RADIOENGINEERING, VOL. 21, NO.

4, DECEMBER 2012 993

Impedance Bandwidth and Gain Improvement

for Microstrip Antenna Using Metamaterials
Han XIONG 1, Jing-Song HONG 1, Yue-Hong PENG 2
1
Inst. of Applied Physics, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, 610054, P. R. China
2
Department of Physics and Electronic Science, Chuxiong Normal University, Chuxiong, 675000, P. R China

xiong1226han@126.com, cemlab@uestc.edu.cn, pyh730@yahoo.com.cn

Abstract. An improved ultra-wideband (UWB) and high others cannot. For example, some designs of the antennas
gain rectangular antenna is specifically designed in this can meet impedance bandwidth requirements, but the gains
paper using planar-patterned metamaterial concepts. The or sizes are not very good [9], [10]. Often the requirements
antenna has isolated triangle gaps and crossed gaps are extremely difficult or physically impossible to achieve.
etched on the metal patch and ground plane, respectively. Nonetheless, antenna design techniques keep evolving to
By changing the pattern on the ground, the impedance meet the application requirements. Recently, new types of
matching characteristics of the antenna are much better. fabricated structures or composite materials that mimic
The -10 dB impedance bandwidth of the proposed antenna media with non-natural environmental management prop-
is 3.85–15.62 GHz, which is about 267% broader. The erties were introduced in the microwave and optics fields.
proposed antenna has an average gain of 5.42 dB and the These new types of materials are known as metamaterials.
peak is 8.36 dB at 13.5 GHz. Compared with the original With the flexibility and new properties provided by meta-
one, the gain of the proposed antenna improved about materials, new types of antennas have been conceived [11-
1.4 dB. Moreover, the size is reduced slightly. Simulated 13], so making their designs more straightforward.
and experimental results obtained for this antenna show In this paper, a UWB microstrip antenna with higher
that it exhibits good radiation behavior within the UWB gain and wider band is proposed. The configuration of the
frequency range. initial antenna with dimensions of 28 × 32 mm2 is shown in
[14]. The bandwidth of that antenna is from 5.3 to 8.5 GHz
for |S11| < -10 dB and the gain is generally above 4 dB with
the peak of 7.2 dB. In the work reported this paper, three
Keywords improvements were made. The proposed antenna can oper-
Metamaterial, ultra-wideband, microstrip antenna, ate from 3.8515.62 GHz for |S11| < -10 dB and the aver-
high gain. age gain is 5.42 dB with the peak of 8.36 dB at 13.5 GHz.
Moreover, the designed antenna has a smaller size of 27.6
× 31.8 mm2. Simulated and measured results are presented
to validate the usefulness of the proposed antenna structure
1. Introduction for UWB applications.
Commercial UWB systems require small low cost
antennas and large bandwidth [1]. It is a well-known fact
that printed microstrip antennas present really appealing 2. Antenna Design
physical features, such as simple structure, small size and A conventional microstrip patch antenna is usually
low cost. A narrow bandwidth is, however, the main draw- mounted on a substrate and backed by a conducting ground
back of the microstrip patch antenna. Some techniques plane. In the present investigation, a planar left-handed
have been developed for bandwidth enhancement. These material pattern on the rectangular patch antenna mounted
techniques are mainly increasing the thickness of the sub- on the substrate is designed to enhance its horizontal radia-
strate, using different shaped slots or radiating patches [2], tion as well as broaden its working bandwidth via its cou-
[3], stacking different radiating elements of loading of the pling with the conducting ground backed to the substrate
antenna laterally or vertically [4-6], utilizing magnetic and patterned in a different way. The geometry of the pro-
dielectric substrates [7] and engineering the ground plane posed compact metamaterial antenna is illustrated in Fig. 1
as EBG metamaterials [8]. (a), which is printed on a F4BM-2 substrate of thickness
Design techniques have been developed to produce 0.8 mm, and permittivity 2.2. The width of the microstrip
antennas with different properties that can fulfill the re- feedline is fixed at 2.40 mm to achieve 50-Ω characteristic
quirements in different applications. In some cases, current impedance from 3.85 to 16.15 GHz. One the upper layer,
designed antenna can meet those requirements, while the four isosceles triangles surrounded by a square frame are
994 HAN XIONG, JING-SONG HONG, YUE-HONG PENG, IMPEDANCE BANDWIDTH AND GAIN IMPROVEMENT FOR MICROSTRIP…

connected at their apex, and from the connected portion,

four narrow metal strips are radially connected to the outer
frame in the unit cell; On the lower layer, there are the
square metal patches with periodic gaps. The left-handed
characteristics of these patterns were already demonstrated
in [15], [16] and thus will not be further discussed here.
The proposed antenna is investigated by changing one
parameter at a time, while fixing the others. To fully
understand the behavior of the antenna’s structure and to
determine the optimum parameters, the antenna was
analyzed using Ansoft simulation software high-frequency
structure simulator (HFSS). The magnitudes of the physical
parameters of the proposed antenna are as follows: L =
31.8 mm, W = 27.6 mm, L1 = 16 mm, L2 = 8 mm, L3 =
1 mm, L4 = 0.2 mm, W1 = 12 mm, W2 = 3.8 mm, W3 =
7.5 mm, W4 = 15.3 mm, W5 = 2.4 mm, W6 = 0.1 mm, GL1
= 8 mm, GL2 = 0.4 mm, GL3 = 0.6 mm, GL4 = 0.2 mm.

