Alexandria Engineering Journal (2014) 53, 6167

Alexandria University

Alexandria Engineering Journal

www.elsevier.com/locate/aej
www.sciencedirect.com

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

L-strip proximity fed gap coupled compact

semi-circular disk patch antenna
Ashish Singh *, J.A. Ansari, Kamakshi, Mohammad Aneesh, Saiyed Salim Sayeed

Department of Electronics and Communication, University of Allahabad, Allahabad, India

Received 5 February 2012; revised 3 December 2013; accepted 9 December 2013

Available online 3 January 2014

KEYWORDS Abstract In this article, the analysis of dualband L-strip fed compact semi-circular disk microstrip
Microstrip patch antennas patch antenna has been presented using circuit theory concept. The antenna parameters such as
(MPAs); return loss, VSWR and radiation pattern are calculated. The effect of geometric dimensions of
Parasitic patch; the proposed antenna such as length of vertical and horizontal portion of L-strip is investigated.
Shorting pin; It is found that antenna resonate at two distinct modes i.e. 1.3 GHz and 6.13 GHz for lower and
Dualband; upper resonance frequencies respectively. The bandwidth of the proposed antenna at lower reso-
L-strip nance frequency is 6.61% (simulated) and 10.64% (theoretical) whereas at upper resonance fre-
quency, it is 6.02% (simulated) and 9.06 % (theoretical). The theoretical results are compared
with IE3D simulation results as well as experimental results and they are in close agreement.
2013 Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of Faculty of Engineering, Alexandria
University.

1. Introduction row bandwidth, and low efciency, extraneous radiation from

Microstrip patch antennas (MPAs) are widely used in synthetic
aperture radar (SAR), mobile communication systems, global
positioning systems (GPS), microwave sensors, wireless local
area network (WLAN), etc. These applications of MPA are
applicable due to their various advantages such as low prole,
light weight and ease conformal to host surface. Apart from
these advantages, it has some limitations such as low gain, nar-
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +91 9984861296.
E-mail address: ashsin09@rediffmail.com (A. Singh).
Peer review under responsibility of Faculty of Engineering, Alexandria
University.
Production and hosting by Elsevier
feed and low power handling capacity. These limitations can
be overcome by using shorting pin or shorting wall [14], cut-
ting slots [57] or notch [4], loading gunn or tunnel diode [8,9]
and gap coupling [10].
Above techniques were used for different dualband MPA
by many researchers. These techniques to obtain dualband
operation can be classied as rst reactive loading techniques
which can be extended as notch, slot, stub, shorting pin, short-
ing wall and capacitors [19], second is multi-patch structure
which includes stacking [5] and coplanar structures [10] and
third is different feeding techniques which include coaxial,
proximity, aperture and microstrip line fed [120] and fourth
is orthog-modes which absorbs antennas that has two cross-
polarized resonant modes [21]. The L-strip feeding technique
[1620] is extended part of microstip line fed, as this is the ef-
cient way to obtain the dualband operation. According to the
circuit theory concept L-strip feeding technique [1620] MPA

