International Conference on Electrical, Computer & Telecommunication Engineering (ICECTE)
8-10 December 2016, Rajshahi-6204, Bangladesh
Improvement of antenna performance using
Stacked Microstrip Patch Antennas
Md. Bappy Hossain
ETE Department
Rajshahi University of Engineering & Technology, Rajshshi
(bappyeteruet@gmail.com)
Abstract— A rectangular stacked microstrip antenna has
been designed in this paper to increase the performance of the
conventional microstrip antenna. The antenna performances
such as bandwidth, gain, directivity and return loss of the
conventional and stacked antenna have been examined using
coaxial probe feed and transmission line feed techniques. A
comparative study has been also made between these two
techniques. The antenna has been designed using Ansoft HFSS
software to operate in the C-band having resonant frequency 5.3
GHz. The bandwidth obtained from the stacked coaxial probe
feed antenna is 510MHz as compared to 190 MHz for the single
patch antenna and the bandwidth obtained from the stacked
microstrip line feed antenna is 300 MHz as compared to 260
MHz for the single patch antenna.
Keywords— Microstrip patch antenna, stacked Antenna, return
loss, bandwidth, gain, ansoft HFSS.
I. INTRODUCTION
The demand of microstrip patch antenna is increasing day
by day with the rapid growth of wireless communications
because of their advantages such as low-profile, small size,
light weight, simple and inexpensive to manufacture using
modern printed-circuit technology, mechanically robust, ease
of integration with feed networks etc. It is used in high-
performance aircraft, spacecraft, satellite and missile
applications, mobile radio and wireless communications.
However, conventional microstrip antennas suffer from many
operational disadvantages such as low efficiency, low power,
poor polarization purity, spurious feed radiation, low gain and
very narrow frequency bandwidth.
Many efforts have been taken to overcome the drawbacks of
the microstrip patch antenna. These efforts include the use of
low dielectric substrate, the use of various impedance
matching and feeding techniques; increase the substrate
thickness, the use of multiple resonators, the use of slot
antenna geometry and stacking [1]. In this paper the stacking
technique is used.
Sham Datto
Lecturer, Department of ETE
Rajshahi University of Engineering & Technology, Rajshshi
(shamdatto@ruet.ac.bd)
It is well known that a multi-layer structure is a useful method
to improve problems of bandwidth and gain [2]. The behavior
mechanism for both the wide bandwidth and the high gain
performances of the 3-element stacked MSA is explained in
[3]. In [4], a microstrip patch antenna fed by a coaxial feed has
been used to increase the bandwidth by changing substrate and
its thickness. Here the microstrip square stacked patch antenna
is proposed with improved bandwidth at center frequency of
2.4 GHz. A rectangular microstrip patch antenna has been
investigated and its performance has been analyzed with the
aid of Ansoft HFSS in [5]. A bandwidth of 527 MHz for
VSWR<2 has been achieved for stacked rectangular patch
designed to operate in the C-band. In [6], a new, compact,
simple and gap coupled broadband microstrip patch antenna
with multilayer stacked configuration is presented. The
possibility of increasing bandwidth, gain and directivity of the
microstrip patch antenna using line feed techniques is
examined. A 2x1 array microstrip antenna is also designed.
Also a single microstrip antenna and 2x1 microstrip antennas
with a slot in the driven element is designed and the
bandwidth variations are studied.
II. THE MICROSTRIP PATCH ANTENNA
Microstrip patch antenna consists of a metal strip called the
radiating element on a dielectric substrate covered by a ground
plane on the other side. The dielectric substrate retains most of
the power because the shielding ground plane is spaced a few
substrate thickness away. The radiating patch may be square,
rectangular, thin strip, circular, elliptical, triangular or any
other configuration [1].
There are many configurations that can be used to feed the
microstrip antennas. The four most popular are the microstrip
line, coaxial probe, aperture coupling and proximity coupling
[7]. The microstrip line feed is a conducting strip, usually of
much smaller width compare to the patch. It is easy to
fabricate, simple to match by controlling the inset position and
rather simple to model [1].
 International Conference on Electrical, Computer & Telecommunication Engineering (ICECTE)
8-10 December 2016, Rajshahi-6204, Bangladesh

In coaxial line feeds the inner conductor of the coax is

attached to the radiation patch while the outer conductor is
connected to the ground plane are also widely used. The
coaxial probe feed is also easy to fabricate and match and it (c)
has low spurious radiation. However it is more difficult to Fig. 2. (a) Dual feed [8], (b) Series feed [8], (c) Shunt feed [8].
model [1].
Microstrip feed III. ANTENNA DESIGN
Patch

Patch

Substrate

Ground plane

Co-axial connector Ground plane

(a) (b)
Fig.1. (a) Microstrip line feed [1], (b) Coaxial probe feed [1]. Fig.3. Stacked microstrip antenna with coaxial probe feed.

