M.

HABIB ULLAH
Engineering Student
M.T. ISLAM J.S. MANDEEP
Researcher Researcher
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quiring ever-smaller antennas. To fill this need, the authors devel-
oped a three-stack wideband patch antenna on aluminum-oxide
ceramic substrate material. The high relative dielectric constant of
the substrate made it possible to reduce the dimensions of the an-
tenna without compromising the performance of the component.
The antenna was designed with the aid of commercial electromagnetic (EM) simu-la-
tion software-namely, the High-Frequency Structure Simulator (HFSS) from Ansoft
(www.ansys.com). This design targeted an operating frequency range of 16.20 to 19.31
GHz, achieving peak gain of 8.531 dBi with radiation efficiency of B 4 to 89% and return
loss of better than 10 dB across the operating bandwidth. The antenna was designed for
I(u/I(-band applications.
As wireless products are designed with increased functionaliry antennas must pro-
vide broadband performance, but in smaller sizes. A great deal has been written about
the use of high-dielectric-constant circuit materials to shrink high-ftequency circuit di-
mensions.l In addition, antenna designers have developed avariety ofnovel structures
in attempts to achieve miniatwization. Patch antennas have long been used for many
forms of communications and radar systems, as wellas for GPS location systems.2
Patch antennas offer attractive performance for awiii'e range ofwireless applications,
but must be designed for small geometries to meet the demands of modern electronic
devices. Numerous tesearchers have turned to high-dielectric-constant substrate mate-
1. T
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rial I
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LESS ELECTRONIC PRODUCTS continue to shrink in size, re-
THIS THREE-STACK
PATCH ANTENNA
DESIGN PROVIDES
STABLE RADIATION
PATTERNS AND A WIDE
BANDWIDTH AT KU- AND
K-BAND FREQUENCIES,
TAKING ADVANTAGE
OF A HIGH-DIELECTRIC-
CONSTANT SUBSTRATE
TO ACHIEVE SMALL SIZE.
SHRIN
50 August 2012 | MicnowauesERF
Substrate nl
1, This diagram shows the basic
Aeometry
of the patch antenna on ceramic substrate,
with the dimensions for a Ku/K-band desiqn listed in Table 1.
rials to help miniaturize their antenna de-
signs, as well as designs based on reactive
impedance substrates, dielectric resona-
tors, and magneto-dielectric subsrates.3
Substrates based on dielectric ceramic
materials are promising candidates for
antenna miniaturization because of their
high permittMty, low loss, light weight,
low cost, and market avaitability.a
Attempts to miniaturize antennas have
employed many different techniques, in-
cluding the use of low-temperature co-
fired-ceramic (LTCC) substrates,s planar
monopole ring antenna designs using
FR-4 substrate,G the use of ceramic mate-
rial for a proximity-coupled feeding struc-
ture,? EM bandgap-based planar ceramic
antennas,B and even substrates based on
artificial magnetic materials and fractal
Hilbert cun/es to increase the effective
permeability.s However, most of the an-
tennas produced by these techniques are
relatively large in size, with low gain, low
efficienry and/or narrow bandwidths.
There is still much room to explore the
possibilities of using speciflc material sub-
strates to aid antenna miniaturization.
The current work involves the design
and fabrication of a three-stack patch an-
tenna with coaxial probe feed, designed
on Al2O3 ceramic material substrate. The
antenna was anallzed using commercial
EM software based on finite-element-
method (FEM) analysis, the popular HFSS
MicF0wave$&Rt I visit www.mwrf .com
three-dimensional (3D) simulation soft-
ware. The proposed patch antenna has a
bandwidth of 3.II GHz with 7.5-dBi gain
at the resonant frequenry of 17.20 GHz.
The use of the Al2O3 ceramic material
substrate and its high dielectric constant
made it possible to shrink the dimensions
of the patch antenna. The antenna was
fabricated on l-mm-thick Al2O3 ceramic
material with relative dielectric constant
2. The return loss of the patch antenna is
plotted here as a function of frequency.
of 9.8, relative permeability of 1, and ideal
loss tangent of 0 when modeled with-
out any conducting ground plane. The
antenna can be designed on any noncon-
ducting plane.
The design of the antenna starts with
its radiating patch. The base wall of the
patch was designed with 0.S-mm-thick
copper in a stack of three sides
$ing
along
the Y-axis with a 0.5-mm gap between
each stack. The geometry and design of
the antenna are shown in Fig. l, with the
dimensions listed in Table l. The dimen-
sions were determined by mathemati-
cal model and customized according to
Eqs. I and 210:
tc
t=
__2Lt
e)
zJo,l ,
where:
w= the width of the radiatingpatch;
I
=
the length ofthe radiating patch;
fo
=
the target center frequency of the
patch; and
c
=
the speed of lightin avacuum.