3. Parametric Study
In order to fully understand the influence of these pa-
rameters on the impedance bandwidth, a parametric study
was carried out by varying each parameter, while holding
the remaining parameter values as section 2. This study is
conducted by simulation using Ansoft HFSS.
Fig. 2(a)  (c) show the simulated parametric studies
on the reflection coefficient |S11|, when some parameters
(a) are varied. The proposed antenna is an evolution of
a metamaterial antenna that was investigated in [14]. The

original antenna
metamaterial antenna (L3=1mm)
0 metamaterial antenna (L3=1.2mm)

-10
|S11| (dB)

-20

-30

-40 (a)

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17
Frequency (GHz)

0 GL3=0.4 mm
GL3=0.6 mm
-5 GL3=0.8 mm
-10

-15

-20
|S11| (dB)

-25

-30

-35

-40
(b) (b)
-45
Fig. 1. (a) Geometry of the proposed metamaterial antenna 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17
and (b) photograph of the fabricated antenna proto-
Frequency (GHz)
type.
RADIOENGINEERING, VOL. 21, NO. 4, DECEMBER 2012 995

GL4=0.1 mm 0 sumulation
0 GL4=0.2 mm measure
-5
GL4=0.3 mm
GL4=0.4 mm -10
-10
-15

|S11| (dB)
-20
-20
|S11| (dB)

-25

-30
-30
-35

-40
-40
2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16
(c)
Frequency (GHz)
-50
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17
Frequency (GHz) Fig. 3. Measured and computed |S11| values for metamaterial
Fig. 2. Parametric studies by varying the (a) length L3, (b) antenna.
length GL3 and (c) gap GL4.

computed return loss curves of the proposed antenna and

the reference metamaterial antenna are obtained and shown
in Fig. 2(a). As seen, the -10 dB impedance bandwidth of
the reference antenna is 3.2 GHz (between 5.3 and
8.5 GHz), which serves as a benchmark for the improved
designs. Fig. 2(a) illustrates that the length of the slots L3
has a great impact on the bandwidth. When the proposed
antenna is designed to have the L3 = 1 mm length of the
slots at the top, the -10 dB bandwidth falls within 3.85 and
16.15 GHz, which is 12.25 GHz in bandwidth and is
3.82 times wider than the initial antenna. When the L3
becomes 1.2 mm, the -10 dB bandwidth turns within 3.8
and 14.45 GHz, which is 10.65 GHz in bandwidth, and is
3.32 times wider than the initial antenna. So the optimum
value of the gap is L3 = 1 mm. Fig. 2(b) and (c) illustrate
responses of reflection coefficients with different GL3 and
GL4. It is clearly seen that the frequency range is not sen-
sitive to these two parameters. When the values of GL3 and
GL4 increase, the frequency ranges remain unchanged.
Note that other parameters such as W6 or GL2 have the
similar conclusions as GL3 and GL4, but will not be shown
here for brevity. Therefore this microstrip antenna has
a high manufacturing tolerance. Compared with the initial
antenna, the bandwidth of this proposed antenna is very
wider. The reason is the increase of current paths on the
ground.

4. Results and Discussion

To verify the accuracy of design, the proposed an-
tenna is then fabricated and measured. Fig. 1 (b) shows the
photograph of the fabricated antenna prototype. Fig. 3
shows the measured and simulated return loss characteris-
tics of the proposed antenna. The fabricated antenna has
the frequency band of 3.85 to over 15.62 GHz. It can be
seen that the simulated and measured results are in good
agreements. The small discrepancies from 15.62 GHz on-
ward between the simulated and measured results could be
attributed to the fabrication tolerances of L3. Generally
speaking, in order to confirm the accurate return loss char-
acteristics for the designed antenna, it is recommended that
the manufacturing and measurement process need to be Fig. 4. Simulated current distributions for the proposed
performed carefully. antenna at: (a) 5.5 GHz, (b) 9.5 GHz, (c) 13.5 GHz.
996 HAN XIONG, JING-SONG HONG, YUE-HONG PENG, IMPEDANCE BANDWIDTH AND GAIN IMPROVEMENT FOR MICROSTRIP…

To better understand the behavior of the antenna, the To further verify the results, the measured co-polari-
simulated current distributions of the radiating element at zation and cross-polarization radiation patterns are plotted
5.5, 9.5 and 13.5 GHz are presented in Fig. 4(a), 4(b) and in two-dimensional in Fig. 5, respectively. Seen from the
4(c), respectively. It can be observed in Fig. 4 (a) that the 2D patterns at both of these picked frequencies, the radi-
current concentrated on the edge of the right, and then as ated energy is mainly focused around 260° direction in the
frequency increases, more and more current concentrated x-y plane. So we may make use of this special characteris-
on the top of the patch. As a result, the radiation patterns tic to transmit signal using the antenna as a directional one
will gradually close to the -y direction. for beam control.