Although a MSA has practical advantages such as low profile

and lightweight, a single patch antenna has a low gain (5-8
dB) and a narrow bandwidth, hence the need for stacked MSA
had risen to increase the bandwidth by using multiple
resonators [7]. A stacked MSA has two or more patches on
different layers of the dielectric substrates that are stacked on
each other to improve the bandwidth, the gain and to increase
the number of resonance frequencies. This method increases
the overall height of the antenna but the size in the planer
direction (surface area) remains the same as that of the single-
patch antenna. Thus, it is suitable for array elements. It
consists of a bottom substrate (layer) that has on its top a
patch, called the Fed patch/Driven patch, and a top substrate
that has on its top a patch, called the Parasitic patch/Radiating
patch. The top and bottom substrates could have the same or
different dielectric constants. These multilayer MSA
configurations yield BW of nearly 25%-30% increase for
VSWR ≤ 2, and the variation of the radiation pattern over the
impedance bandwidth is small [7].
There are three ways to connect to this antenna as given below
[8]:
 Connecting to both patches individually (dual band)
 Connecting to the upper patch only: series fed (dual
band)
 Connecting to the lower patch only: shunt fed (wide
band)
Fig 2. Shows the three connection.
Fig.4. Stacked microstrip antenna with microstrip line feed.
The design parameters for the two proposed antennas are
given below-
1. Antenna with coaxial probe feed:
 Ground : L = 50 mm, W = 60 mm
 Lower substrate : (RT/Duroid, Relative permittivity
= 2.2) L = 50 mm, W = 60 mm, H(Height) = 2.9 mm
 Upper substrate : (Foam, Relative permittivity =
1.07) L = 50 mm, W = 60 mm, H = 2.2 mm
 Feeding patch : L = 17.2 mm, W = 22 mm (for
single)
 Feeding patch : L = 16.4 mm, W = 21.6 mm (for
stacked)
 Radiating patch : L = 16.5 mm, W = 21.6 mm.
coaxial feed position (x, y)= (0 mm, 6 mm)
o Inner cylinder : (pec) r=0.7 mm, H=7.9 mm
o Outer cylinder : (vacuum) r=1.8 mm,
H=5mm

(a) (b)
 International Conference on Electrical, Computer & Telecommunication Engineering (ICECTE)
8-10 December 2016, Rajshahi-6204, Bangladesh

2. Antenna with microstrip line feed: V. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The lower and upper substrates are same as the probe feed
antenna only the length and width are some different.
 Ground : L = 34 mm, W = 40 mm
 Feeding patch : L = 16.78 mm, W = 22 mm (single
patch)
 Feeding patch : L = 16.4 mm, W = 22 mm (stacked
patch)
 Radiating patch : L= 14.4 mm, W=20.4 mm
 Microstrip line : L=8.8 mm, W=3mm
 Port : W=3 mm, H=2.9 mm
IV. ANTENNA DESIGN EQUATION
 The width of the patch antenna can be calculated as
The performance of the proposed antennas has been
observed in terms of the return loss, directivity, gain,
impedance bandwidth and impedance matching.
A. Return loss and Bandwidth
The s11 vs. frequency curves for the optimized parameters
operating at 5.3 GHz are presented in figure 4 and 5
respectively. It can be seen that the simulated center frequency
for all the patch antennas point to the designed target. The
bandwidth of the probe feed antenna is calculated (as shown
below in Figure) to be 510 MHz (5.5700-5.0600 = 0.51 GHz)
and the bandwidth of the microstrip line feed is 300 MHz
(5.4500-5.1500 = 0.30 GHz) and the return loss is -38.5316
dB and -29.6681 dB respectively.

C 2
w 
2 fr r 1
Where, c = velocity of light.
= 3×10 m/sec.
εr = Dielectric constant of the substrate.
fr = Resonant frequency.

 The effective dielectric constant is

 1  r 1
 eff  r 
2 h
2 1  12
w Fig. 5. Return loss of the coaxial probe feed stacked antenna.
Where, h = Height or thickness of the dielectric.
w = Width of the patch.
 The length extension L on each side is
w
( eff  0.3) (  0.264)
L  0.41h   h
( eff  0.258) w
(  0.8)
h

 Effective length of the patch is

C
Leff  Fig. 6. Return loss of the microstrip line feed stacked antenna.
2 f r  eff
 The actual length of the patch is B. Gain
L  Leff  2 L The gain plot of the two antennas has been given in Fig 7.
and Fig 8. It has been observed that the gain of the coaxial
 The ground plane dimensions would be given as probe feed antenna is higher.
Lg = 6h+L
Wg= 6h+w
 International Conference on Electrical, Computer & Telecommunication Engineering (ICECTE)
8-10 December 2016, Rajshahi-6204, Bangladesh

Fig.7. Gain of the coaxial probe feed stacked antenna.

