1

Dual Band Microstrip Wearable Antenna Design

Ahmet Ferit Coşan1, Aktül Kavas2,
1
Arçelik AŞ. Central R&D Department
2
Department of Electronics and Communications Engineering, Yıldız Technical University,


Abstract— In this study a wearable microstrip patch antenna is
designed for Wi-Fi frequencies. A comparative design between
different microstrip patch antenna geometries are realized. The
antenna full wave simulation is carried out in CST Microwave
tool in the frequency range of 1-6 GHz i.e. ISM band.
Index Terms— Wearable antenna, Microstrip patch antenna,
printed antennas, dual-band antennas, inset fed, ISM band
of 2.4 GHz and it is analyzed using CST Microwave Studio
software. It is mentioned that a narrower notch resulted in
better impedance matching [2]. A more recent study proposed
a modified shifted Sin2 form that well characterizes probe-fed
patches with a notch [3]. It is found that a shifted Cos2
function works well for the inset-fed patch [4]-[5]. The
parameters of the shifted cosine-squared function depend on
the notch width for a given patch and substrate geometry.

We also adopt the design strategy of keeping the return loss

minimum at the resonant frequencies as close as possible and
I. INTRODUCTION
striving to achieve -10 dB return loss over the impedance

R ECENT advances in high-density integration technologies

have provided immigration from mobile to wearable in
information communication devices. The communication
bandwidth. The parameter specifications of rectangular
microstrip patch antenna is given in Table 1. These first
antenna parameters are calculated with previously discussed
quality of those devices is strongly correlated with the used formulas [1].
antenna parameters. Due to their low weight and low profile
conformability, easy and cheap realization, microstrip patch
antennas are widely used in mobile and wearable devices.

In this study, a microstrip patch antenna for wearable devices

is designed for dual-band WiFi frequencies. The simulated
antenna substrate is chosen as FR4 with a dielectric constant
of 4.55 and loss tangent of 0.021. The substrate thickness is
1.6 mm and the resonance frequency is calculated as 2.4 GHz
and 5 GHz.

II. PROPOSED ANTENNA GEOMETRY

In practice, the dielectric constants of the material are not
free variables, since discrete values depend on the dielectric
Fig.1 Parameters of the microstrip patch antenna
material used. Therefore, it is convenient to choose the
parameter εr in advance and vary other parameters. A further
constraint must be placed on the thickness as common TABLE I
laminates are available only with a certain thickness. In this Parameter values of the antenna
antenna, well known FR4 substrate which has a thickness of Parameter Value
h=1.6 mm and a relative permittivity εr = 4.55 is used. Gpf 1
L 28.96
The rectangular microstrip patch antenna was designed on the Lf 26.05
basis of transmission line model (TLM) [1]. The calculated Lg 58
antenna parameters are given in Table 1. Antennas can be fed Mt 0.035
by different methods like microstrip line feed, coaxial probe W 37.518
feed, aperture coupling, electromagnetic coupling and Wg 75
coplanar waveguide (CPW). In this work, microstrip line feed h 1.6
has been used. Antenna is designed for a resonating frequency w0 1.3
y0 11.53
 2