1110-0168 2013 Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of Faculty of Engineering, Alexandria University.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.aej.2013.12.001
62
can be represented as series combination of resistance, induc-
tance and capacitance which modies resonance frequency of
the resonating patch antenna into two distinct frequencies.
In past, only few paper were reported for L-strip feeding such
as patch antenna for mobile base station [16], shorting patch
antenna for mobile communication [17], slot loaded patch an-
tenna [18] gap coupled patch antenna [19] and resonant patch
for wireless communication [20]. The above reported papers
were not experimentally veried with other similar radiating
structures and also not provided theoretical and simulated
description of their antenna geometry.
In this paper, L-strip fed compact semi-circular disk patch
antenna with parasitic elements for dual band operation is pro-
posed and the theoretical, experimental and simulation results
obtained have been compared. The proposed radiating struc-
ture is being theoretically investigated using circuit theory con-
cept based on modal expansion cavity model. A complete
description of proposed antenna such as theoretical analysis,
design specications, discussion of results and conclusion are
detailed in next section.
2. Theoretical analysis
Fig. 1 depicts geometry of the proposed L-strip proximity fed
gap coupled compact semicircular disk patch antenna,
(a)
(b)
(c)
Figure 1 Geometry of proposed antenna, (a) top view, (b) side view and (c) photograph of fabricated antenna.
A. Singh et al.
Fig. 1(a) and (b) shows the top view and side view of the an-
tenna respectively. Fig. 1(c) shows optical picture of an assem-
bled proposed antenna device. After patch assembly, an SMA
connector and shorting pin are attached to the microstrip and
ground plane on the microwave substrate. The detail descrip-
tion of design specication of the proposed antenna is given
Table 1. A semicircular disk patch is analyzed by considering
it equivalent to rectangular patch with dimension L W
[22], where L = 2a and W = pa/2. The resonance frequency
of semicircular disk patch antenna is calculated as [23,24]
kmn C
fr p 1
2p  ae ee
where knm is the mth zero root of the derivative of Bessel func-
tion of order n, c is the velocity of light, ee is the effective
dielectric constant of the substrate [24] and ae effective radius
of the half disk patch given as
r
Le We
ae ; 2
p
The effective radius ae of the half disk is calculated by equating
the area of half disk to the expanded rectangular patch with
dimension (Le We), where Le and We are effective length
and width of the rectangular patch and can be calculated by
[23]. Fig. 2 shows the current distribution of the proposed
L-strip proximity fed gap coupled compact semi-circular disk patch antenna 63

Ws is width of L-strip in mm; ts the thickness of the strip in

Table 1 Design specications of the proposed antenna.
mm; h2 the height of the vertical portion of the L-strip; q the
Radius of the patch (R) 15 mm specic resistance of the strip X cm and qcu the specic resis-
L-strip (L1 W1) (25 4) mm2 tance of the copper (1.72 106) X cm.
Distance between fed and parasitic patch (G) 1.0 mm
The horizontal portion of the L-strip and the patch is per-
Feeding point (X0, Y0) (21.5, 0)
fect conductors separated by a nite distance h3, which pro-
Shorting pin position (Xs, Ys) (7.5, 0)
Dielectric constant (er) 3.3 vides a capacitance (C1) in series with vertical portion of the
Height of dielectric substrate (H) 7.5 mm L-strip and this can be calculated as,
Height of dielectric substrate of second layer (h2) 1.5 mm er e0 Y0 Ws
Height of dielectric substrate of rst layer (h1) 1.5 mm C1 6
h2
Also, there is a parallel plate capacitance (Cs1) between hori-
zontal part of the L-strip and the ground plane and is given as,
antenna with and without shorting pin for upper and lower
resonance frequencies. Fig. 2(a) and (b) depict that there is er e0 W s Y 0
Cs1 7
only single current owing on the patch i.e. TM01 mode h1 h2
whereas Fig. 2(c) shows that it has two distinct resonating where h1 is the height between ground plane and microstrip
modes TM01 and TM02 i.e. two currents of different lengths line; h2 the height of the vertical portion of the L-strip and
ow on the patch. First current ows normal to the patch h3 the height between horizontal part of L-strip and the radi-
and other ows around the shorting pin. The equivalent circuit ating patch.
of the half circular disk patch is shown in Fig. 3(b) with circuit The open end of the L-strip which is under the patch will
parameters, i.e., resistance (R1), inductance (L1), and capaci- have fringing elds and can be considered as a small increase
tance (C1) and is calculated as [24]. in the length of the L-strip. This will have extra capacitance
cos2 pX0 =L (Cf) and the effective increase in the length can be calculated
C1 ee LW ; 3 as,
2h
In this design, a bakelite dielectric substrate of thickness H is 0:412ee 0:3Ws =h 0:264
le 8
used to support the radiating patch. L-strip is introduced at ee 0:259Ws 0:8
end of the microstrip line so that the spacing between the patch ee is the effective dielectric constant.
and feed line can be reduced. The horizontal part of the L-strip
is incorporated with the patch and it provides a capacitance to er 1 er  1
ee 1 10h=W1=2 9
suppress the inductance by the vertical portion of L-strip. 2 2
The vertical part of L-strip represents series resistance Rs Now Cf can be calculated by
and inductance Ls along with capacitances C1, Cs1, Cf1 and
Cf2 as shown in Fig. 3(d). The expression for the resistance le ee 1=2
Cf 10
Rs and inductance Ls is given as [22,23]. c:Z0
      