Fig. 12. Smith chart of the microstrip line feed antenna shows a less
impedance match at 5.3 GHz.

D. VSWR

Fig. 8. Gain of the microstrip line feed stacked antenna.

C. Smith chart
The Smith chart shows that the coaxial probe feed stacked
antenna has a better impedance match than the micristrip line Fig. 13. VSWR plot coaxial probe feed antenna showing resonant frequency
feed antenna. of 5.3 GHz.

Fig. 14. VSWR plot of microstrip line feed antenna showing resonant
frequency of 5.3 GHz.

Fig. 11. Smith chart of the probe feed antenna shows a good impedance match
at 5.3 GHz.
 International Conference on Electrical, Computer & Telecommunication Engineering (ICECTE)
8-10 December 2016, Rajshahi-6204, Bangladesh

TABLE I. COMPARISON AMONG DESIGNED ANTENNAS [4] Naresh Kumar Joshi, Manisha Uttamrao Birare and Neeraj Nahata,
"Design of Microstrip Stacked Square Patch Antenna", International
A comparative study of the results obtained from the antennas Journal of Engineering and Innovative Technology (IJEIT) Volume 2,
designed by microstrip line feed and coaxial probe feed Issue 3, September 2012.
techniques has been given in the following table. The table
[5] Rushit D Trivedi, Vedvyas Dwivedi, “Stacked Microstrip Patch
shows that the bandwidth, return loss and gain increment of Antenna: Gain and Bandwidth Improvement, Effect of patch rotation,”
the coaxial probe feed antenna is higher than the microstrip 2012 International Conference on Communication Systems and Network
line feed antenna. The VSWR of the coaxial probe feed single Technologies.
patch antenna is high enough as compared to the microstrip
line feed single patch antenna which indicates a greater [6] Mr. G.Sreedhar Kumar, Mr. J. Anil kumar, Mr. C. Mahesh babu, Mr.
Md. Furqan ahmed, Mr. K. Harinath, Mr. P. Guru Prasad, “Bandwidth
impedance mismatch. The probe feed stack antenna shows the Enhancement Techniques using Stacked Microstrip Patch Antennas,”
best impedance matching among all the antennas. The gain of International Journal of Computer Systems (ISSN: 2394-1065), Volume
the probe feed antennas is higher than the corresponding 03– Issue 04, April, 2016.
microstrip line feed antennas.
[7] Microstrip Antennas, The Analysis and Design of a Microstrip
Coaxial probe feed Microstrip line feed Antennas and Arrays, 1st edition, David Pozar, Daniel Schaubert, IEEE
Parameters Single stack Single stack Press, New York, 1995.
Return loss(dB) -14.3556 -38.5316 -22.2014 -29.6681
Bandwidth (MHz) 190 510 260 300 [8] D. Orban and G.J.K. Moernaut, "The Basics of Patch Antennas,
Updated", Orban Microwave Products.
VSWR (dB) 3.3687 0.2057 1.3510 0.5709
Gain (dB) 8.5066 8.9960 8.1641 8.3072
Directivity (dB) 8.4596 8.9591 8.1326 8.2749

VI. CONCLUSION
A coaxial probe feed and a microstrip line feed stacked
antennas have been proposed in this paper. The ansoft HFSS
software is used to design the antennas. It is observed that the
performance of the antenna is increased by both the
techniques. The values of the parameters have been changed
several times to get the optimized results. The outputs have
been shown and a comparison between the two designed
antennas has been shown in table 4.1. In the previous work [5]
[6], only the outputs of the stacked patch antenna have been
given but the single patch antenna have not. The gain is lower
but the return loss is higher of the previous antenna than this
proposed antenna. The resonant frequency of the antenna
designed in [5] has been shifted from the operating frequency
but the resonant frequency of all the proposed antennas points
to the resonant frequency.

REFERENCES
[1] Constantine A. Balanis, “Antenna Theory: Analysis and Design, 3rd
Edition,” John Wiley and Sons, Inc. Hoboken, New Jersey 2005.

[2] R. Q. Lee and K. F. Lee, “Experimental Study of Two-layer

Electromagnetically Coupled Rectangular Patch Antenna,” IEEE
Transactions of Antennas and Propagation, vol.AP-38, no.8, pp.1298-
1302, Aug. 1990.

[3] E. Nishiyama, M. Aikawa and S. Egashira, “Three-Element Stacked

Microstrip Antenna with Wide-Band and High-Gain Performances,”
2003 Int. IEEE/AP-S Symp. Dig., v01.2, pp.900-903, June. 2003.