International Conference on Recent Advances and Future Trends in Information Technology (iRAFIT2012)

Proceedings published in International Journal of Computer Applications (IJCA)

Comparative Analysis of Microstrip Patch Antenna

With Different Feeding Techniques
Gurdeep Singh Jaget Singh
Panjab University Panjab University
Chandigarh, India Chandigarh, India

ABSTRACT thickness, feeding techniques and with the use of different

A single band microstrip patch antenna for wireless optimization techniques [7-8].
communication is presented. In this paper, direct microstrip
line feed and coaxial feed techniques are integrated. This In our research work, antenna feeding is to be classified into
antenna offers low profile, narrow bandwidth, high gain, and two types, first is microstrip line feeding and second is
compact antenna element. In this paper we compare the coaxial/probe feeding. There are many other types of feeding
feeding techniques and we should proved that the coaxial used but they are so complex, e.g. aperture coupled feeding,
feeding is better impedance matching technique than L-probe feeding, non contact feeding, which are used to
microstrip line feeding to improve the gain, return loss and enhance the bandwidth.
bandwidth. The IE3D software, which is a method of moment
(MoM) based software used to find output parameter results. The remaining paper is organised as follows: section 2 gives
some information about types of feeding. Section 3 includes
design analysis of single band E Shaped microstrip patch
General Terms geometry. Section 4 gives comparative analysis of coaxial
VSWR, Return loss, Elevation Pattern Gain Display. feed over the microstrip line feed antenna with its results.
Section 5 and 6 gives conclusion and references respectively.
Keywords
Single Band E-Shaped, Microstrip Line feed, Coaxial Probe
feed, Microstrip Patch Antenna, IE3D tool. 2. FEEDING TECHNIQUES
There are several techniques available to feed or transmit
1. INTRODUCTION electromagnetic energy to a microstrip patch antenna. The
Due to their many attractive features, microstrip antenna has role of feeding is very important in case of efficient operation
drawn the attention of researchers over the past work [1-3]. of antenna to improve the antenna input impedance matching.
Microstrip antennas are used in an increasing number of The two main commonly used feeding techniques are
applications, ranging from biomedical diagnosis to wireless 2.1 Microstrip line feeding
communications [4]. These wide ranges of applications, 2.2 Coaxial cable or probe feeding
coupled with the fact that microstrip patch structures are
relatively easy to manufacture, have turned microstrip
analysis into an extensive research problem. Research on
2.1 Microstrip line feeding
microstrip antenna in the 21st century aims at size reduction,
increasing gain, wide bandwidth, multiple functionality and
system-level integration. Significant research work has been
reported on increasing the gain and bandwidth of microstrip
antennas. Many techniques have been suggested for
achieving wide bandwidth [5-6]. In this paper, an attempt has
been made to design a single band microstrip antenna without
any geometrical complexities.

With the wide spread proliferation of wireless

communication technology in recent years, the demand for
compact, low profile and broadband antennas has increased
significantly. To meet the requirement, the microstrip patch
antenna have been proposed because of its low profile, light
weight and low cost. However, the microstrip antenna
inherently has a low gain and a narrow bandwidth. To
overcome its inherent limitation of narrow impedance
bandwidth and low gain, many techniques have been Fig 1: Rectangular Microstrip patch antenna with an Inset
suggested e.g., for probe fed stacked antenna, microstrip patch Line feeding.
antennas on electrically thick substrate, slotted patch antenna In this type of feeding technique, a conducting strip is
and stacked shorted patches have been proposed and connected directly to the edge of the Microstrip patch as
investigated [2]. shown in Fig 1. The width of conducting strip is small as
compared to the patch and this kind of feed arrangement has
There are numerous and well-known methods to increase the the advantage that the feed can be etched on the same
gain of antennas, including decrease of the substrate substrate to provide a planar structure. The purpose of the

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 International Conference on Recent Advances and Future Trends in Information Technology (iRAFIT2012)
Proceedings published in International Journal of Computer Applications (IJCA)

inset cut in the patch is to match the impedance of the feed

line to the patch input impedance without the need for any
additional matching element. This can be achieved by
properly adjusting the inset cut position and dimensions.
Hence this is an easy feeding scheme because it provides ease
of fabrication and simplicity in modelling as well as
impedance matching. However as the thickness of the
dielectric substrate being increases, surface waves and
spurious feed radiations are also increases, which hamper the
bandwidth of the antenna. The feed radiation also leads to
undesired cross polarized radiation.

Fig 3: Coaxial cable (Probe) feeding of patch antenna.

