©Journal of Applied Sciences & Environmental Sustainability 13 (7): 1-9, 2021

e-ISSN 2360-8013

Research Article

Design and Simulation of Compact Slotted Micro Strip Patch Antenna for Ku
Band Applications

Zainab Baba Mallam1, Ahmed Abba Haruna2, Zainab Yunusa3, Suleiman Aliyu Babale3

1
Department of Computer Science, Faculty of Science, Federal College of Education Kano. P M B 3045, Kano, Kano
State, Nigeria.
2
Department of Computer Science. College of Computer Science Engineering, University of Hafr Al Batin, Al Jamiah,
Hafar Al Batin 39524d, Saudi Arabia.
3
Department of Electrical Engineering, Bayero University Kano. P M B 0182, Kano, Kano State, Nigeria.

Corresponding author: kakazainaba@gmail.com

ARTICLE INFO Abstract

This paper presents the design of a wide band micro strip patch antenna to
Article history cater for the effective utilization of the Ku band spectrum and compact in size,
Received: 06/02/2021 which can be suitable in modern electronic devices. The proposed antenna was
Accepted: 03/03/2021 designed and simulated using the CST (computer simulation tool) microwave
studio simulation software. The micro strip patch antenna was first designed
with a conventional structure which consists of a rectangular patch resonator
Antenna, CST, Slot on Roger 5880 single layer substrate with a full ground plane. Three different
models were designed by inserting three rectangular slots of size 2.7mm x
0.54mm one at a time in order to achieve compactness and avoid antenna
performance degradation. The obtained results show that a wide operating
band of 8.08GHz, 7.19GHz and 7.71GHz was obtained when one, two, and
three slots were inserted respectively. The overall patch dimension was
reduced from 72.420 to 68.046 after the three slots were inserted.

© Journal of Applied Sciences & Environmental Sustainability.

All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
A microstrip patch antenna, MPA, is robust, small in size and can be fabricated with photolithographic
innovation. Devices such as Cell phones and satellites utilize the MPA widely as a result of its unique
attributes. Today, the MPA isn’t just utilized in communication systems but also in air transportation and
rocket application (Gangadharan et al., 2016). Moreover, MPA comprises of a conducting patch on top of a

1|Page
©Journal of Applied Sciences & Environmental Sustainability 13 (7): 1-9, 2021
e-ISSN 2360-8013

dielectric substrate which has a conducting material as its ground plane as appeared in figure 1. The
substrates height and relative permittivity decides the radiation attributes and the bandwidth of the antenna.

Figure 1: Structure of Microstrip Patch Antenna (Parmar et al., 2014)

Recently, intensive research is being conducted on the design and manufacturing techniques of microstrip
patch antennas in view of their unique qualities and they can be simply integrated with microwave
integrated circuits, ICs. Nevertheless, inherent microstrip patch antennas restraints are very slim bandwidth,
high-power, low gain, and low effectiveness. However, to eliminates associated with most MPAs,
researchers have explored and proposed numerous methods to overcome these shortcomings.

Hence, related literature studied, various techniques exist which can be utilized to improve the performance
of an MPA. Some of these techniques are increasing the substrate thickness (Paul et al., 2015), Optimized
impedance match (Elsheakh & Abdallah, 2012), reducing the dielectric constant of the substrate (A.
Srivastava & Pradhan, 2017), changing the geometry of the antenna [miniaturization] (Rakholiya &
Langhnoja, 2017), and modifying the shape of the patch (Gupta, 2017). Therefore, this paper proposed a
solitary strategy of modifying the shape of the patch by slot insertion, which was employed to accomplish
compactness as well as improve the bandwidth of the antenna for Ku band applications.

2.0 Mathematical Formulation of the Antenna

W Width of the patch

C Free space velocity of light
fr Resonant frequency
Relative permittivity of the substrate

h substrate thickness
L Actual length of the patch

In the design procedure of the basic rectangular MPA with TM010 as prevailing mode, which implies that
the field transforms one λ/2 cycle along the length, and without divergence along the width of the patch.

2|Page
©Journal of Applied Sciences & Environmental Sustainability 13 (7): 1-9, 2021
e-ISSN 2360-8013

The length of the patch ought to be less than λ/2 in order to initiate the fundamental TM 010 mode. For
efficient radiation, the width of the patch is determined using equation 1.

(1)

The patch dimensions with its length are increased on each end by a distance ΔL, given by the expression in
equation 2.

(2)

The effective relative permittivity is found using

(3)

For a given resonance frequency , the actual patch length L is determined using equation 4. as

(4)

For TM10 mode the patch may be viewed as a wide micro strip line of width W, with a resonant length L
that is around one-half wavelength of the dielectric. The most elevated estimation of current is at center of
the patch (L/2), which makes the electric field to be high at the two “radiating” edges. The length L is
generally less than the determined width W. This aids in improving the bandwidth being corresponding to
the width. The strength of the radiated field would indeed be proportional to h if the modal amplitude were
constant. Nonetheless, the h of the cavity increases as Q decreases (the radiation Q is inversely proportional
to h).