III. ANALYSIS AND DESIGN EQUATIONS The length of the inverted-L strip, (L1+L2), is designed near a
In order to improve the S11 parameters values, different types quarter wavelength at the center frequency of the desired
of antenna geometries were discussed. Additional strips and resonance frequencies (2.4 and 5 GHz band) in order to
additional coupling slots at the edges were integrated into analyze geometry effects regarding to the antenna
patch, the slot shape is changed as reverse and straight L form performances. In all those trials, parametric iteration has been
[6]-[7] and finally a shorting pin between radiating patch and fulfilled in order to get best S11 parameter values for the
ground plane is added [8]. desired resonance frequencies. All the patch geometries that
were analyzed are shown in Table II
TABLE II
Antenna Geometries IV. SIMULATED RESULTS OF THE ANTENNA
Antenna Types Figures By studying the antenna parametrically, it has been observed
in CST Microwave Studio how the antenna characteristics
vary with the variation of those different parameters and
geometries. This observation has provided us sufficient insight
Microstrip Patch to optimize the antenna parameters to meet the design
Antenna requirements. The proposed designs of the antenna operate in
2.4 GHz and 5 GHz frequency bands. Simulation results of
the given geometries are shown in Table III. By introducing
symmetric/asymmetric L type slots, edge slots, coupling slots
or shorting pins, our S11 parameters get worse. However, with
“double L slot” structure, we achieve the best S11 parameters
Symetric Edge Slot
results for both two resonance frequencies.
Table III
Simulation Results
Microstrip Patch Antenna
Bandwidth S11 Min
(Mhz) Frequency (Ghz) Gain (db) (dB)
Symetric Inverse
2.4 Ghz 80,00 2,39 2,78 -17,00
L Slot
5 Ghz 80,00 4,56 0,07 -11,70
Symetric Edge Slot
Bandwidth S11 Min
(Mhz) Frequency (Ghz) Gain (db) (dB)
2.4 Ghz 20Mhz 2,39 2,33 -10,00
5 Ghz 0,00 4,57 -0,23 -6,47
Symetric Inverse L Slot
Bandwidth S11 Min
Symetric Straight (Mhz) Frequency (Ghz) Gain (db) (dB)
L Slot 2.4 Ghz 50Mhz 2,34 1,19 -12,34
5 Ghz 0,00 5,30 1,80 -5,88
Symetric Straight L Slot
Bandwidth S11 Min
(MHz) Frequency (Ghz) Gain (db) (dB)
2.4 Ghz 70,00 2,40 3,06 -37,00
5 Ghz 100,00 4,59 1,20 -12,80
Coupling Paralel Slots
Coupling Bandwidth S11 Min
Paralel Slots (MHz) Frequency (Ghz) Gain (db) (dB)
2.4 Ghz 34,00 2,39 2,44 -10,10
5 Ghz 0,00 4,60 0,97
Edge Slot with Shorting Pin
Bandwidth S11 Min
(MHz) Frequency (Ghz) Gain (db) (dB)
2.4 Ghz 0,00 2,39 2,65 -9,16
5 Ghz 0,00 4,98 2,68 -3,40
Edge Slot with Double L Slot
Bandwidth S11 Min
Shorting Pin
(MHz) Frequency (Ghz) Gain (db) (dB)
2.4 Ghz 93,00 2,40 2,44 -34,00
5 Ghz 170,00 5,06 -0,36 -34,60

S11 parameters of this chosen “double L slot antenna” are

shown in Figure 2. It can be seen that the resonance
Double L Slot
frequencies match with the desired frequencies precisely and
has enough 10dB bandwidth of 93 MHz and 170 MHz for 2.4
GHz and 5 GHz respectively.
 3

defined parameters are shown in Figure 4. (The parameters

that are not given in Figure 4 are same as in Fig1.)

Fig.2 S11 Values of Double L Slot Antenna

TABLE IV
Parameter values of the proposed antenna
Parameter Value
Gpf 0.2
L 28.96
Lf 26.05
Lg 58
Ls 4.25
Ls2 0.1
Mt 0.035
W 32.5 Fig.4b New Introduced Parameters of the proposed antenna
Wg 75
e 0.5 2-D radiation pattern of that particular antenna is shown in
e2 1 Figure 3a and Figure 3b, for 2.4GHz and 5GHz respectively.
et 1 As shown below in the figures, although radiation pattern and
et2 1.75 gain values are enough for proper communication in ISM band
h 1.6 at 2.4 GHz, for 5 GHz, further study is needed to increase the
s 0.5 gain and improve the radiation performance.
s2 1
w0 1
Ws 12.25
ws2 0.1
y0 11.53

Fig.3a 2D Radiation pattern for 2.4 GHz for Insert Double L Slot.

Figure 4a

Fig. 4a New proposed antenna geometry

As shown in Figure 2, proposed antenna has desired Fig.3b 2D Radiation pattern for 5 GHz for Insert Double L Slot
performances in terms of S11 parameters. The final parameters
of the proposed antenna are given in Table IV and new
 4

V. CONCLUSION
This paper has provided an overview on the performance
differences for different geometries of inset fed microstip
patch antennas. Symetric Edge Slot, Symetric Inverse L Slot,
Symetric Straight L Slot, Coupling Paralel Slots, Edge Slot
with Shorting Pin and Double L Slot geometries were
introduced into conventional microstrip patch structure and
were compared regarding to their simulation results. All the
compared antennas simulation results are given in Table III.
As shown in that particular table, “double L slot antenna” has
the largest bandwidth as 93Mhz for 2.4GHz band and 170Mhz
for 5GHz band, and has sharpest resonance characteristics of
all which is -34 dB for both frequencies. Meanwhile proposed
antenna shows competitive gain performance and radiation
pattern only for 2.4 GHz. For future studies, 5 GHz radiation
performance will be improved and measurements will be
made in an anechoic chamber.

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