3. SINGLE E-SHAPED PATCH

ANTENNA DESIGN
In Recent, the coaxially fed E-shaped patch antennas with
thick air substrate reported in [7-8], have used in wireless
communication applications. The same antenna was
optimized in [9] using PSO/FDTD optimizer to design a dual-
frequency antenna as well as a broadband antenna. The dual-
frequency antenna was operated at 1.8 and 2.4 GHz, while the
broadband antenna had a bandwidth from 1.79 to 2.43 GHz
(30.5%). In [10], a low-profile microstrip line fed E-shaped
patch antenna, shown in Fig 4, has been designed using the
Modified CFO/DE optimization techniques. To test the
CFO/IE3D and DE/IE3D methods, the optimizers are applied
to achieve the simple objective of designing this E-shaped
patch antenna to work at the resonance frequency (fr) of 2.4
GHz. Now in this paper, our used approach is to analyze the
comparison of parameters of microstrip patch antenna with
coaxial and microstrip line feeding techniques. The fitness
function to be maximized is formulated as:
Fig 2: Equivalent circuits of typical feeding methods
Fitness = -S11 (2.4 GHz) (1)
2.2 Coaxial cable or Probe feeding
The Coaxial cable or probe feeding is a very common Now in this paper, we design and analysis the affect of
technique used for feeding Microstrip patch antennas. As seen coaxial feeding over the microstrip line feeding and compare
from Fig 3, the inner conductor of the coaxial cable extends it. The substrate has a thickness of h = 2 mm, and dielectric
through the dielectric and is soldered to the radiating metal constant r of 2.55. The antenna is fed by a coaxial probe feed
patch, while the outer conductor is connected to the ground at (0, 32.295) mm Coordinates from the origin with a fixed
plane. The main advantage of this feeding scheme is that the
line width (WL = 5.6 mm).
feed can be placed at any desired location on the patch in
order to match cable impedance with the antenna input
To avoid the overlap problem in IE3D simulations, the
impedance. This feeding method has easy to fabricate and has
following conditions must necessary as additional geometrical
low spurious radiation. However, its major disadvantage is
restrictions [10]:
that it provides narrow bandwidth and is difficult to model
since a hole has to be drilled in the substrate and the connector
protrudes outside the ground plane, thus not making it Ps + 2Ws < W, Ls < L, Lf < L
completely planar for thick substrates (h > 0.02o ). Also, for Ps >WL + 2Wf or Ps + 2Ws < W,
thicker substrates, the increased probe length makes the input
impedance more inductive, leads to impedance matching When Ls + Lf >= L
problems. The main aim to use probe feeding is enhancing the
gain, narrow bandwidth and impedance matching [15].

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 International Conference on Recent Advances and Future Trends in Information Technology (iRAFIT2012)
Proceedings published in International Journal of Computer Applications (IJCA)

4. COMPARATIVE ANAYLSIS OF
MICRISTRIP AND COAXIAL PROBE
FEEDING
4.1 MICROSTRIP LINE FEED
Fig 5 shows the return loss in dB for rectangular microstrip
antenna with line feed without any optimization. The
reference dimensions are used, which have calculated by
geometrical formulas. Without optimized dimensions, the
return loss should decrease to -25 dB at 2.4 GHz reference
frequency as shown in Fig 5, which further improves to -73dB
(BW=35.5 MHz) and
-66dB (BW=44 MHz) with CFO and DE optimizations
respectively as shown in Fig 4.2. [10]

Fig 4: Geometry of low-profile E-shaped microstrip patch

antenna [10]

Table 1. Optimized dimensions for the low-profile E-shaped

microstrip patch antenna using the fitness function described
by Equation (1)

ANTEENA DIMENSIONS:-
Fig 5: Return Loss (in dB) of the Microstrip line feed
Properties Dimensions Single E-shaped antenna without optimization.

Patch width (W) 64.2 mm

Patch length (L) 39 mm

Feed width (Wf) 2.15 mm

Feed line width (WL) 5.6 mm

Feed length (Lf) 9.44 mm

Slot width (Ws) 10.95 mm

Slot length (Ls) 14.05 mm

Width b/w slots (Ps) 14.86 mm

Height (h) 2 mm
Fig 6: Return Loss (in dB) with CFO/DE optimization of
the Microstrip line feed Single E-shaped patch antenna
Dielectric constant (r) 2.55
[10].
The optimized dimensions improving the gain and return loss
as reported in [10], which is also increased by some other
techniques. e.g. the use of coaxial probe instead of microstrip
line feeding, because the probe feed can be placed at any
desired location inside the patch in order to match line
impedance with its antenna input impedance, which is
represented in this paper.

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 International Conference on Recent Advances and Future Trends in Information Technology (iRAFIT2012)
Proceedings published in International Journal of Computer Applications (IJCA)

4.2 COAXIAL PROBE FEED

4.2.1 Return Loss
In our approach, we uses probe feed instead of line feed,
which is also positively affects to improve the gain as well as
return loss. The return loss is decreases to -62 dB at 2.397
GHz reference frequency as shown in Fig 7.

Fig 9: Elevation pattern for =0 and =90 degrees.

