Wire antenna Aperture antenna Planar antenna

Overview of microstrip patch antennas

• Also called “patch antenna”, they are one of the most useful antennas at microwave frequencies ( 1 GHz).
Invented by Bob Munson in 1972 (but earlier work by Dechamps goes back to 1953). It became popular starting
in the 1970s. In the current age of wireless telecommunication, they have become indispensable to the human
civilization, and we are right now literally surrounded by patch antennas and their derivatives.
…. users of mobile devices
Taotronics demand more and more
Bluetooth functionality, requiring designers
Speaker to pack in more and more
[model antennas. For example,
number
TT-SK09] Samsung’s Galaxy S8 includes
antennas for Bluetooth, GPS, Wi-
Fi, and NFC communications, as
well as at least four LTE cellular
Bluetooth receiver circuitry
antennas; used together, they
support gigabit speed data
Trace transfers.
antenna:
planar In the Apple Watch, the group of
microstrip antennas [removed] includes Wi-
antenna Fi, Bluetooth, and GPS; newer
[S. Hu and D. Tanner] models include LTE cellular.
Planar transmission lines

• Planar (2.5D, thickness is minimal compared to cross-section) transmission lines are the most common (can be
mass-produced) transmission lines for high-speed digital, RF, and microwave circuits.

• Planar transmission lines can be striplines, microstrip lines, slotlines, coplanar striplines, or parallel-plate
waveguides, coplanar waveguides, etc. Here, in this lecture, we will only focus on microstrip line, which is the
most used waveguide type in microwave integrated circuits.

planar
copper
trace
Microstrip line

• Microstrip lines are composed of the bottom ground plane, the dielectric layer, and the top conductor.

• They feature zero cut-off frequency (works even for DC) of the fundamental “quasi-TEM” mode.

ground plane If the dielectric substrate were not present , we

Y would have a two-wire line consisting of a flat strip
conductor over a ground plane, embedded in a
homogeneous medium (air). This would constitute a
X simple TEM transmission. However, due to non-
Z microstrip line homogeneity of the cross-section, a perfect TEM is
not feasible. Instead, its near-to-TEM or “quasi-TEM”

∆ϕ
90° 180° 270° 360°

𝑦 E-field H-field
-plane E-field along waveguide propagation axis:
side-view of -plane ()
𝑥 (waveguide cross-section)
min max
Microstrip line….impedance and wave propagation
• cross-section geometry defines impedance and wave propagation : basic property of waveguides
• firstly, the effective dielectric constant (combination of air of , and substrate of ) of a microstrip line is given
approximately by
𝑤 ε 𝑟 =1
• secondly, the characteristics impedance is h ε 𝑟 , tan 𝛿

at high frequency, large

• a wide line would concentrate the fields in the substrate and so increase the parallel-plate capacitance (area of
the plate), thereby decreasing the characteristic impedance. Conversely, a thin line leads to increased current
density, resulting in large inductance and ultimately increasing the characteristic impedance,
• finally, phase velocity
Microstrip line …. attenuation

• Attenuation constant due to dielectric loss in the

substrate:

• Attenuation constant due to conductor loss in the

metal:

[Advanced Millimeter-Wave Technologies]

• Note that total attenuation ,

• and, never forget that 1 Np = 8.68 dB.

• Conductor loss is dominant over dielectric loss and

increases significantly with frequency, surface
roughness, uniformity in the strip-profile, etc.

…. at 100 GHz, a 1.5 cm line will reduce the signal strength by 50%
Rectangular microstrip patch antenna: electric fields

• Let’s start with the most generic case of a rectangular patch antenna fed by a microstrip line …..
𝑧 fringing electric fields from the ends of the rectangular patch
𝑤𝑓 𝑦
𝑥𝑤 𝑧
𝑡 𝑙 𝑥 patch

h 𝑡 h
open circuit at : maximum magnitude of E-fields

horizontal components of fringing E-fields superimpose with each other to

𝑦 create radiation perpendicular to the patch surface, i.e., axis in this case, with
open
short 𝑥 circuit
E-field polarized along length of the patch, meaning axis in this case
circuit
open
circuit
𝑙 λ /2 ^
𝐸𝑟𝑎𝑑 𝑥
electric fields intensity at plane