2.1 Design of the Proposed Antenna

3|Page
©Journal of Applied Sciences & Environmental Sustainability 13 (7): 1-9, 2021
e-ISSN 2360-8013

This paper proposed and design a microstrip patch antennas based on equations 1 to 4 of the transmission
and the cavity model of microstrip patch antenna. The substrate material utilized in the design is Roger
5880 and the dimensions of the antenna elements are tabulated in Table 1.

Table 1: Dimensions of Antenna Element

Parameters Name/Units Numerical Values

Patch Length (mm) 7.33

Patch Width (mm) 9.88

Patch Thickness (mm) 0.032

Substrate Length (mm) 16.93

Substrate Width (mm) 19.48

Substrate Thickness (mm) 1.6

Ground Length (mm) 16.93

Ground Width (mm) 19.48

Ground Thickness (mm) 0.032

However, there is need to improve the performance of the proposed antenna, for that this paper used a slot
cutting technique on the surface of patch, which in turns enhances the performance of the antenna
effectively. Moreover, there are some common slot shapes in use, such as C–shape, L–shape, T–shape, H–
shape, circular shape, and rectangular shape, etc. (Agarwal and Srivastava, 2015). Nevertheless, the length
of rectangular slot on the patch element can be determined using equation (5) where length of the

rectangular slot is and is the resonance frequency (Tomar & Kumar, 2015).

(5)

The rectangular shaped slot is designed on the surface edge of the patch element along the Y-axis (Nguyen
et al., 2010). Consequently, this enhanced the overall input impedance of the patch antenna while

decreasing its size. The antenna size is quiet small with a smallest dimension of 68.046 .The
dimension of the rectangular slot is tabulated in table 2. The figure 3 shows a multiband MPA proposed by
(Khalid Hati et al 2017). The figure 3 shows a 3 Dollar symbol patch design containing several slits and
slots of various sizes as well. A major setback to such designs is the difficulty of redesigning as well as
fabrication as a result of the various slot sizes on the patch.

4|Page
©Journal of Applied Sciences & Environmental Sustainability 13 (7): 1-9, 2021
e-ISSN 2360-8013

Table 2: Dimension of Rectangular Slot

Parameters Name/Units Numerical Values

Length (mm) 2.7

Width (mm) 0.5

Thickness (mm) 0.032

(a) (b) (c)

Figure 2: (a)Front view with 1 rectangular slot structure (b) 2 rectangular slot structure (c) 3 rectangular slot
structure

(a) (b)

Figure 3: (a) front view with 3 Dollar symbol shape patch (b) back view with a defected ground structure
(Khalid Hati et al 2017)

3.0 RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

5|Page
©Journal of Applied Sciences & Environmental Sustainability 13 (7): 1-9, 2021
e-ISSN 2360-8013

The antenna was modeled and simulated with CST design software and each proposed model was designed
with its particular physical and electrical properties. The Return Loss, Voltage Standing Wave Ratio
(VSWR), Radiation Pattern, and the gain of the antenna elements are obtained as in Figures 4 - 6.

The reflection coefficient (S11) describes the amount of power reflected back to the antenna as a result of
transmission line mismatch. It also expresses the ratio of reflected power to incident power at a particular
antenna port. An S11 has a negative value and is measured in dB. If S11 < -10dB, this means 90% of the
power excited is transmitted.

The figures 4(a), 4(b) and 4(c) show the Return Loss plots obtained for the single, double and triple slotted
models. The figure 4(d) also shows the S11 plot obtained from (Khalid Hati et al 2017). The plots 4(a-c)
show a resonated frequency values at 11.43,11.33 and 11.44GHz respectively, with return loss values of -
22.4, -20.9 and -21.8dB respectively while 4(d) resonated at 15.33, 23.23 and 31.68 GHz. The bandwidths
of the proposed antenna show wide bands of 808, 719 and 771MHz respectively as compared to the narrow
bandwidth of 220MHz obtained at the Ku band of (Khalid Hati et al 2017).

(a) (b)

(c) (d)

Figure 4: Return loss plots

6|Page
©Journal of Applied Sciences & Environmental Sustainability 13 (7): 1-9, 2021
e-ISSN 2360-8013

The VSWR is the ratio between the maximum and minimum voltages along the transmission line. The
larger the number of VSWR the greater the mismatch between the antenna and the transmission line making
the acceptable level of VSWR for remote application to be under 2. The figure 5(a), 5(b) and 5(c) show the
VSWR plot of the three patch models having VSWR values of 1.17,1.19 and 1.17 respectively while the
VSWR values of (Khalid Hati et al 2017) were kept silent.