By applying Eq. 3, the effective dielec-
tric constant, e", can be foundlo:
I r /. t\h.
co =
,G,
+ l) +
-(e,
-
t)1t(t +
f\
tU
where:
h
=
the thickness of the substrate and
sr
=
the relative dielectric constant of the
substrate.
Due to the fi:inging field around the
periphery ofthe patch, the antenna elec-
trically appears larger than its physical
dimensions. The antenna was designed to
, Ett
2"f"
r,l
2
\
165 170 175 18.0 18.5 19.0
Frequency- GHz
(n
!
I
_9
c
=
b
t
tc
Substrate thickness (h'l
)
Base wall height (h5)
a-.^,.,-ll l^^^+L /l R\
,s,,91' |
\LJl
Base urall lvicjih (W5)
Tnn l:',er h.i^hr /h?\
T^^ l:,/6. 15.^rh /l ?\
Toc
,a!./e r \'/idih
W2)
Middle layer height (h3)
Middle layer length (13)
Middle layer width (W3)
Low layer height (h4)
Low layer l<ingth (La)
Low layer width (W4)
Probe height (h6)
0.5
15
11
05
tf,
11
1.5
51
CERAMIC ANTENNAS
operate from 16.20 to 19.31 GHz and op-
timized with HFSS for best performance
across that bandwidth.
Figure 2 shows the return loss of the
ceramic-based patch antenna, which is
better than l0 dB in the desired frequen-
cy range. By changing the feed position
3 mm closer to the base wall, the lower
resonance of the patch shifted lrom 17.2
GHz to 16.9 GHz. The antenna provides
1.8-GHz bandwidth at I(u-band frequen-
cies and 1.31-GHz bandwidth for l(-band
applications.
Figure 3 shows antenna gain as a func-
tion of frequenry. The peak gain of 8.531
dBi occurs at 16.3 GHz where the radiation
is more directional; the gain is 7.05 dBi
at the resonant fi'equency of 17.20 GHz.
Above 18.5 GHz, the gain declines sharply,
with average gain of 3.5 dBi atthose higher
frequencies. The overall gain ofthe patch
antenna can be increased by increasing
the substrate thickness, but this will also
3. The patch antenna's gain is shown
here as a function of frequency.
impact the size of the antenna.
Figure 4 shows the overall radiation ef-
ficiency ofthe patch antenna, which rang-
es from B4Vo to 89% across the operating
bandwidth. Figure 5 shows copolariza-
tion and cross-polarization radiation pat-
terns in the electric (E) and magnetic (H)
planes of the antenna at its resonant fle-
quency of 17.20 GHz. The copolarization
pattern is s)rynmetric and more stable.
4. The radiation efficiency of the ceramic-
based patch antenna is plotted as a
function of frequenry.
The antenna prorides srable, directional
radiation pattems across its operating
bandwidth.
Figure 6 shorrs the cunent distribu-
tion of the anterna's E-H field responses
all along the radiaring patch. From Fig,
6(a), it can be seen t}rat the E-field current
is stronger along rhe front side of the feed
probe, as rrell as along the left, right, and
back sides of rhe patch near the boundary
10
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16.5 170 175 180 185 190
Frequency-GHz
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Co-polar
40
130
120
110
100
90
80
180 -180 -170 r^^
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x-Polar
--11--.-\{"_150
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Co-polar
110
100
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70 80
60 70
-60
-50 '50
(b) H plane
-30-*.-l_I
-zu _10
0 (a) E plane
5, These plot3 show the radiation pattern of the patch antenna's (a) E-plane response and (b) H-plane
CERAMIC ANTENNAS
co-cross polarization response.