2h Ws ts Z0 is the characteristic impedance of the L-strip and c is the
Ls 0:2  h2 In 0:2235 0:5 nH4 velocity of light in m/s.
W s ts h2
p
Now Cf1 and Cf2 can be calculated from above Eqs. (8) and
106 fq
Rs 4:13  5 (9) by putting h3 = h and h2 = h respectively.
qcu Ws ts

Figure 2 Current distributions of microstrip patch antennas (a) without shorting pin and parasitic patch at frequency 6.13 GHz, (b) with
shorting pin and parasitic patch at frequency 1.31 GHz and (c) 6.13 GHz.
64 A. Singh et al.

(a) Therefore total input impendence of proposed antenna is given

as,
1
Zin Z1 1 1 1
; 14
R1
jxL 1
jxLss
jxC1 jxC2 p1 Z1pp

where Cg is gap capacitance and Cp1 is plate capacitance and

can be calculated as [28,29]
Now using Eq. (14), the different antenna parameters such
as reection coefcient, VSWR and return loss can be calcu-
lated as,
Zin  Z0
(b) C 15
Zin Z0
1C
VSWR 16
1C
andRL 20logjCj 17
where Z0 is the input impedance of the coaxial feed (50 O).
The radiation pattern for compact notch loaded semicircu-
lar disk antenna is calculated as [2729]
(c)
Eh Jn k0 RV0 ejk0 r1 Jn1 k0 R sin h  Jn1 k0 R sin h  cos n/ 18
E/ Jn k0 RV0 ejk0 r1 Jn1 k0 R sin h  Jn1 k0 R sin h  cos h  sin n/ 19
n
where V0 is radiating edge voltage = h1E0J (R); r1 the dis-
tance of an arbitrary far-eld point and R the radius of half
circular fed disk patch.

3. Discussion and results

(d) Fig. 4 presents the comparative plot frequency versus S11 of

Figure 3 Equivalent circuits of (a) proposed antenna, (b) semi-
circular patch, (c) parasitic patch, (d) L-strip.
Therefore total input impedance of whole L-strip can be gi-
ven as,
Zl Rs jxLs 1=jxCeq 11
Here Ceq is the equivalent capacitance is given as [25,26],
theoretical and simulated [30] results of proposed antenna
without shorting pin. It shows that results are in close agree-
ment with theoretical and simulated results and single band
is obtained with bandwidth 6.45% (simulated) and 14.2%
(theoretical).
Fig. 5 shows the comparative frequency versus S11 plot of
theoretical, measured and simulated [30] results of proposed
antenna and it is observed that the results are in close
agreement. The bandwidth of lower and upper resonance
0

C1 2Cf1 Cs1 Cf2 -5

Ceq ; 12
C1 2Cf1 Cs1 Cf2
The semi-circular microstrip parasitic patch can be considered -10
as a parallel combination of resistance (R2), inductance (L2)
S11 (dB)

and capacitance (C2) and its equivalent circuit is shown in -15

Theoretical
Fig. 3(c) [27]. The values of R2, L2 and C2 are calculated in
Simulated
a similar way as R1, L1 and C1 and the total input impedance -20
of the parasitic patch is given as Zpp.
On loading shorting pin on the patch, a parallel inductance -25
Lss is added in the patch as shown in Fig. 3(a) and can be given
as -30
 
g WL 4c
Lss 0 In p ; 13 -35
2pc EWd er 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
where c is the speed of light; d the diameter of shorting pin and Frequency (GHz)
E the Euler constant.
The impedance of shorting pin is given as Figure 4 Comparative plot of theoretical and simulated [30]
results of proposed antenna without shorting pin for reection
Zs jxLss coefcient versus frequency.
L-strip proximity fed gap coupled compact semi-circular disk patch antenna 65

0 0

-5 -5

-10 -10

-15 -15

S11 (dB)
S11(dB)

Theoretical
-20 Simulated -20
Measured
h2=0.5 mm
-25 -25 h2=1.0 mm
h2=1.5 mm
-30 -30 h2=2.0 mm