𝑧
𝑥
𝑥=+𝑙 / 2

𝑥=−𝑙 / 2 vertical components of fringing E-fields from both ends cancel each other
Rectangular microstrip patch antenna: magnetic fields and currents

• What about magnetic fields and surface conduction current? …. there is a virtual short circuit at the exact center
of the patch along its length, meaning both magnetic fields and currents will be maximum there…

magnetic field intensity

𝑥=0 goes to zero at the
𝑦 edges of the patch, i.e., 𝑦
open
short 𝑥 circuit
at
𝑧 𝑥
circuit
open
magnetic field radiated
circuit
from the patch is parallel
𝑙 λ /2
to the width of the patch,
magnetic field intensity with maximum
magnitude at center of the patch 𝑦
𝑧 𝑥
• Till now, it has been established that
radiated electric fields are polarized along length of the patch,
note that length is defined as direction of microstrip line feed or more
definitively along the direction of induced surface current,
radiated magnetic fields are polarized along width of the patch,
width is designated to the side of the rectangular patch that perpendicular 𝑧
𝐸 𝑙 𝑥
to the induced surface current,
radiation, i.e., pointing vector, is perpendicular to the surface of the patch. 𝐻 𝑤 𝑦
Rectangular microstrip patch antenna: radiation pattern The E-plane pattern tends
to zero at the horizon with
• How does the radiation pattern in the far-field region look like? infinite ground.

𝑦 𝑧 𝜃
E-plane pattern
𝑦 𝑧 ⃗ 𝜙
𝐻 𝑥 of normalized
𝑥 radiation
𝑤 intensity

𝑙 ⃗
𝐸
finite groundplane
infinite groundplane

In the current definition of the coordinate system:

radiation happens along the axis

electric field is polarized along axis H-plane pattern
thus, plane is the E-plane with component of electric field of normalized
radiation
intensity
again,
radiation happens along the axis
magnetic field is polarized along axis
thus, plane is the H-plane with component of magnetic field [D. R. Jackson]
Transmission line model of rectangular patch antenna

• The TL-model is the simplest of all, representing the rectangular patch as a parallel-plate transmission (patch as
top plate and groundplane as bottom plate with a fixed height non-conducting dielectric substrate) with two
radiating slots along the length of the patch and two non-radiating slots along the width of the patch:
𝑙 𝑒> 𝑙
𝑧
𝑦 𝑥 𝑙
𝑤 h 𝑧
𝑙 𝑥
radiating slot

• The slots represent very high-impedance terminations on both sides of the transmission
line (almost an open circuit). Thus, the patch (a finite length transmission) has highly
resonant characteristics depending crucially on its length . The resonant length of the
𝐸 𝑧 𝑠𝑖𝑛
( )
𝜋
𝑙𝑒
𝑥

patch, however, is not exactly equal to the physical length due to the fringing effect. The
fringing effect makes the effective electrical length of the patch longer than its physical
length, , where
Resonance frequency of rectangular patch antenna
• Now, the two radiating slots are open-circuit terminations which are electrically separated by a distance of ,
meaning

λ
2 …. for the fundamental mode, (see the single
half-cycle variation along the length of the patch
in the adjacent diagram), and now the
open-circuit resonance frequency can be formulated as:
𝑤
open-circuit

E-field distribution in the here, is the velocity of wave propagation in the substrate, whereas
fundamental mode refers to speed of wave propagation in free space
• The above formulation gives the design rule for calculating the resonant length of a rectangular patch antenna
operating in its fundamental mode. Note that there is no field variation along the width of the patch, which
theoretically implies that the width of the patch will not affect the resonance frequency. However, it affects
radiation efficiency (discussed later). A good rule of thumb for the width of rectangular patch antenna is
Equivalent circuit of rectangular patch antenna

• So, as far discussion till now, the patch is a transmission line of length , with its open-ends radiating.
Amalgamating all these attributes, one can judiciously frame a circuit equivalence as:
radiating open-circuit edges with
strong fringing electric fields • the capacitance represents the
𝐶 𝑅 𝑅 𝐶 fringing E-fields between the
𝑤 patch and the groundplane

h 𝑙
𝑙

• the loss of power in the form of electromagnetic radiation leads to

• note both the formulas for R and C are analytical and works well only when . More accurate results for R and C
can be obtained through alternative but more complex circuit modelling, which is beyond the scope of the current
academic curriculum.

