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International Conference on Communication Technology and System Design 2011

Design of Wideband Circularly Polarized Capacitive fed

Microstrip Antenna
S.Murugana, V.Rajamanib, a*
a

ECE Department K.L.N.College of Engineering, Pottapalayam-630 611.Sivagangai District,Tamilnadu, INDIA

b
Indra Ganesan College of Engineering,Tiruchirappalli-620 012,Tamilnadu, INDIA

Abstract
In this paper, a wideband circularly polarized Microstrip patch antenna is proposed. It is a Microstrip square
patch, truncated in opposite corners, suspended above the ground plane. The geometry incorporates the capacitive
feed strip which is fed by a coaxial probe. The proposed structure is designed at centre frequency of 1.375GHz and
simulated using ANSOFT HFSS. The Impedance bandwidth (Return loss < -10dB) is 32% at the design frequency of
1.375GHz, ranging from 1.15GHZ -1.6 GHz is obtained The 3dB axial ratio Bandwidth( AR BW) is from
1.26-1.49 GHz i.e., 16% at the centre frequency of 1.375 GHz. The performance of the antenna is discussed using
parameters such as Return loss, axial ratio and radiation pattern.

2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of ICCTSD 2011
Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.

Keywords:Wideband; Circularly polarised antenna; Axial ratio; Return loss; Radiation pattern.

1 .Introduction
In recent years, Circularly Polarized (CP) planar antennas have received much attention for wireless
applications. The main advantage of CP is that regardless of receiver orientation, it will receive a
component of signal. Microstrip antennas (MSA) are resonant type, possessing narrow impedance
bandwidth (BW). The applications of wireless communication such as GPS, mobile phones, satellite
communication require more BW (atleast 10%) due to integration of various services in single receiver..
The demand for Global positioning systems (GPS) has increased for portable tracking devices, mobile
phones, surveying, and navigational applications. The GPS signal is transmitted in the L1 (1.575GHz)
and L2 (1.227GHz) frequency band and it is right hand circularly polarized. Among the wide range of
* S.Murugan. Tel.: +91-0-452-209-0971.
E-mail address: murugan.s@klnce.edu.

1877-7058 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.
doi:10.1016/j.proeng.2012.01.874

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extensively studied GPS antennas, the most successful performing antennas are the Conical Spiral
antenna (CSA), the Quadrafilar helical antenna (QHA) and MSA. CSA exhibits a broad main lobe, wide
frequency band and good Front to back ratio [1]. QHA is relatively insensitive to mutual coupling effects
[2]. On the other hand, the Microstrip patches are light weight, low profile and relatively low cost but
inherently narrow band. A shorted elliptical patch antenna was designed to operate in the GPS L1
frequency band [3]. Subsequently, in order to cover the two frequencies of GPS L1 and L2, a stacked
shorted annular elliptical patch antenna was designed [4]. A miniature QFHA was designed to operate
single frequency L1 band [5]. The all previously, mentioned antennas are Circularly Polarized (CP)
antennas.
With future introduction of modern GPS antenna and GALILEO by the year 2012, several more
frequencies and signals will be available that will improve the present high accuracy GPS capabilities.
Modern GPS will have L1, L2 and an additional third frequency L5 (1176.45 GHz) with 20 MHz
bandwidth. GALILEO will feature five frequencies E1=1589.742GHz (4MHz BW), E2= 1561.098 MHz
(4MHz BW), E5a= L5=1176.45 MHz, E5b= 1207.12 MHz (with 24 MHz bandwidth for the whole E5)
and E6=1278.75 MHz (40MHz BW). Hence, future GNSS (Global navigation satellite system) high
accuracy antennas will need to receive L band signals within a large band between 1.15 GHz to 1.6GHz.
The present dual frequency/triple frequency antennas are inadequate for future GPS applications. A Low
profile Linearly Polarised 3D Planar Inverted F antenna (PIFA) for handheld GPS terminals was designed
in [6]. It provided high gain, wide beam radiation pattern but linear polarization. A Low profile wideband
GPS antenna, covering the frequency range from 1.15GHz -1.6GHz, with corrugated and Non-corrugated
ground planes was discussed in [7]. It was also CP radiator using Choked ring as actual radiator.
Several techniques were found in the literature to improve the bandwidth of MSA. Thicker substrates
with low dielectric constant give broad bandwidth [8]. The Bandwidth of MSA shall also be improved by
adding the impedance matching networks, stubs by compensating the reactance part of the input
impedance of MSA. But the disadvantage is that adding extra component to the circuit increases the
complexity of the structure and also, occupying more space. Alternatively, suspended MSA configuration
with capacitive feeding was found in the literature [9]-[11] to improve the bandwidth of MSA. It was
demonstrated [9] that the suspended configuration with capacitive feeding increases the BW upto 50% at
centre frequency of 5.9GHz whereas; a conventional MSA exhibits only 1-5% BW. The rectangular
patch is used as radiating element in [9]. A triangular shape radiating patch with capacitive feed was
discussed in [10]. Irrespective of the shape of the patch this technique increases the BW of MSA. The
increase in operating frequency increases the percentage of fractional BW and vice-versa eg) for 2 GHz
operating frequency, the fractional obtained was 42% and for 10 GHz, the BW was 58.2% in [9].
In general, a few methods for obtaining wideband circular polarization in Microstrip antenna are (i)
coplanar capacitive fed fractal Microstrip antenna was presented to produce wide band circularly
polarized beam, an axial ratio BW of 7% was reported in [12] (ii) by using crossed slot in the square
patch , an impedance BW of 19% and AR BW of 13% was reported in [13 ] (ii) by using parasitic loop
antenna inside the original loop [14] , AR BW of 16% was obtained (iii) by using Dielectric Resonator
Antenna(DRA) excited by square spiral strip, an impedance BW of 11% and AR BW of 13% was
reported in [15].
In this paper, a wide band circularly polarized truncated square Microstrip antenna with capacitive
feeding is designed and simulated. The paper is organized as follows: Section 2 covers the Design
methodology, Section 3 presents the Simulation results and Section 4 concludes the paper.