-35 -35

-40 -40
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Frequency (GHz) Frequency (GHz)

Figure 5 Comparative plots of theoretical, measured and Figure 7 Variations of reection coefcient with frequency for
simulated [30] results of proposed antenna for reection coefcient different value of height (h2) remaining parameters are unchanged.
versus frequency.

whereas on increasing the height of substrate upper and lower

frequencies of simulated result is 6.61% and 6.02 %, whereas
for theoretical values is 10.64% and 9.06% respectively. Fur-
ther, measured values for upper and lower resonance frequen-
cies are 6.01% and 5.45% respectively. On introducing the
shorting pin on the proposed antenna, the inductance is in-
creased on the patch due to which dualband behavior of anten-
na is achieved. A dip is observed at 3. 5 GHz in simulated and
measured results, it may be excited due to the quasi-rectangu-
lar patch which is on both sides of two semicircular patches
while in theoretical calculation it is not observed because it is
solved as considering rectangular MPA. Frequency ratios of
the simulated, theoretical and measured results are found to
be 4.60, 4.63 and 4.84 respectively.
Fig. 6 shows the variation in reection coefcient with fre-
quency on varying the height of the substrate (H) of proposed
antenna. On decreasing the height (H) of the substrate lower
and upper resonance frequencies shift toward higher side
resonance frequencies shift toward lower side. This happens
due to the input impedance (Zp) of semi-circular patch which
depends on height (H) of the substrate and Zp is mainly
effected by capacitance (C1) of the semi-circular patch (C1 is
inversely proportional to the height of substrate).
From Fig. 7, it is observed that on varying the height (h2) of
the substrate of proposed antenna dual band behavior of the
antenna vanishes. This is because on increasing the height
(h2) of substrate inductance increases which suppresses the
capacitance across the width of L-strip due to which higher
resonance frequency shift toward lower side.
Fig. 8 shows the variation in reection coefcient with fre-
quency on varying width (WL) of L-strip of proposed antenna.
On increasing the width of the L-strip higher resonance fre-
quency shifts toward lower side whereas lower resonance fre-
quency remains almost constant. This is because capacitance
across the L-strip increases which effect total input impedance

0 0

-5
-5
-10
-10
-15
-15
-20
S11 (dB)

S11 (dB)

H=5.5 mm
-25 H=6.0 mm -20 WL=1mm
H=6.5 mm WL=2 mm
-30 H=7.0 mm WL=3 mm
-25
H=7.5 mm WL=4 mm
-35 H=8.0 mm WL=5 mm
H=8.5 mm -30
WL=6 mm
-40
WL=7 mm
-35
-45

-50 -40
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Frequency (GHz) Frequency (GHz)

Figure 6 Variations of reection coefcient with frequency for Figure 8 Variations of reection coefcient with frequency for
different value of height (H) remaining parameters are unchanged. different value of L-strip width (WL).
66 A. Singh et al.

of the antenna while on decreasing the width (WL) from 4 mm 0

to 1 mm dual band behavior vanishes due to the increase in (a) 330 30
inductance of L-strip in the circuit. Angle (deg.)
From Fig. 9, it is observed that on increasing the gap be-
tween fed patch and parasitic patch from G = 1 mm to 300 60
3.5 mm the lower and upper resonance frequencies shift to-
ward lower side till G = 2 mm, on further increasing the gap
between fed patch and parasitic patch there is no change on
upper and lower resonance frequencies while on decreasing 270 90
the gap between fed patch and parasitic patch from -40 -30 -20 -10 0
dB
G = 1 mm to 0.5 mm lower band shifts from 1.31 GHz to
Calculated E-Theta,Phi=0(deg)
1.71 GHz and higher resonance frequency shifts toward higher Simulated E-Theta,Phi=0(deg)
side from 6.13 GHz to 6.65 GHz. This happen due to the gap 240 Simulated E-Theta,Phi=90(deg) 120
capacitance between fed patch and parasitic patch. Calculated E-Theta,Phi=90(deg)
Fig. 10 shows the variation in reection coefcient with fre-
quency for different dielectric constant. On decreasing dielec- 210 150
tric constant from 3.3 (Bakelite EPR04572), it is observed 180