• The transmission line equivalent of the patch features a propagation constant and characteristic impedance , all
of which can be calculated in accordance with formulations of microstrip line.
 Resonant input impedance of rectangular patch antenna

• At resonance conditions, any possible reactive element of the circuit will vanish, and the input impedance
becomes totally real. On that pretext, let’s calculate the input impedance: 𝑍 𝑖𝑛 2 𝑍 𝑖𝑛 2

𝑍 𝑖𝑛 𝐶
microstrip feedline 𝑍 𝑖𝑛 1 𝐶
microstrip feedline 𝑅 𝑅

𝑍 𝑖𝑛
𝑥=0 𝑥=𝑙
𝑥=0 𝑥=𝑙
• from the transmission line equivalence of the patch

• forThus,
simplicity, let’s assume the line is lossless, i.e., at the resonance of the patch,
at the resonance any possible reactance will be compensated for, meaning,

• In reality, there is some mutual influence between the two edges, described by a mutual conductance and it should
be included for more accurate calculations. However, its magnitude is very small, and is hence, ignored here.
Input resistance of rectangular patch antenna

• At a generic level, the resistance of the open-circuit radiating edges of a typical rectangular patch is around 200 to
300 Ohms, meaning .
short open short open
open open
circuit circuit circuit circuit
circuit circuit
50 50
microstrip microstrip
feedline feedline
𝑅𝑖𝑛 (0) 𝑅𝑖𝑛 ( 𝑥𝑚 )

𝑥 =0 𝑥 =𝑙 / 2 𝑥 = 𝑙 𝑥 = 𝑥𝑚 𝑥 =𝑙 / 2 𝑥 = 𝑙

direct inset
feed feed

| |
2
E-field 𝑃 𝑟𝑒𝑓 𝑍 𝑖𝑛 ( 𝑥 ) − 50
( 𝜋𝑥
)
2
𝑅𝑖𝑛 ( 𝑥 )= 𝑅 𝑖𝑛 ( 0)𝑐𝑜𝑠 2 =|𝛤 | =
𝑙 𝑃 𝑖𝑛 𝑍 𝑖𝑛 ( 𝑥 ) +50
H-field
Coaxial feeding of patch antennas

• At the resonance of the patch, , an open-end coaxial connector of standard characteristic impedance , can be
directly probed to the patch with a perfect impedance match at an optimized location such that

[D. C. Nascimento and J. C. da S. Lacava]

length of the patch
𝑥=𝑥 𝑝 width of the patch
𝑥=𝑥 𝑝
position of coaxial probe
thickness of substrate
𝑥=0 𝑥 =𝑙 dielectric constant of substrate
loss tangent of substrate

microstrip ground and

coax-ground are
soldered together 50 open-
• Advantages: end coaxial
Simple probe

impedance at

|Γ|( dB)
Directly compatible with coaxial cables
Easy to obtain input match by adjusting the feed position

• Disadvantages:
Significant probe (feed) radiation for thicker substrates
Significant probe inductance for thicker substrates (limits bandwidth)
Not easily compatible with arrays Frequency
Aperture-coupled patch antennas