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2. Design Methodology
For Optimal GPS signal reception, the antenna is required to have a near hemispherical radiation
pattern for the upper hemisphere. The radiation pattern variation over the main beam needs to be <= 6-8
dB to obtain good coverage of signal from GPS satellites. The GPS signal received by the antenna is very
weak; the antenna needs good impedance matching. Also, future GNSS will require operation in a wide
bandwidth. The required frequency range is between 1.15GHz and 1.6 GHz. The centre frequency of
operation is chosen as 1.375 GHz. The required fractional BW is 32% at centre frequency 1.375GHz,
calculated by the formula given below (1)
Fractional BW = (f2-f1/fo)*100

(1)

Where, f2 = upper frequency limit=1.6GHz

f1 =lower frequency limit =1.15GHz and
fo =centre frequency=1.375GHz
The Microstrip antenna is generally fed by coaxial probe, microstrip line feeding, aperture coupling
method and electromagnetic coupling. The recent method is capacitive feeding. A small feed patch is
placed very close to the actual radiating patch. The feed patch is excited by coaxial probe and the energy
from the feed patch is electromagnetically coupled to the radiating patch. This method is advantageous
because it compensates the reactance produced by the inductance of the probe feeding and better
impedance matching at desired frequencies. The top view and side view of the proposed truncated square
patch antenna design is shown in Figure 1(a) and (b) respectively.

Fig 1. (a) Top view (b) Cross sectional view of the square patch antenna with capacitive probe feed

The size of the square patch is originally 70mm. To achieve the circular polarization at centre
frequency, the square patch is truncated in the two opposite corners with a square of 25mm size as shown
in Figure 1. The truncated square patch is fed with a small coplanar rectangular capacitive feed placed

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very close to the radiator on a substrate. This is basically a suspended coplanar capacitive fed Microstrip
antenna. Both radiating patch and the feed strip are etched on the same dielectric substrate. The substrate
and ground plane are separated by an air gap with height (g). The antenna is excited by connecting a
coaxial probe to the feed strip by a long pin SMA connector. The feed strip electromagnetically couples
the energy to the radiating patch element. The key design parameters of the above antenna include air
gap (g), separation between radiator strip and feed strip (d), and length (t) and width(s) of feed strip. The
substrate used for antenna fabrication is FR4 substrate with dielectric constant 4.4 and thickness 2mm.
The antenna was designed to operate with a center frequency of 1.375 GHz. The radiator patch
dimensions can be calculated from standard design expressions found in [10, 11] after making necessary
corrections for the suspended (g+h) dielectric. All parameters are optimized using High Frequency
Simulation Software (HFSS), which is Finite element method based Electromagnetic software.
W = 1/2fr00 2/r+1