(a) (b)

(c)

Figure 5: VSWR plots

The gain of an antenna refers to “the ratio of the power in a given direction to the power of a reference
antenna in its referenced direction” (Chaudhary et al., 2016). The figure 6(a), 6(b) and 6(c) show a 3D
radiation pattern of each model as well as the realized gain values of the proposed antenna while 6(d) shows
that of (Khalid Hati et al 2017). Good gain values of 6.52, 7.04 and 6.69dB were obtained respectively
while a gain value of only 4.5dB was obtained for the Ku band operation of (Khalid Hati et al 2017).

7|Page
©Journal of Applied Sciences & Environmental Sustainability 13 (7): 1-9, 2021
e-ISSN 2360-8013

(a) (b)

(c) (d)

Figure 6: 3D radiation pattern and Gain

The summary of the performance measure of the proposed antenna as far as gain, return loss, VSWR, and
bandwidth are summed up in the Table 3.

Table 3: Tabulated Results of Models

Design No of slot S11 (dB) VSWR Gain (dB) Bandwidth (MHz)

Model 1 1 -22.07 1.17 6.52 808

Model 2 2 -20.925 1.19 7.04 719

Model 3 3 -21.84 1.17 6.69 771

(Khalid 20 -31.00 - 4.5 220

Hati et al
2017)

8|Page
©Journal of Applied Sciences & Environmental Sustainability 13 (7): 1-9, 2021
e-ISSN 2360-8013

IV. CONCLUSION

The bandwidth of the antenna was improved by increasing the thickness and decreasing the dielectric
constant of the substrate material. The antenna geometry was changed by introducing slots one at a time in
order to achieve compactness and improve the bandwidth. The obtained outcome after simulation of the
different models shows a 6% significant size reduction with minimal degradation in the antenna
performance parameters. A maximum gain value of 7.04db was achieved when a second slot was inserted,
but at a slight expense of the bandwidth, which was reduced to 719MHz, from 808MHz previously obtained
when one slot was inserted. Additionally, a significant VSWR estimation of 1.17 was acquired with a
significant return loss value of -22.07dB in model 1. Hence, further work will include fabricating the
simulated design so as to approve the outcomes.

References
Elsheakh, D. M., & Abdallah, E. A. (2012). Different Feeding Techniques of Microstrip Patch Antennas
with Spiral Defected Ground Structure for Size Reduction and Ultra-Wide Band Operation. Journal
of Electromagnetic Analysis and Applications, 04(10), 410–418.
https://doi.org/10.4236/jemaa.2012.410056
Gangadharan, S., Sv, B., Nh, S., Sathyanarayan, P., & Kamdar, S. (2016). Journal of Aeronautics &
Aerospace Impact Analysis of Composite Repair Patches of Different Shapes at Low Velocities for
Aircraft Composite Structures. 5(4). https://doi.org/10.4172/2168-9792.1000173
Gupta, N. (2017). ENHANCEMENT OF BANDWIDTH AND GAIN OF MICROSTRIP PATCH
ANTENNA. International Research Journal of Engineering and Technology. www.irjet.net
Nguyen, M. T., Kim, B., Choo, H., & Park, I. (2010). Effects of Ground Plane Size on a Square Microstrip
Patch Antenna Designed on a Low-Permittivity Substrate with an Air Gap. 1, 2–5.
Parmar, N., Saxena, M., & Nayak, K. (2014). Review of Microstrip Patch Antenna for WLAN and WiMAX
Application. Journal of Engineering Research and Applications Www.Ijera.Com, 4(1), 168–171.
www.ijera.com
Paul, L. C., Hosain, S., Sarker, S., & Prio, M. H. (2015). The Effect of Changing Substrate Material and
Thickness on the Performance of Inset Feed Microstrip Patch Antenna The Effect of Changing
Substrate Material and Thickness on the Performance of Inset Feed Microstrip Patch Antenna.
November, 3–8. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajnc.20150403.16
Rakholiya, A. A., & Langhnoja, N. V. (2017). A review on miniaturization techniques for microstrip patch
antenna (Vol. 3, Issue 2). www.ijariie.com
Srivastava, A., & Pradhan, N. (2017). Analysis of Different Substrate Material & Frequency on Microstrip
Patch Antenna. 6(2), 73–78.
Srivastava, S., Agarwal, S., Agarwal, P., & Srivastava, S. (2015). Effect of Slots on Performance of the
Microstrip Patch Antenna. 07(01), 271–277.
Tomar, S., & Kumar, A. (2015). Design of a triple band-notched UWB planar monopole antenna. Journal
of Microwaves, Optoelectronics and Electromagnetic Applications, 14(2), 184–196.
https://doi.org/10.1590/2179-10742015v14i2514

9|Page