Comparative Study on Different Feeding

Techniques of Rectangular Patch Antenna

Sibi Chakravarthy S, Sarveshwaran N, Sriharini S Shanmugapriya M
UG students, Department of Electronics and Assistant professor, Department of Electronics and
Communication Engineering Communication Engineering
CEG, Anna University,Chennai, India CEG, AnnaUniveristy, Chennai, India

Abstract—A microstrip patch antenna is a planar directional beam scanning, and directional patterning. Since most of the
antenna in which a metal patch is placed on top of a dielectric wireless applications lie in the band starting from 900 MHz
substrate which in turn is placed on top of a metal ground to 5.8 GHz, the patch antennas in this paper are designed for
plane. The power transfer between a source and antenna is 2GHz resonant frequency for the four different feeding
done through a feed line. In general, the characteristic techniques. The feeding techniques play important role in
impedance of a transmission line is 50 ohms. By maximum
power transfer theorem, the patch antenna should be fed at a
impedance matching which will lead to maximum power
point where input impedance is 50 ohms for maximum input transmission. Substrate used depends on the antenna
power. There are several feeding techniques for patch antenna application and the commercial availability of the substrates.
to match this condition. In this paper, a comparative study FR-4 lossy dielectric is used in the fabricated inset fed patch
between inset feed, co-axial feed, aperture feed and proximity antenna because of its commercial availability. Annealed
feed of a rectangular micro-strip patch antenna is done on the copper is used for the metal patch and ground plane.
basis of S11 parameter, VSWR, directivity, beamwidth,
bandwidth and radiation pattern. Design for each feeding II. DESIGN EQUATIONS
technique is simulated and studied using the CST microwave
studio software. The resonant frequency of the four antennas The general antenna parameters for a microstrip patch
studied in this paper is 2 GHz. The fabricated inset fed patch antenna can be calculated by using the formulas given
antenna has been tested. It has acceptable return loss and below[2],
comparable radiation performance with that of the simulated
antenna.
Width of the Patch W = (1)
(∈ )
Index Terms— Far fields, Microstrip patch antenna, Patch
antenna feeding techniques, Polarization, Radiation pattern, The effective dielectric constant of the substrate is:
(∈ ) (∈ )
Resonant frequency, S11 parameter, VSWR ∈ reff = + 1 + 12 -1/2 (2)
I. INTRODUCTION Where,
∈ reff = effective dielectric constant
A micro-strip patch antenna consists of a flat "patch" of
∈ r = Dielectric constant of substrate
metal, placed over a dielectric material or "substrate". The
h = Height of dielectric substrate
dielectric is covered by a metal ground plane on its other
W = width of the patch
side. The ground plane is connected to the supply's ground
terminal and acts a return path for the current in the antenna.
The fields at the edges of the patch undergo fringing. Due
Ground plane also acts as a reflector for radio waves from
to the fringing fields along the length of the patch, the patch
the patch. The patch, substrate and the ground plane
length appears to be extended by ∆ on both sides of the
together function as a resonant cavity having a magnetic
patch.
wall boundary on its four sides. The metal patch can be of
any continuous shape like rectangular, circular, elliptical etc.
(∈ . )( . )
Patch antennas became popular because of their low cost, ∆L = 0.412 ∗ h ∗ (3)
(∈ . )( . )
thin and light weight structure. They give sufficient gain,
directivity and bandwidth for applications like GPS, missile
telemetry, satellite communications and mobile phones. One Actual length of the patch is given by L = − 2∆L (4)
major advantage is that they support both linear and circular
polarization. In applications like satellite communication Length of the ground plane is given by
where relative antenna orientation is unknown, circular Lg = 6h + L (5)
polarization is useful since it is not sensitive to antenna
orientation. These low profile antennas also provide Width of the ground plane is given by
frequency agility, broad band-width, feed line flexibility, Wg = 6h + W (6)