• In aperture coupling (no contact) the microstrip feed line and radiating patch are on both sides of the ground
plane with the coupling slot (no metal) being realized in the metallic ground plane.
𝑙 rectangular
patch slot

patch
𝑙
substrate short-circuit: maximum current λ /4 open-circuit: zero current

ground
plane
𝑙/2 𝑙/2
microstrip line
substrate
inductive coupling across the
microstrip rectangular slot
line
λ /4 𝑍0 λ /4
Advantages:
• Allows for planar feeding. Disadvantages:
• Feed-line radiation is isolated from patch radiation. • Requires multilayer fabrication.
• Higher bandwidth is possible by using a thick substrate. • Alignment is important for input match.
• Allows for the use of different substrates to optimize antenna and feed-circuit performance.
Starlink: the next-generation internet provider

• Technologically, beaming internet data to a remote area from outer space is insane … making it even crazier is
that the satellites are actually moving at 27 to 28,000 km/h. But SpaceX using over 4,000 Starlink satellites (as of
May 2023, with the final figure possibly reaching 10,000+ in upcoming years) in Low Earth Orbit has made this
possible … it is really an iconic achievement of engineering and technology. To see if the service is already
available in your region, visit Starlink.com. As of now, in India, its regulatory approval is pending.

• But why are we discussing it here? Because its receiver in the dish antenna consists of an aperture-coupled
patch antenna we just discussed !! …. to be exact, it is a dual-polarized, dual-frequency, multi-layered, multi-
element, aperture-coupled, patch antenna phased array design for beamforming at around 12 GHz.

1.28 mm
1280
patch
antenna 1.15 mm
elements,
each
beamforming controlled
by a chip
form the
dish
https://www.bunnieabc.com/posts/starlink-internet-future-of-high-speed-connection-in-remote-areas/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qs2QcycggWU
Patch antenna array

𝑙=30 𝑚𝑚 𝑓 𝑟 =2.4 𝐺𝐻𝑧

𝑙

[D. E. Anagnostou]
[D. R. Jackson]
…this is ECN-333

… coax-connector
microstrip line inset-fed 1D array corporate feeding of 2D array flexible patch antenna array

[IBM Research]

[ALCAN]

77 GHz patch antenna array for automotive radar mmWave beamforming IC module with patch antenna array
Power budget rectangular patch antenna

• Consider a rectangular patch antenna with an input power . How much of it can get radiated ? Let's start with
principle of energy conservation:
𝑃 𝑖𝑛 =𝑃 𝑟𝑒𝑓 + 𝑃 𝑂h𝑚 + 𝑃 𝑑𝑖𝑒𝑙 + 𝑃 𝑠𝑤 + 𝑃 𝑟𝑎𝑑
𝑃 𝑠𝑤 𝑃 𝑑𝑖𝑒𝑙 reflected Ohmic power dielectric power surface waves radiated
𝑃 𝑜h𝑚 power back to dissipated as loss dissipated as excited in the power
input due to heat due to heat due to loss substate due to
𝑃 𝑟𝑒𝑓 impedance conduction tangent of fringing fields
mismatch loss in metal dielectric substrate from the patch
𝑃 𝑖𝑛 Port 1
• Firstly, one must ensure a minimal input reflection loss through proper input
impedance matching.

• Next, conductor and dielectric loss are more important for thinner substrates. Due to the skin effect, conductor
loss increases with frequency (proportional to ). It can be very serious at higher frequencies. Conductor loss is
usually more important than dielectric loss for typical substrate thicknesses and nominal loss tangents.

• Surface-wave power (guided power along the grounded substrate … a comprehensive discussion on this topic is
beyond the scope of the current syllabus) is more important for thicker substrates or for substrate with higher
permittivity. The surface-wave power can be minimized using a thin or foam substrate.
Radiation efficiency, bandwidth, and directivity of rectangular patch antenna …. response of the antenna
shown in the previous slide
• From discussions till now, it can be established that antenna efficiency:
𝑃 𝑟𝑎𝑑 𝑃 𝑟𝑎𝑑 𝑓𝑟
𝑒= =
𝑃 𝑖𝑛 𝑃 𝑟𝑎𝑑 + ( 𝑃𝑟 𝑒𝑓 + 𝑃 𝑂h𝑚+ 𝑃 𝑑𝑖𝑒𝑙 + 𝑃 𝑠𝑤 )
𝑓1 𝑓2
• Bandwidth, typically in context to input matching impedance, is quantified as:

𝑓 2− 𝑓 1 … where, and are points of input reflection around the

𝐵𝑊 (−10 𝑑𝐵 )= resonance frequency as shown in the adjacent figure ...
𝑓𝑟

• For a lossless () patch, the bandwidth is approximately proportional to the patch width and to the substrate
thickness. It is inversely proportional to the substrate permittivity.
100
 = 2.2
• The directivity of a 10
2.2
80
r
rectangular patch is 8

fairly insensitive to the

DIRECTIVITY (dB)
10.8
EFFICIENCY (%)

exact
60 6

substrate thickness.
CAD
 r = 10.8
40 4
exact
CAD
20 2
• The directivity is higher
0
0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1
0
0 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05 0.06 0.07 0.08 0.09 0.1 for lower permittivity
h / 0 h / 0
because the patch is
𝑤
[Pozar] =1.5 larger.
[D. R. Jackson] 𝑙
Question 1: Design a rectangular microstrip patch antenna on a 1.6 mm thick FR-4 substrate (εr = 4.4) to operate at
16 GHz. The antenna is to be fed through a 3 mm wide microstrip line. Find the position where the feed line should
be connected if the edge impedance of the patch is given as 243 Ω. Take appropriate assumptions with valid
justifications.

𝜀𝑟 +1 𝜀𝑟 − 1 𝑥
( )
−0.5
12 h
𝜀𝑟𝑒 = + 1+
2 2 𝑤
𝑊0 𝑤
∆𝑙
( 𝜀 𝑟𝑒 + 0.3 ) ( 𝑤
h )
+ 0.264

h
= 0.412
( 𝜀 𝑟𝑒 − 0. 258 ) (
𝑤
+0. 8 )
𝑙
h

𝑤=
𝑐0
2𝑓𝑟 √ 2
𝜀 𝑟 +1 𝑍 𝑐=

{
60
√ 𝑟𝑒
𝜀
𝑙𝑛
[
8h 𝑊0 𝑊0
𝑊
120 𝜋
0
+
4 h ]
,
h
≤1

,
𝑊0
>1

[ )]
h
𝑓 𝑟=
𝑐0
2 √ 𝜀 𝑟𝑒( 𝑙+2 ∆ 𝑙)
√ 𝜀𝑟𝑒
𝑊0
h
+1.393 +0.667 𝑙𝑛 ( 𝑊0
h
+1.444

𝑅𝑖𝑛 ( 𝑥 )= 𝑅 𝑖𝑛 ( 0)𝑐𝑜𝑠 2 ( 𝜋𝑥
𝑙 )
Circular microstrip patch antenna

Design
equations
a, and h are in cm

• Circular patch antenna is analogous to a circular cavity resonator in terms of field distributions on the patch.
Question 2: Design a circular microstrip patch antenna on a substrate with a dielectric constant of 2.2 and height of
0.787 mm to operate at 10 GHz. What would be the effective electrical radius of the at the design frequency?

ae
Conclusions

• Low profile (can even be “conformal,” i.e., flexible to conform to a surface).

• Easy to fabricate (use etching and photolithography).
• Easy to feed (coaxial cable, microstrip line, etc.).
• Easy to incorporate with other microstrip circuit elements and integrate into systems.
• Patterns are somewhat hemispherical, with a moderate directivity (about 5 to 8 dB is typical).
• Easy to use in an array to increase the directivity.
• Low bandwidth (but can be improved by a variety of techniques). Bandwidths of a few percent are typical.
• Bandwidth is roughly proportional to the substrate thickness and inversely proportional to the substrate
permittivity.
• Efficiency may be lower than with other antennas. Efficiency is limited by conductor and dielectric losses, and by
surface-wave loss.
• Only used at microwave frequencies and above (the substrate becomes too large at lower frequencies).
• Cannot handle extremely large amounts of power (dielectric breakdown).
• Microstrip antennas have been a subject of ongoing research for the last 50 years, and covering more technical
aspects is impossible in an academic semester …. we stop here !! Further study needs exhaustive research.