line. The E-field current reaches its lowest
point at the ftont side near the boundary
line. The H-field current distribution in
Fig. 6(a) is strong around the feed probe;
it is weaker near the boundary line, as well
as the left and right back corner sides. The
current distribution can be improved by
using other feeding techniques and posi-
tions. And flnally, Table 2 provides a com-
parison of this patch antenna with other
efforts at miniaturizing high-frequency
antennas.ll-13 As it shows, the proposed
antenna design is much smaller and ex-
ceeds the performance of the other anten-
nas inthe comparison. MWRF
M. HABIB ULLAH, Engineering Student, lnsti-
tute of Space Science (ANGKASA), Univer-
siti Kebangsaan Bangi Selangor, Malaysia
43600: e-mail habibctg@eng.ukm.my, e-
mail: habib-ctg@yahoo.com. Department of
Electrical, Electronic, and System Engineer-
ing, Faculty of Engineering and Built Envi-
ronment, Universiti Kebangsaan, Malaysia
M.T. lSl-AM. Researcher,
Institute o; Space Sci-
ence (ANGKASA), Uni-
versiti Kebar:gsaan Bangi
Selangor, Malaysia 43600
J.S. MANDEEP. Researcher,
lnstitute of Space Science
(ANGKASA), Universiti Ke-
bangsaan Bangi Selangor,
Malaysia 43600; Deparlment
of Electrical, Electronic, and
System Engineering, Faculty of
Engineering and Built Environ-
ment, Universiti Kebangsaan,
Malaysia
REFERENCES
1. M Habib Ullah and M.T. lslam,
"Design Of A Modified W-Shaped
Paich Anienna On Al2O3 Ceramic
tvlaterial Substrate For Ku-Band," Chalcogenide
Letters, Vol 9, No. 2, 2012, pp.61'66.
2.Y.P.7hang, C.W.Y. Ang, CS.C. Lee, and M.A.
Do, "Bandwidth Enhancement of A Patch Antenna
of Very High Pemiitiviry Materials," Microwave and
Optical Technology Letters, Vol. 28, No.2,2001,
oo. 98-99.
3. D.H. Schaubert, D M. Pozar, and A. Adrian,
"Effect of microstrip anienna substrate thickness
and permittivity: comparison of theories with
experiment," IEEE Transactions on Antennas &
Propagation, Vol. 37, No. 6,1989, pp.677-682.
4. J.-C. lriarte, l. Ederra, and R. Gonzalo, "Design
and characterisation of a high efficiency ceramic
ebg patch antenna," IET Microwave Antennas
PropagaLion, Vol. 4, No.8, 2010, pp. 1056-1062.
5 J.S. Kula, D. Psvchoudakis, W.-J. Liao, C.-C. Chen,
J.L. Volakis, and J.W. Halloran, "Patch-antenna
miniaturization using recently available ceramic
substrates," IEEE Antennas & Propagation M, Vol
48, No. 6, 2006, pp.13-20,2006,
6. Rezaul Azim, Mohammad Tariqul lslam, and
Norbahiah Misran, "Printed Planar Antenna for
Wideband Applications," Journal of Infrared,
Millimeter, and TeraherE Waves, Vol. 31, No. 8,
2010, pp. 969-978.
7, J.-S. Kim, W.-K. Choi, and G.-Y. Choi, "Small
proximity coupled ceramic patch antenna for UHF
RFID tag mountable on metallic objects," Progress
In Electromagnetia Research C, Vol.4, 2008, pp.
129-138.
8. L. Yousefi and O.M. Ramahi, "Miniaturized
antennas using artificial magnetic materials with
fractal Hilbert inclusions," Electronics Letters, Vol
46,2010,pp 816-8'17.
9. R. Azim, M.T. lslam, and N Misran, "Compact
Tapered Shape SlotAntenna for UWB Applications,"
IEEE Antennas & Wireless Propagation, Vol. 10,
2011, pp. 1190-1193.
10. R. Azim, M T. lslam, and N. Misran, "Dual
Polarized Microstrip Patch Antenna for Ku-Band
Application," Inform MIDEM, Vol.41,2011, pp.
114-117.
'l'1.
R. Azim, M.T. lslam and N. Misran, "A Planar
Monopole Antenna for UWB Applications,"
lnternational Review of Electronic Engineering, Vol.
5, No. 4, 2010, pp 1 848-1 852.
12. A.R. El-Damak, H. Ghali, and-H.F. Ragaie,
"Wideband modified Sierpinski slot antenna," IEEE
Antennas and
f5opagation
Society International
Symposium, Vol. 28, 2005, pp. 548-551.
13. A.U. Bhobe, C.L. Holloway, M.Piket-May, and
R. Hall, "Coplanar waveguide fed wideband slot
antenna," Electronics Letters, Vol. 36, No. 16, 2000,
oo.1340-1342.
(a) E field (b) H field
6. These plots show the current distribution of the (a) E-field and (b) H-field patterns
along the radiating patch.
54
5.7x1.8x1.58
Hybrid
4.3
2.4
4,2
11.5x15x'1.0
Al2O3 ceramic
9B
3.11
8.5
Dimensions (mm)
Substrate material
Dielectric constant
Bandwidth (GHz)
Peak gain (dBi)
August 2012 | Microwaves&RF