978-1-4673-8975-4/16/$31.00 ©2016 IEEE

 III. FEEDING TECHNIQUES B.COAXIAL FEED
The input impedance of the antenna should match with the
Co-axial feed is a non planar feeding technique in which a
source impedance which for all RF sources and microwave
co-axial cable is used to feed the patch. The outer conductor
sources is 50 ohms. The antenna is looking into free space
of the cable is connected to the ground plane and the inner
and hence acts as an impedance transducer between the 50
conductor penetrates through the dielectric making a metal
ohms source and the 377 ohms free space. Hence a feed
contact with the patch[4]. The advantage with co-axial feed is
point should be chosen on the antenna such that, at that
that the co-axial probe can be placed at any desired location
point the antenna has an input impedance of 50 ohms[3].
inside the patch metal in order to match with the input
There are two types of feeding techniques. They are Contact
impedance, which is not easy with inset feed. Also, the
and Non-Contacting feed Methods. The former supplies
ground plane isolates the spurious radiation from the feed
power to patch through direct path and the latter supplies
and the radiation from the antenna leading to better radiation
power to patch through magnetic coupling. Inset feed and
performance. The drawback with this feed is that, it is
coaxial feed are contact feed methods. Aperture and
difficult to obtain impedance matching for thicker substrates
proximity feed are non-contact methods
due to probe inductance and significant probe radiation for
A. INSET FEED thicker substrates. The probe used to couple power to the
When the patch is fed by a source, the edge nearer to the patch can generate somewhat high cross-polarized fields if
source has infinite impedance because of zero current at the electrically thick substrates are used. Co-axial feed has poor
open circuit edge and at the middle of the patch, the polarization purity. The location of probe is defined by the
impedance is zero because of maximum current at the patch X co-ordinate and the Y co-ordinate. The probe is in direct
centre. Hence, a 50 ohms input impedance feed point is contact with the antenna and it is located at the point where
selected by moving closer to the patch centre[7]. This feed is the antenna input impedance is 50 ohms.
easy to fabricate, simple to match by controlling the inset
TABLE 2. CO-AXIAL FEED ANTENNA PARAMETERS
and unnecessary junctions can be avoided by printing the
entire circuit in one go. The inset fed patch antenna offers Name Value(mm) Description
good gain but its radiation efficiency is less efficient Ri 0.5 Radius of inner conductor of coaxial probe
because of spurious radiation from the feed line and patch
Ro 2.82 Radius of outer conductor of coaxial probe
junction.
Xf 8.5 Displacement of feed along the length axis
TABLE 1. INSET FED ANTENNA PARAMETERS Yf 25.03 Displacement of feed along width axis
Mt 0.02 Height of ground plane and patch
Name Value(mm) Description
W 50.0721 Patch width
Fi 15 Inset length of the feed from patch
L 34 Patch length
edge
Gpf 0.25 Gap between the inset feed line and the Lg 43.6 Ground plane length
patch Wg 60.321 Ground plane width
L 34.85 Length of the patch
h 1.6 Height of substrate
Lf 31.1926 Length of the feed
∈r 4.3 Dielectric constant of the substrate
Mt 0.1 Height of ground plane and patch
W 46 Patch width
Lg 44.45 Ground plane length
Wg 55.6 Ground plane width
Wf 2.9 Width of feed line
h 1.6 Height of substrate Side view Front view
Fig. 2.1 Coaxial feed view
∈r 4.3 Dielectric constant of the substrate

(a) (b) (a) (b) (c)

Fig. 2.2. (a) Front view (b) Back view (c) Perspective view
Fig . 1. Inset fed antenna a) Front view b) Back view
The position of coaxial cable can be obtained using
Xo = (7) ; Yo = (8)
√∈
 C. PROXIMITY FEED
In proximity feed, the feed line is placed between two
dielectric substrates. In edge fed technique it is not possible
to choose a 50 ohms feed point since the impedance at the
edges will be very high. To overcome this, the feed line is
moved to a lower level below the patch. The edge of the
feed line is located at a point where the antenna input
impedance is 50 ohms. Here the power transfer from the
feed to the patch takes place through electromagnetic field
coupling. Since the feed line has been moved to a lower
level, feed line radiation has been reduced to a great extent
and also this technique allows planar feeding[5]. Also, it has
an improved bandwidth efficiency compared to the other
techniques. The disadvantage with this method is that multi-
layer fabrication has to be done and it offers poor
polarization purity.
ground plane slot which in turn excites the metal patch. The
centre of the patch must coincide with the centre of the slot
for maximum coupling. The major advantage of aperture
feed technique is that it allows independent optimization of
antenna substrate and feed line substrate. The antenna
dielectric is chosen to have low dielectric constant and high
dielectric thickness for maximum power radiation. The
isolation of patch and feed line by the ground plane inhibits
spurious radiation from corrupting the radiation pattern.
Also, aperture feed provides excellent polarization purity
which is something unattainable with other feed techniques.
Aperture fed antenna offers higher bandwidth. It is very
useful in applications in which we don't want to use wires
from one layer to the other. The disadvantage with this feed
is that it requires multi layer fabrication.
TABLE 4. APERTURE FED ANTENNA PARAMETERS

