB axial ratio
bandwidth is 100 MHz (10 GHz to 10.1 GHz).
C. Radiation Pattern
The simulated radiation patterns exhibited by Antenna 1 and
Antenna 2 in the elevation plane at 10 GHz is shown in Fig.
6. It can be noticed that the 3-dB beam width is more than
70° and a maximum gain of 8 dB is achieved.
IV. C ONCLUSION
A compact circularly polarized antenna on a single-layer
substrate with centre frequency at 10.04 GHz and 3-dB ARBW
of 100 MHz was designed. A numerical approach was used to
obtain the initial design with low reflection loss and PSO was
used to achieve circular polarization by varying the shorting
pin position. The parameters of S11 , gain and axial ratio were
optimized by varying the weights of the fitness function to
obtain the best result despite the trade-off. The circularly
polarized optimized design had lower reflection loss (<-13
dB), and higher gain (>8 dB) compared to the initial design.
Future research areas include addition of calculated pertur-
bations in the patch to obtain multi-band operation so that the
antenna is suitable for a wider range of applications, and to
extend the designed patch to an array for obtaining a focused
radiation pattern and increased directivity.
‘
R EFERENCES
[1] H. Lee, J. Jung and L. Yeongseog, ”Design and fabrication of the
circularly polarized microstrip patch antenna”, Microwave and Optical
Technology Letters, vol. 49, no. 6, pp.1415-1418, 2007.

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