Micro Strip

Antenna
Prepared by
A.Sanyasi Rao
AMIE; M.Tech; MISTE; MIETE
Assoc. Prof, Dept. of ECE
Balaji Institute of Engineering & Sciences
The antenna which is made of metal patches placed on dielectric
and fed by micro strip or coplanar Tx-line is called Micro Strip
antenna (or) Patch antenna.
Specifications:
12 2 . 2 ) (
05 . 0 003 . 0
5 . 0 3333 . 0
0
0 0
0 0
0

r r
Const Dielectric
t t
h h
L L
wavelength space Free

The micro strip antenna are best suited where size, cost,
weight, performance, case of installation demand a low profile
antenna.
In high performance space crafts, aircrafts, satellite
applications, mobile applications, mobile radio and wireless
communications, the micro strip antennas are most widely
used.
Low profile micro strip antennas has main advantage is that it
is suitable for planar as well as non-planar surfaces.
Using modern PCB technology, a simple and inexpensive,
mechanically robust micro strip antenna can be easily
achieved.
By properly selecting the shape of the patch in the micro strip
antenna, they can be made very useful in terms of resonant
frequency, pattern, antenna impedance and antenna polarization.
The patch radiates efficiently when it is resonant, which means
that some characteristic dimension of the patch is nearly equal to
the one-half wavelength in the substrate medium.
It radiates power in a beam broad side to the plane of the antenna
and displays an input impedance similar to a parallel resonant
circuit near its operating frequency.
Patch antennas are inherently linearly polarized, although they
usually can be made to radiate circular or elliptical polarization.
For good antenna performance, a thick dielectric substrate having
a low dielectric constant is desirable since this provides better
efficiency, larger bandwidth and better radiation .
In general Micro strip antennas are also known as PRINTED
ANTENNAS .
These are mostly used at microwave frequencies. Because the
size of the antenna is directly tied the wavelength at the
resonant frequency.
Micro strip patch antenna or patch antenna is a narrowband
wide-beam antenna.
Micro strip patch antennas patches are in variety of shapes, such
as rectangular , square , triangular and circulator etc.
Micro Strip Antenna Arrays
Substrates are:
The most commonly used substrates are,
1) Honey comb (dielectric constant=1.07)
2)Duroid (dielectric constant=2.32)
3)Quartz (dielectric constant=3.8)
4)Alumina (dielectric constant=10)
A thicker substrate (lower end of the dielectric constant)
will increase the radiation power, increase the efficiency,
reduce conductor loss and improve Band width.
Advantages:
Low fabrication cost, hence can be manufactured in large
quantities.
Easy to fabricate. (use Etching and Photo lithography)
Low profile antenna.
Supports both, linear as well as circular polarization.
Low cost , Less size , Low Mass .
Mechanically robust when mounted on rigid surfaces.
High Performance
Light weight and low volume.
Easy to use in an array.
Patterns are some what hemispherical, with moderate directivity
(about 6-8dB is typical)
Disadvantages
Narrow bandwidth
Lower Gain(Nearly 6db) .
Large ohmic losses in feed structure of arrays.
Excitation of surface waves .
Relatively low efficiency (due to dielectric and conductor losses)
Relatively high level of cross polarization radiation
Spurious feed radiation (surface waves)
Low power handling capacity.
Applications:
Used in space crafts and air crafts.
Used in mobile & satellite communication systems.
Direct broad cast television(DBS).
Wire less LANS.
GPS system.
Missiles and telemetry.
UHF Patch Antennas for Space.
Why we use Microstrip Patch Antennas ?
Used for some reasons:
o Flat surface makes them ideal for mounting on airplane
o Impedance matching fairly simple
o Microstrip patch antennas have a very high antenna quality
factor(Q).
Q represents the losses associated with the antenna and a large Q
leads to narrow bandwidth and low efficiency.
Q can be reduced by increasing the thickness of the dielectric
substrate.
The directivity of a microstrip antenna as a function of dielectric
constant computed :-
Figure shows that :
A microstrip patch that uses a thicker substrate is more efficient.
In addition, as the substrate thickness increases, the radiation Q of
the antenna decreases.
Thus, bandwidth increases with increasing substrate thickness.
Radiation efficiency, h, and unloaded radiation Q, Q o, as a function
of substrate thickness .
Feeding Techniques:
Micro strip feed
Coaxial feed
Aperture coupled micro strip feed
Proximity coupled micro strip feed
Microstrip Line Feed :
In this type of feed technique, a conducting strip is connected
directly to the edge of the micro strip patch.
This kind of feed arrangement has the advantage that the feed
can be etched on the same substrate to provide a planar
structure.
Coaxial Feed :-
The Coaxial feed or probe feed is a very common technique used for
feeding Micro strip patch antennas.
Probe fed Rectangular Microstrip
Patch Antenna fromtop
Probe fed Rectangular Microstrip Patch
Antenna fromside view
The main advantage of this type of feeding scheme is that the feed
can be placed at any desired location inside the patch in order to
match with its input impedance.
This feed method is easy to fabricate and has low spurious
radiation.
However, its major disadvantage is that it Coaxial Ground Plane
Connector Substrate Patch provides narrow bandwidth and is difficult
to model since a hole has to be drilled in the substrate .
Aperture Coupled Feed
In this type of feed technique, the radiating patch and the microstrip
feed line are separated by the ground plane .
Coupling between the patch and the feed line is made through a slot
or an aperture in the ground plane.
The amount of coupling from the feed line to the patch is
determined by the shape, size and location of the aperture.
Two dielectric substrates are used such that the feed line is between
the two substrates and the radiating patch is on top of the upper
substrate.
Proximity Coupled Feed
This type of feed technique is also called as the electromagnetic
coupling scheme .
The main advantage of this feed technique is that it eliminates
spurious feed radiation and provides very high bandwidth due to
overall increase in the thickness of the microstrip patch antenna.
This scheme also provides choices between two different dielectric
media, one for the patch and one for the feed line to optimize the
individual performances.
The major disadvantage of this feed scheme is that it is difficult to
fabricate because of the two dielectric layers which need proper
alignment.
Comparing the different feed techniques