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Design and Simulation of Planar Archimedean Spiral Antenna

Changjie Sun, Guobin Wan, Zhang Hu, and Xin Ma School of Electronic and Information, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xian 710129, China

Abstract Planar Archimedean spiral antenna is widely used with its low prole, light weight,
high eciency, circular polarization and broad bandwidth. In this paper, the eects on the electromagnetic characteristics of the planar Archimedean spiral antenna, which are owing to the changes of the diameter and the heights of the transmutative cavity and the width of the spiral, are investigated respectively. Results show that the changes of the diameter and the heights of the transmutative cavity have much inuence on the input impedance and the gain of the Archimedean spiral antenna, while the changes of the width of the spiral have much inuence on the input impedance of the Archimedean spiral antenna. 1. INTRODUCTION

Archimedean spiral antennas have received increased interest due to their wide bandwidth [1], high eciency, low prole, stable impedance characteristic and circular polarization over the last two decades. Archimedean spiral antennas have been widely used for airborne applications [2], satellite communications, wireless communications [3], UWB communications [4], radio navigations, biological medicine [5], radar and electronic counter measurements and so on. The Archimedean spiral antenna isolated in free space radiates a circularly polarized wave in two directions normal to the antenna plane. But in most applications, the unidirectional beam is needed in stead of bidirectional beam. Unidirectional beam can be obtained by backing the Archimedean spiral antenna with a conducting plane [6], a conducting cavity or an absorbing cavity [7]. In this paper, the eects on the electromagnetic characteristics of the planar Archimedean spiral antenna operating at 5 GHz7 GHz due to the changes of the diameter and the heights of the transmutative cavity [8] and the width of the spiral arm are investigated respectively. Section 1 descripts the background of the Archimedean spiral antenna and the main contents of the paper. Section 2 presents the models of the spiral radiator and the transmutative cavity, the parameters of the antenna is stated in detail. Simulation results and discussions are given in Section 3. Conclusions obtained in this paper are summarized in Section 4.
2. THE ANTENNA STRUCTURE

The spiral radiator is shown in Fig. 1, composing of two spiral arms. The spiral arm is characterized by Archimedean spiral function r = r0 + a. The transmutative cavity is adopted to obtain the
Spiral Radiator
w

Lower
W

Upper

d1

2r0

d2
D
2r0

Figure 1: Spiral radiator.

Figure 2: Transmutative cavity.

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PIERS Proceedings, Xian, China, March 2226, 2010

unidirectional beam, which is shown in Fig. 2. The parameters d1 = H / and d2 = L / H is the wavelength of the maximum operating frequency fH , L is the wavelength of the minimum operating frequency fL . In this paper, we choose r0 = 1 mm, a = 0.764, 0 rad 14 rad. In order to make the antenna operate at 57 GHz, H = 0.25L , h = 0.25H , D = 1.1L , T = 2.4 mm, W = 1.2 mm. Eects of changing one specic parameter of H , h, D and W on electromagnetic characteristics of the Archimedean spiral antenna are investigated thoroughly with keeping other parameters constant.
3. SIMULATION RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

Eects of changing D on the electromagnetic characteristics of the antenna are depicted in Fig. 3. It is seen that the magnitude of input impedance changes dramatically as D increases from 0.4L to 0.6L , but keeps nearly constant about 180 as D increases from 0.6L to 1.2L . The gaintotal at 6 GHz increases linearly to the maximum value as D increases from 0.4L to 1.1L , but drops dramatically as D changes from 1.1L to 1.2L . Figure 4 illustrate the eects of changing h on the electromagnetic characteristics of the antenna. The gures indicate that the magnitude of input impedance changes greatly as h increases from 0.05H to 0.15H , while keeps fairly stable about 180 as h increases from 0.15H to 0.35H . The gaintotal at 7 GHz increases wavily as h changes from 0.05H to 0.35H . Eects of changing H on the electromagnetic characteristics are given in Fig. 5. It is seen that the magnitude of input impedance keeps nearly constant about 180 with small uctuation as H increases from 0.20L to 0.30L , while changes greatly as H increases from 0.30L to 0.45L . The gaintotal at 5 GHz keeps nearly constant as H increases from 0.20L to 0.30L , rises greatly at rst

(a)

(b)

Figure 3: Eects of changing D on the electromagnetic characteristics. (a) Magnitude of input impedance curves. (b) Gaintotal curve.

(a)

(b)

Figure 4: Eects of changing h on the electromagnetic characteristics. (a) Magnitude of input impedance curves. (b) Gaintotal curve.

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(a)

(b)

Figure 5: Eects of changing H on the electromagnetic characteristics. (a) Magnitude of input impedance curves. (b) Gaintotal curve.

(a)

(b)

Figure 6: Eects of changing W on the electromagnetic characteristics. (a) Magnitude of input impedance curves. (b) Gaintotal curve.

and then drops dramatically as H increases from 0.30L to 0.45L . Figure 6 illustrate the eects of changing W on the electromagnetic characteristics of the antenna. It is seen clearly that the magnitude of input impedance increases as W decreases from 1.2 mm to 0.4 mm, while the gaintotal at 6 GHz keeps nearly constant as W changes from 1.2 mm to 0.4 mm.
4. CONCLUSIONS

The eects on the electromagnetic characteristics of the Archimedean spiral antenna operating at 5 GHz7 GHz due to the changes of the diameter and the heights of the transmutative cavity and the width of the spiral arm are investigated respectively. The simulation results show that input impedance is fairly inuenced by the diameter and the heights of the transmutative as well as the width of the spiral arm respectively. The gaintotal is aected by the parameters above all except the width of the spiral arm.
REFERENCES

1. Kaiser, J. A., The Archimedean two-wire spiral antenna, IRE Trans. Antennas and Propagation, Vol. 8, No. 3, 312323, 1986. 2. Schreider, L., X. Begaud, M. Soiron, and B. Perpere, Design of a broadband Archimedean spiral antenna above a thin modied Electromagnetic Band Gap substrate, Antennas and Propagation of First European Conference, 14, Paris, France, November 2006. 3. Abdul Khalid, M. F., M. A. Haron, A.Baharudin, and A. A. Sulaiman, Design of a spiral antenna for Wi-Fi applications, 2008 IEEE Internatioal RF and Microwave Conference Proceedings, 431435, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, December 24, 2008.

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4. Powell, J. and A. Chandrakasan, Spiral slot patch antenna and circular disc monopole antenna for 3.110.6 GHz ultra wideband communication, Int. Symp. Antennas and Propagation, August 2004. 5. Kwak, S. L., K. Chang, and Y. J. Yoon, Small spiral antenna for wideband capsule endoscope, Electronics Letters, Vol. 42, No. 23, 9, November 2006. 6. Nakano, H., K. Nogami, S. Arai, H. Mimaki, and J. Yamauchi, A spiral antenna backed by a conducting plane reector, IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., Vol. 34, No. 6, 725796, June 1986. 7. Corzine, R. G. and J. A. Moskl, Four-arm Spiral Antennas, Norwood, MA, Artech House, 1990. 8. Tang, W., Study and design of UWB planar spiral antenna, Masetrs thesis of Xidian University, March 2007.