0
0 30
330
(b) Angle (deg.)
-5

300 60
-10

-15
S11 (dB)

G=0.5 mm
-20 G=1.0 mm 270 90
G=1.5 mm -40 -30 -20 -10 0
-25 G=2.0 mm dB
G=2.5 mm Calculated E-Theta,Phi=0(deg)
G=3.0 mm Simulated E-Theta,Phi=0(deg)
-30
G=3.5 mm 240 Calculated E-Theta,Phi=90(deg)
Simulated E-Theta,Phi=90(deg)
-35

210 150
-40
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 180
Frequency (GHz)
Figure 11 Radiation pattern at (a) 1.31 GHz and (b) 6.13 GHz.
Figure 9 Variations of reection coefcient with frequency for
different value of gap (G) between fed patch and parasitic patch.
that lower and upper resonance frequencies shift toward higher
side. This happens because the resonance frequency of the pro-
posed antenna is inversely proportional to the square root of
0 the dielectric constant.
Fig. 11 shows the radiation pattern for E-theta, phi = 0 deg.
-5 in the YZ plane whereas E-theta, phi = 90 deg. in XZ plane.
The theoretical and simulated results are in close agreement at
-10 frequencies 1.31 GHz and 6.13 GHz. It is investigated that
3 dB beam width of antenna at frequency 1.31 GHz is 52.3
-15 (theoretical) and 53.1 (simulated) and at 6.13 GHz, it is
S11 (dB)

26.90 (theoretical) and 27.28 (simulated).