TABLE 3. PROXIMITY FED ANTENNA PARAMETERS Name Value(mm) Description

∈ r1 2.5 Dielectric constant of antenna
Name Value(mm) Description substrate
h1 1.6 Thickness of substrate 1 ∈ r2 9.9 Dielectric constant of feed substrate

h2 1.6 Thickness of substrate 2 h1 4 Thickness of antenna substrate

L 33.013 Patch length h2 1.82 Thickness of feed substrate

W 37.5 Patch width L 39 Patch length

W 51.5406 Patch width
Lg 42.613 Length of ground plane
Lg 70 Length of ground plane
Wg 47.1 Width of ground plane
Wg 70 Width of ground plane
Mt 0.002 Thickness of the metal
Wf 1.743 Feed line width
Wo 3.131 Width of the feed line
Lf 40 Length of feed line
Lf 19.5 Length of the feed line
Mt 0.01 Metal thickness
∈ 4.3 Dielectric constant of the substrates
Ls 31 Length of ground plane slot
Ws 20 Width of ground plane slot

Fig. 3. Proximity feed view

(a) Front view (b) feed line in between two substrates (c) back view plane

D. APERTURE FEED
(a) (b) (c)
Aperture feed technique consists of two dielectrics Fig. 4.1 (a) Front view (b) side view (c) back view
substrates namely antenna dielectric substrate and feed
dielectric substrate[9]. These dielectric substrates are (a) (b) (c)
separated by a ground plane which has a slot at its centre.
The metal patch is placed on top of the antenna substrate.
The ground plane is placed on the other side of the antenna
dielectric. The feed dielectric and feed line is placed on the
other side of the ground plane to provide isolation. The
microstrip feed line is placed such that it is perpendicular to
the ground plane slot. Power from feed line is coupled to the
metal patch through electromagnetic field coupling. The
microstrip feed line causes magnetic polarization in the
Fig . 4.2. Slot in the ground plane between the two
dielectrics
 IV. SIMULATION RESULTS
The four types of feeding techniques are simulated and the
results are compiled in the figures below.

1. Inset fed antenna: S11 parameter of -16.11 dB at 2GHz

and Bandwidth of 0.042521 GHz is achieved. Directivity of
7.082 dBi, Side lobe level of -12.4dB and Angular width of
92.4 deg is observed in the radiation pattern

Fig. 6.2. S11 parameter

3. Proximity fed antenna: S11 parameter of -18.176 dB at

2GHz and Bandwidth of 0.07 GHz is achieved. Directivity
Fig. 5.1 .S11 parameter of 5.6dBi, Side lobe level of -6.6dB and Angular width of
101.7 deg is observed in the radiation pattern.

Fig. 5.2. Polar plot Fig. 7.1. S11 parameter

2. Coaxial fed antenna: S11 parameter of -19.993 dB at 2

GHz and Bandwidth of 0.042144GHz is achieved.
Directivity of 5.4dBi, Side lobe level of -4.9dB and Angular
width of 104.3 deg is observed in the radiation pattern.