If the antenna terminal impedance exhibits no reactive

(imaginary) part and the resistive (real) part is equal to the
characteristic impedance of the transmission line, then the
antenna and transmission line are said to be matched. The
value of VSWR <2 is considered good, and values higher than
Fig 7: Return Loss (in dB) of the coaxial probe feed Single 2.0 may be unacceptable as shown in Figure 8.
E-shaped microstrip antenna.

4.2.2 VSWR 4.2.3 Radiation Pattern Plot

Since a microstrip patch antenna radiates normal to its patch
surface, the elevation pattern for =0 and =90 degrees.

Fig 8: VSWR (in dB) with the coaxial probe feed Single E-
shaped microstrip patch antenna. Fig 10: 3D view of radiation pattern looking along Z axis
in the XY Plane.
It is used to describe the performance of an antenna when Figure 9 shows the maximum gain of the antenna at
attached to a transmission line. It is a measure of how well the 2.397GHz for =0 and =90 degrees and it has not any side
antenna terminal impedance is matched to the characteristic lobe as shown in Figure 10.
impedance of the transmission line.

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 International Conference on Recent Advances and Future Trends in Information Technology (iRAFIT2012)
Proceedings published in International Journal of Computer Applications (IJCA)

6. REFERENCES
[1] D. R Jahagirdar and R D. Stewart. 1998. Non-Leaky
Conductor Backed Coplanar Wave Guide-Fed
Rectangular Microstrip Patch Antenna. IEEE
Microwave and Guided-Wave Letters. 3 (Mar. 1998),
115-117.
[2] N. Herscovici. 1998. New considerations in the design
of microstrip antennas. IEEE Transactions on Antennas
and Propagation, AP-46, 6 (Jun. 1998), 807-812.
[3] S. S. Pattnaik, Gianluca Lazzi, and Om P. Gandhi. 1998.
On the Use of Wide-Band High-Gain Microstrip
Antenna for Mobile Telephones. IEEE Antennas and
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[4] S. S. Pattnaik, D. C. Panda, and S. Devi. 2002.
Fig 11: Impedance Plot, which shows R=50 at 2.397 GHz Radiation Resistance of Coax-Fed Rectangular
Microstrip Patch Antenna Using Artificial Neural
Table 2. COMPARITIVE RESULTS Networks. Microwave and Optical Technology Letters,
15 (Jul. 2002), 51-53.
Parameter Line feed Line feed Probe feed
without With CFO/ [5] D. Sanchez-Hernandez and I. D. Robertson. 1996. A
opt. DE opt. Survey of Broadband Microstrip Patch Antennas.
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Bandwidth 35 MHz 44 MHz 50 MHz [6] Dipak K. Neog, Shyam S. Pattnaik, Dhruba. C. Panda,
Return Loss -25 dB -72 dB -62 dB Swapna Devi, Bonomali Khuntia, and Malaya Dutta,
Design of a Wideband Microstrip Antenna and the Use
Max Gain 5.1 dB 6.7 dB 6.88 dB
of Artificial Neural Networks in Parameter
Minimum 1.06 dB Na 0.05 dB Calculation, IEEE Antennas and Propagation
VSWR Magazine, Vol. 47, No.3, June 2005
Max axial 80.83 dB Na 83 dB
[7] Yang, F., X. Zhang, X. Ye, and Y. Rahmat-Samii. 2001.
ratio
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Antenna 56 % Na 79.45 % communications. IEEE Transactions on Antennas and
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Directivity 7.5 dBi Na 7.89 dBi
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5. CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE
SCOPE [10] G. M. Qubati and N. I. Dib. 2010. Microstrip Patch
In this paper, the coaxial probe feeding is applied to design of Antenna Optimization using Modified Central Force
microstrip patch antenna. The return loss, gain and radiation Optimization. Progress In electromagnetic Research B,
pattern of single band E-shaped microstrip antenna is Vol. 21, 281-298.
presented in this paper clearly show that the antenna is a [11] Andrew W. Moore, Denis Zuev, Michael L. Crogan.
narrowband, higher gain and single tuned microstrip patch 2005. Discriminators for use in flow-based
antenna. The achievement of higher gain with a probe feeding classification. Queen Mary University of London,
is a focus of attention. The variation of the feed point (feed Department of Computer Science, RR05-13.
position) over feed line gives the flexibility to get higher gain
and match the impedance, which is a notable feature of this [12] S. Zander, T. Nguyen, and G. Armitage. 2005.
antenna. This paper proved that the coaxial feed is better Automated Traffic Classification and Application
impedance matching technique than the microstrip line feed, Identification using Machine Learning. In LCN'05,
which affects positively to improve the gain, return loss and Sydney, Australia.
bandwidth.As comparison to double E-Shaped patch
[13] www.ieeeexpore.ieee.org
geometry, the design of a Single E-Shaped Patch antenna is
simple. The Single E-Shaped Patch antenna is a narrow band [14] www.antenna-theory.com/antennas/patches/patch3.php
antenna (Tuned at reference frequency) while the double E-
Shaped is a wideband antenna (with complex geometry) used
for various applications.

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