-20
air
foam 4. Conclusion
-25
Teflon
R. Duroid 5880
-30 R. Duroid 5870 An analysis of two different radiating structures of L-strip
Rexollite antennas with and without shorting pin have been carried
-35 R. Duroid 6002 out. The proposed antenna parameters depend on length,
Bakelite (EPR 04572)
width and height of L-strip fed as well as on dielectric con-
-40
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 stant. The theoretical and simulated results are in close agree-
Frequency (GHz) ment with experimental results of the proposed antenna. The
proposed antenna has two different resonant frequencies
Figure 10 Variations of reection coefcient with frequency for which offers 1.3/6.13 GHz dualband operation. As the pro-
different value of dielectric constants (er). posed antenna covers two different frequency bands i.e. L
L-strip proximity fed gap coupled compact semi-circular disk patch antenna
and S bands, it can be utilized for wireless and satellite com-
munications systems.
Acknowledgment
The authors thank Dr. Ananjan Basu, Associate Professor,
Center of Applied Research in Electronics, IIT Delhi, India,
for providing antenna measurement facility in their lab.
References
[1] K.L. Wong, W.S. Chen, Compact microstrip antenna with dual
frequency operation, Electron. Lett. 33 (1997) 646647.
[2] K.F. Luc, Y.X. Guo, J.A. Hawkins, R. Chair, K.M. Luc,
Theory and experiment on microstrip patch antenna with
shorting walls, IEE Proc. Microw. Antenna Propag. 147
(2000) 521525.
[3] C. Yoon, Sun-Ho-Choi, Hwa-Choon Lee, Hyo-Dal Park, Small
microstrip patch antennas with short-pin using a dual band
operation, Microw. Opt. Technol. Lett. 50 (2007) 367371.
[4] A.K. Shackelford, S.Y. Leong, K.F. Lee, Small size probe fed
notched patch antenna with shorting post, Microw. Opt.
Technol. Lett. 31 (2001) 377379.
[5] J.A. Ansari, R.B. Ram, Broadband stacked U-slot microstrip
patch antenna, Prog. Electromag. Res. Lett. 4 (2008) 1724.
[6] S.S. Shivnarayan, B.R. Vishkarma, Analysis of slot loaded
rectangular microstrip patch antenna, Ind. J. Radio Space Phys.
34 (2005) 424430.
[7] C.L. Mak, R. Chair, K.F. Lee, K.M. Luk, A.A. Kishk, Half U-
slot patch antenna with shorting wall, Electron. Lett. 39 (2003)
17791780.
[8] J.A. Ansari, S.K. Dubey, P.K. Singh, B.R. Vishvakarma, R.U.
Khan, Gunn loaded microstrip antenna with parasitic elements,
Ind. J. Radio Space Phys. 38 (2009) 16121.
[9] S. Srivastava, B.R. Vishvakarma, J.A. Ansari, Tunnel diode-
loaded rectangular microstrip antenna for millimeter range,
IEEE Trans. Anten. Propag. 51 (2003) 750755.
[10] J.A. Ansari, R.B. Ram, P. Singh, Analysis of a gap- coupled
stacked annular ring microstrip antenna, Prog. Electromag. Res.
B 4 (2008) 147158.
[11] S.A. Long, M.D. Walton, A dual-frequency stacked circular-
disc antenna, IEEE Trans. Anten. Propag. 27 (1979) 270273.
[12] M. Veysi, M. Kamyab, A. Jafargholi, Single-feed dual-band
dual-linearly-polarized proximity coupled patch antenna, IEEE
Magaz. Anten. Propag. 53 (2011) 9096.
[13] S. Chakarbarti, Development of shared aperture dual polarized
microstrip antenna at L-band, IEEE Trans. Anten. Propag. 59
(2011) 294297.
67
[14] J.-X. Niu, Dualband dual mode patch antenna based on
resonant type metamaterial transmission line, Electron. Lett.
46 (2010) 266268.
[15] J. Eichler, P. Hazdra, M. Capek, T. Korinek, P. Hamouz,
Design of a dual-band orthogonally polarized L-probe fed
fractal patch antenna using modal methods, IEEE Lett. Anten.
Wireless Propag. 10 (2011) 3891392.
[16] M.K. Meshram, Analysis of L-strip proximity fed rectangular
microstrip antenna for mobile base station, Microw. Opt.
Technol. Lett. 49 (2007) 18171821.
[17] A.K. Meshram, Manoj Kumar Meshram, Babau R.
Vishvakarma, L-Strip proximity fed shorted rectangular
microstrip antenna mobile communication, Microw. Opt.
Technol. Lett. 52 (2010) 5671571.
[18] J.A. Ansari, A. Singh, Kamakshi, A. Mishra, Analysis of L-strip
feed slot loaded dualband microstrip patch antenna, in: IEEE
Conference ICCCT, MNNIT Allahabad, 1517 October 2011,
pp. 511.
[19] J.A. Ansari, A. Singh, Kamakshi, A. Mishra, Analysis of L-strip
fed gap coupled compact semi-circular disk patch antenna, in;
IEEE Conference IMPACT-11, Aligarh University, 2224
December 2011, pp. 180183.
[20] A. Mishra, J.A. Ansari, N.P. Yadav, P. Singh, B.R.
Vishvakarma, L-strip feed circular disk dual resonator
patches antenna for wireless communication, Wireless
Pers. Commun. (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11277-
013-1014-2.
[21] Y.Q. Zhang, X. Li, L. Yang, S.X. Gong, Dual-band circularly
polarized annular ring microstrip antenna for GNSS
Applications, IEEE Lett. Anten. Wireless Propag. 12 (2013)
615618.
[22] G. Kumar, K.P. Ray, Broadband Microstrip Antenna, Artech
House, Boston, London, 2003.
[23] L.C. Chen et al, Resonant frequency of circular disk printed
circuit antenna, IEEE Trans. Anten. Propag. 25 (1997) 595
596.
[24] R. Garg, P. Bhartia, I. Bahl, A. Ittipiboon, Microstrip Antenna
Design Handbook, Artech House, Boston, London, 2003.
[25] T.C. Edwards, Foundations for Microistrip Circuit Design,
John Wiley, 1983.
[26] R.K. Hoffman, Handbook of Microwave Integrated Circuits,
Artech House, Norwood, MA, 1987.
[27] I.J. Bahali, P. Bhartia, Microstrip Antenna, Artech House
Massachuaetts, 1980.
[28] M.K. Meshram, Babau R. Vishvakarma, Gap-coupled
microstrip array antenna for wide-band operation, Int. J.
Electron. 88 (2001) 11611175.
[29] M. Meada, Analysis of gap in microstrip transmission line,
IEEE Trans. Anten. Propag. 32 (1972) 13751379.
[30] Zeland Software Inc, IE3D Simulation Software version 14.05,
CA, 2008.