Fig. 7.2. Polar plot

Fig. 6.1. S11 parameter
 TABLE 5. COMPARISON OF RESULTS
4.Aperture Coupled antenna: S11 parameter of -37.871 dB
at 2GHz and Bandwidth of 0.1441 GHz is achieved. Co-axial Proximity Aperture-
Inset feed
Directivity of 6.468dBi, Side lobe level of -9.9dBi and line feed feed coupled feed
Angular width of 84.9 deg is observed in the radiation
pattern . Bandwidth (GHz) 0.042521 0.042144 0.07 0.1441

S11 parameter (dB) -16.11 -19.993 -18.176 -37.871

Directivity
7.082 5.4 5.6 6.468
(dBi)

Beam width (deg) 92.4 104.3 101.7 84.9

side lobe level (dB) -12.4 -4.9 -6.6 -9.9

VSWR 1.2944 1.4123 1.2815 1.0757

Fig. 8.1. S11 parameter

V. RESULTS OF FABRICATED INSET FED PATCH

ANTENNA
The inset-cut fed micro-strip patch antenna has the simplest
structure and is the easiest to fabricate. Hence, this antenna
is fabricated and soldered to SMA connector (as shown in
fig. 5) such that the outer conductor of the connector is
attached to the ground-plane metal and the feed line of the
antenna is attached to the inner conductor of the SMA
connector. The fabricated antenna is tested using a vector
signal analyzer in the ECE department of Anna university.
There are changes in the practical S11 parameter, when
compared to the simulated results. The S11 parameter value
of -11.92 is obtained at 1.98GHz, which is acceptable. This
result shows that the practical antenna behavior can deviate
from the simulated one, due to many factors such as the
Fig. 8.2. Polar plot interference from the surrounding electromagnetic
environment, the connecting probe, quality of the SMA
connector and quality of the solder lead.
V.COMPARISON OF RESULTS

The simulation results are compiled and compared in the

table below. Aperture-coupled feed has more bandwidth but
less directivity. Co-axial feed provides high beam-width but
less bandwidth. We can observe that the proximity fed
antenna has poor radiation performance.. Inset feed has the
highest directivity. Aperture feed has the lowest reflection
loss. Co-axial feed has the highest beamwidth. Aperture
feed has the lowest VSWR value. Comparing the four
antennas, we infer that aperture fed antenna has better
radiation performance of all the four antennas. Inset fed
antenna has a moderate radiation performance but has the
simplest structure making it easier to fabricate

Fig. 5. Photo of the fabricated antenna


5.
6.
Fig. 6. Comparison of the simulated and the practical results of S11
parameter plot.
VI. CONCLUSION
In this paper, the results of the four types of feeds for the
rectangular micro-strip patch antenna is compiled and
compared in terms of bandwidth, S11 parameter, directivity,
beam width, side lobe level, total efficiency and VSWR.
The following conclusions are made from the comparative
study of the different feeding techniques of patch antenna:
1. The proper selection of a feeding technique for a
microstrip patch antenna is important because it
affects the bandwidth, S11, VSWR, patch size,
radiation efficiency, impedance matching, beam
width, and smith chart.
2. In terms of bandwidth, aperture coupled antenna
offers the highest bandwidth and co-axial fed
antenna has the least bandwidth. This makes co-
axial antenna useful in narrowband applications like
GPS and aperture coupled antenna for reception-
inside building where signals are too weak to be
picked up by other antennas.
3. We see that the inset fed patch antenna has
comparatively more reflection loss than the other
antennas. This is obvious because of the spurious
radiations from the feed line which affects the
radiation performance of the antenna. In the other
patch antennas, the radiating patch is shielded from
the feed line spurious radiation.
4. Co-axial fed antenna has the highest beamwidth and
aperture coupled antenna has the least beamwidth.
Hence, aperture antenna can be used in adaptive
arrays for beamforming techniques and radar where
narrow beams are preferred to achieve high gain.
Inset fed antenna has the highest directivity and co-
axial fed antenna has the lowest directivity. Aperture
antenna has a moderate directivity of 6.528dBi
making it useful in telemedicine applications. Since
inset fed antennas have high directivity they can be
used as a coupler in MRI applications and also in
long distance communications.
Aperture antenna has the least reflection loss and the
lowest VSWR. This makes it the most efficient
patch antenna on the whole.
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