0
10 0
330 30 co-pol 10
330 30 co-pol
cross-pol
0 cross-pol
0
-10
300 60 -10
300 60
-20
-20
-30
-30
-40
270 90
dB

-40 -40 270 90

dB
-30 -30

-20 -20
240 120 240 120
-10 -10

0 0
210 150
(a) 10 10
210 150
180 180

0
0 10 co-pol
330 30
20 cross-pol
330 30 co-pol
10 cross-pol 0

0 300 60
300 60 -10
-10
-20 -20
-30
-30 270 90
dB

-40 270 90
dB

-30 -20
-20
-10 -10
240 120 240 120
0
0
10
(b) 210 150
10
210 150
20
180 180

0
10 0
330 30 co-pol
cross-pol 330 30 co-pol
0 10 cross-pol

-10 0
300 60
300 60
-20 -10
-30
-20
-40 270 90
dB

-30 270 90
dB

-30
-20
-20
240 120 -10
-10 240 120
0
0
(c) 210 150
10 10
210 150
180
180

Fig. 5. Measured radiation patterns of co-polarization (solid line) and cross-polarization (dotted line) at different frequencies.
(a) 5.5 GHz: x-y-plane; yz plane. (b) 9.5 GHz: xy plane; yz plane. (c) 13.5 GHz: xy plane; yz plane.

The measured gain of the proposed metamaterial the frequency of 13.5 GHz. Compared with the initial
rectangular patch antenna at various frequencies is shown antenna, the average gain of the proposed antenna
in Fig. 6. As shown in the figure, the average gain is improved about 1.4 dB and the peak gain improved
5.42 dB and the maximum achievable gain is 8.36 dB at 1.16 dB.
RADIOENGINEERING, VOL. 21, NO. 4, DECEMBER 2012 997

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This work was supported by the National Natural Sci- als loading. Acta Phys. Sin., 2010, vol. 59, no. 5, p. 3173-3178 (in
ence Foundation of China (No.61172115 and No.608720 Chinese).
29), the High-Tech Research and Development Program of
China (No. 2008AA01Z206), the Aeronautics Founda-
tion of China (No.20100180003), and the Fundamental About Authors ...
Research Funds for the Central Universities (No.ZYGX
2009J037). Han XIONG was born in HuBei. He received his M.Sc.
degree from Yunnan Normal University in 2010. He is
a doctor in Radio Physics in the University of Electronic
Science and Technology of China now. Her research inter-
ests include antenna technology and metamaterials.
References Jing-Song HONG received the B.Sc. degree in Electro-
magnetics from Lanzhou University, China, in 1991, and
[1] SCHANTZ, H. The Art and Science of Ultrawideband Antennas.
Boston: Artech House, 2005.
the M.Sc. and Ph. D. degrees in Electrical Engineering
from the University of Electronic Science and Technology
[2] CHEN, W. L., WANG, G. M., ZHANG, C. X. Bandwidth of China (UESTC), in 2000 and 2005, respectively. He is
enhancement of a microstrip-line-fed printed wide-slot antenna
with a fractal-shaped slot. IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., 2009, now a professor with UESTC. From 1991 to 1993, he was
vol. 57, no. 7, p. 2176-2179. a Circuit Designer with the Jingjiang Radar Factory,
Chengdu, China. From 1993 to 1997, he was a Testing
[3] LAO, J., JIN, R., GENG, J., WU, Q. An ultra-wideband microstrip
elliptical slot antenna excited by a circular patch. Microwave Opt. Engineer with SAE Magnetics (HK) Ltd, Guangdong,
Technol. Lett., 2008, vol. 50, no. 4, p. 845-846. China. From 1999 to 2002, he was a Research Assistant
998 HAN XIONG, JING-SONG HONG, YUE-HONG PENG, IMPEDANCE BANDWIDTH AND GAIN IMPROVEMENT FOR MICROSTRIP…

with the City University of Hong Kong. His research Yue-Hong PENG was born in Yunnan. He received his
interest includes the use of numerical techniques in M.Sc. degree from Yunnan Normal University in 2010.
electromagnetics and the use of microwave methods for Now, he is a teacher in Chuxiong Normal University. His
materials characterization and processing. research interest is antenna technology.