Microstrip Antennas

• With the microstrip antenna, l/2 is a bit too big for

consumer mobile devices
• Typically for space and military applications
• Easy to design/manufacture, yet very capable
– Good value, great for antenna arrays
• Scale is better for millimeter wave RF (60+ GHz)

SCU Center for Analog Design and Research

 Design Methodology
• Find a “comfortable” model
– Transmission Line – easiest, can be done in Excel
– Cavity – higher accuracy, higher complexity
– Full Wave – very accurate/adaptable, super complex
• Using specifications, generate initial design
– Resonance frequency, gain, substrate, footprint, etc.
• Compare with an EM solver
– Tune parameters such as ereff and DL (more details soon)
• Re-iterate design, prototype, measure
• Finalize design for manufacturing

SCU Center for Analog Design and Research

 Design Guidelines
• For microstrip antennas, a
good 1st step is to assume a
standard substrate
– like Rogers RT/duroid 5880
• Importance of er, h
• To avoid cross polarization,
keep 1 < W/L <1.5
• Rule of l/2 versus ~0.48l

SCU Center for Analog Design and Research

Footprint-Generating Equations
An initial guess at the patch width:

𝑐𝑜 2
[1] 𝑊= , 𝑐 𝑖𝑠 𝑠𝑝𝑒𝑒𝑑 𝑜𝑓 𝑙𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡
2𝑓𝑟 𝜖𝑟 + 1 𝑜

Find effective parameters:

−1 2
𝜖𝑟 + 1 𝜖𝑟 − 1 ℎ
[2] 𝜖𝑟𝑒𝑓𝑓 = + 1 + 12 ,𝑊 ℎ > 1
2 2 𝑊
𝑊
∆𝐿 𝜖𝑟𝑒𝑓𝑓 + 0.3
+ 0.264
[3] = 0.412 ℎ
ℎ 𝑊
𝜖𝑟𝑒𝑓𝑓 − 0.258 + 0.8
ℎ
Get patch length: 𝑐𝑜
[4] 𝐿 = − 2∆𝐿
2𝑓 𝜖 𝑟 𝑟𝑒𝑓𝑓

* Balanis, Constantine A. Antenna Theory: Analysis and Design. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley, 2005.

SCU Center for Analog Design and Research