(2)

reff = (r+1)/2+ (r -1)/2[1+12 h/W]-

(3)

L/h= 0.412 (reff +0.3) (W/h+0.264)/ (reff -0.258) (W/h+08)

(4)

Leff =1/2fr reff 00

(5)

L = Leff -2 L

(6)

The equivalent dielectric constant for the above air-dielectric geometry antenna is calculated by,
eq = r (h+g) / (r g +h)

(7)

In all the above equations (2)-(6), the dimensions are found by replacing the r value by eq. Use of airgap enhances the bandwidth without increasing the lateral size and complexity of the antenna too much. It
has been shown that impedance bandwidth of an antenna may be maximized by the design expressions
[16]
(8)
g=0.16 0 h r
Where, g =height of Air gap
h= thickness of the substrate
r = relative permittivity of the dielectric
reff = effective dielectric constant
L/h=Normalized line extension
eq = equivalent dielectric constant for air-dielectric geometry
W= width of the radiating patch
L= Length of the radiating patch
Leff= Effective length
0 = wavelength
The minimum possible width of the feed strip is 2.4mm so that a hole can be made to connect the
probe pin. The minimum separation between the patch and the feed strip is 0.5mm. The size of the feed
patch (t ands) and the gap between the two patches are varied to adjust the input impedance. The feed

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patch dimensions are optimized for better performance. The final dimensions of the proposed antenna are
shown in Table 1 below
Table 1 Dimensions for the antenna designed at 1.375 GHZ
Parameter

Value

Size of original square patch

70mm

Size of the truncated corner square

25mm

Length of the feed strip, s

12 mm

Width of the feed strip, t

2.4 mm

Separation of feed strip from patch

0.5mm

Air gap, g

16.0mm

Substrate thickness, h

2 mm

Dielectric constant

4.4

3. Simulation results and Discussion

The simulation results for parameters such as return loss (dB), radiation pattern ,input impedance and
axial ratio as a function of frequency are presented in Fig 2-Fig 5
XY Plot 7

Ansoft Corporation

HFSSDesign1

-5.00

Curve Info

-10.00

Name

m1

1.3750

-27.1316

m2

1.2200

-14.3792

m3

1.5750

-11.0773

dB(St(pin_T1,pin_T1))
Setup1 : Sw eep1

m3

dB(St(pin_T1,pin_T1))

m2

-15.00

-20.00

-25.00
m1

-30.00
1.00

1.20

1.40

Freq [GHz]

1.60

Fig 2 Return loss Vs Frequency

1.80

2.00

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Radiation Pattern 5

Ansoft Corporation

HFSSDesign1
Curve Inf o

0
-30

dB(GainTotal)
Setup1 : LastAdaptive
Phi='0deg'

30
1.60

dB(GainTotal)
Setup1 : LastAdaptive
Phi='90deg'

0.20
-60

60
-1.20

-2.60

-90

90

-120

120

-150

150
-180

Fig 3 Radiation pattern in the principal planes (=0 and =90)

Smith Plot 1

Ansoft Corporation

130

90
1.00

100

110

80

HFSSDesign1
Curve Inf o

70

120

60

0.50

2.00

St(pin_T1,pin_T1)
Setup1 : Sw eep1

50

140

40

150
160

Name

Freq

Ang

Mag

RX

m1

1.2950

-81.0688

0.1186

1.0089 - 0.2397i

m4

1.2350

-84.5855

0.1779

0.9702 - 0.3549i

m9

1.5050

33.7316

0.1974

1.3523 + 0.3085i

0.20

30
20

5.00

170

10
m9

180

0.20

-0.00
0.00

0.50

1.00

2.00

5.00

m1
m4

-170
-160

-10

-0.20

-5.00

-150

-20

-30
-140

-40
-130

-0.50

-2.00

-120

-50

-60
-110

-1.00
-90

-100

-80

-70

Fig 4 Normalized Input Impedance Vs frequency

XY Plot 8

Ansoft Corporation

HFSSDesign1

12.00

Curve Inf o
dB(AxialRatioValue)
Setup1 : Sw eep1

10.00

Name

m1

1.4900

2.9682

m2

1.2650

3.0861

m3

1.3750

0.0310

dB(AxialRatioValue)

8.00

6.00

4.00
m2

m1

2.00

m3

0.00
1.00

1.20

Fig 5 Axial ratio Vs frequency

1.40

Freq [GHz]

1.60

1.80

2.00

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Fig 2 shows the Return loss variation with respect to frequency of the antenna. The minimum return
loss for satisfactory operation of antenna is -10dB. It shows wide impedance BW starting from 1.15 to 1.6
GHz. ie, 0.45 GHz (Fig 3). The percentage BW is 32% at centre frequency 1.375 GHz. This value
satisfies our required BW for covering L1, L2 and L5 frequencies of operation. Fig 3 shows the radiation
pattern of wide band GPS antenna. The radiation pattern show a hemispherical radiation pattern in both
the principal planes =0 and =90. The Gain value is 2.1dB in the bore-sight axis of the antenna. The
gain variation over the main lobe is around 5 dB .Also there is no side lobes or minor lobes present in the
pattern.
Fig 4 shows the input impedance of the designed antenna. The coaxial cable has normally a
characteristic impedance of 50. In the simulation, characteristic impedance of 50 is taken for
impedance matching. At resonance, the input impedance of the antenna should have only real part and
negligible imaginary part. The impedance curve is inside the unity circle, crossing the circle at 1.3GHz.
Hence the designed antenna satisfies the impedance matching condition. Fig 5 shows the axial ratio
performance of antenna. A circularly polarized antenna should have an axial ratio of less than 3dB at the
design frequency. In this design, the axial ratio is less than 3db between 1.265 GHz and 1.49GHz i.e.,
225MHz. The Axial ratio BW is 16% with respect to design frequency of 1.375GHz. At 1.375GHz, axial
ratio attains a minimum value of 0.031dB.It confirms the circular polarization property at the design
frequency.
3.1 Effect of varying size of truncated square patch
Initially, the truncated square is kept as 20mm and gradually it is increased to 25mm, 30mm and
simulations were repeated by keeping other parameters constant. The results are summarized in Table 2.
Table 2 summary of the results for varying truncated square patch size
Truncated
square size
20mm

Resonant frequency/
Return loss
1.26GHz/25.7dB

Impedance BW

Gain

Minimum Axial

(< -10dB )

(dB)

ratio/Frequency

2.9dB

4.2 dB/1.395GHz

2.1 dB

0.031dB/1.375GHz

0.8dB

3.6dB/1.30GHz

1.10-1.76GHz
(0.66GHz)

25mm
30mm

1.375GHz/

1.15-1.6 GHz

-27dB

(0.45GHz)

1.43GHz/

1.25-1.62GHz

-25.4dB

(0.37GHz)

The increase in size of truncated square patch causes (from Table 2)

(i) Shifts the resonant frequency from lower value to higher value
(ii) Decrease in Impedance BW
(iii) Decrease in Gain of radiation pattern in the bore sight axis
(iv) Axial ratio value shifts from high resonant frequency to low resonant frequency.
4. Conclusion
Hence, a novel wideband circularly polarized antenna is designed and simulated at 1.375GHz. The
truncated square MSA suspended over the ground plane with capacitive feed offers better impedance BW
(Return loss <-10dB) in the frequency range 1.15 -1.6GHz. Also, the circular polarization is obtained in
the frequency range 1.26 -1.49GHz i.e., 3dB axial ratio BW of 225MHz. Since, this design approach

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provides enough freedom to the antenna engineer to tune any frequency range by varying the air gap, gap
between feed strip and patch, dimensions of feed strip and truncating square size. Also, it radiates in the
upper hemisphere of antenna, which is the requirement for a CP receiving antenna. Hence, this antenna
may be suitable for wideband circularly polarized receiving antenna applications.
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