IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL.

16, 2017 2759

A Compact Dielectric-Loaded Log-Periodic Dipole

Array (LPDA) Antenna
Lei Chang, Shuai He, Jian Qiang Zhang, and Dan Li

Abstract—A compact, dielectric-loaded, and wideband log-

periodic dipole array antenna operating between 200 and 803 MHz
for VSWR less than 2 is presented in this letter. The antenna con-
sists of sinusoidal dipoles and parallel stripline printed on a sub-
strate partially loading an air layer, as well as two stepped dielectric
materials with εr = 10. These two stepped dielectric materials are
placed on both sides of the substrate. It is found that a remark-
able lower frequency performance is obtained by using these two
stepped dielectric materials, and the antenna’s impedance match-
ing performance is improved through the air layer partially loaded
in the substrate. Good agreement is achieved between simulated
and measured results. The antenna is also shown to work nor-
mally through the experimental results of VSWR under the 100 W
continuous-wave power excitation for 30 min.
Index Terms—Dielectric loading, high power, log-periodic dipole Fig. 1. Configuration of the proposed antenna. (a) Three-dimensional view.
array (LPDA), wideband. (b) Side view.

I. INTRODUCTION antennas is an effective method to reduce their size [7]. Koch

IDERBAND antennas are required for many applica-
W tions in wireless personal area networks, satellite com-
munication, and radar systems [1]. Log-periodic dipole array
(LPDA) antennas are with many advantages such as stable
gain, wide bandwidth, and low cost, which are very suitable
for many wideband wireless communication systems [2]–[4]. In
the UHF band, LPDA antennas using metal cylindrical dipole
elements have been widely applied in the ground transmitting
wireless systems, which have good radiation performance and
high power handling over a very wide frequency band. However,
the typical width of this antenna is about half free-space wave-
length corresponding to lower cutoff frequency that is too large
and less suitable for use in airborne platform with limited avail-
able area. Therefore, it is very necessary to investigate methods
of LPDA antenna miniaturization with high power capacity.
Several techniques have been adopted for antenna miniatur-
ization. A dual-band antenna for GPS application has achieved
the goals of size miniaturization by using lumped capacitors and
inductive pins over a moderately high-permittivity substrate [5].
In [6], the size of LPDA was decreased by employing inductive
loads on its elements. The utilization of fractal geometries in
Manuscript received June 3, 2017; revised August 14, 2017; accepted August
15, 2017. Date of publication August 25, 2017; date of current version October
2, 2017. (Corresponding Author: Lei Chang.)
L. Chang, S. He, and J. Q. Zhang are with the No. 36 Research In-
stitute of CETC, Jiaxing 314033, China (e-mail: yutian_1986@163.com;
281983407@qq.com; Zjq1936@126.com).
D. Li is with the Academician Workstation of Zhejiang Longyou Gongren
Electronics Co., Ltd., Longyou 324014, China (e-mail: 973950098@qq.com).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this letter are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/LAWP.2017.2744983
fractal curves were used as the basic structural elements of
LPDA to reduce the antenna width [8], [9]. A miniature
dielectric-loaded folded half-loop antenna on a mobile termi-
nal was proposed in [10].
In this letter, a miniaturized LPDA using dielectric loading
and sinusoidal curves is presented. An operating bandwidth
ranging from 200 to 803 MHz for VSWR ࣘ 2 is achieved.
The size of the antenna is 420 mm × 576.6 mm × 29.6 mm,
about 0.28λ × 0.384λ × 0.02λ (λ is the free-space wavelength
at 200 MHz). Details of the proposed antenna and both the
simulated and measured results are presented and discussed.
The power capacity of this antenna is also measured by using
100 W continuous-wave (CW) power amplifier and power meter.
II. ANTENNA DESIGN
Fig. 1 shows the configuration of the proposed antenna. The
antenna is fabricated on both sides of the Polyflon substrate with
dielectric constant εr = 2.55, loss tangent tanδ = 0.0011, and
thickness h5 = 3 mm. An air layer is partially loaded within the
Polyflon substrate to achieve good impedance matching perfor-
mance. The thickness of air layer is h6 (2 mm). Two stepped
dielectric materials with relative permittivity of 10 and loss tan-
gent of 0.0035 (Taconic CER-10) are respectively covered on
the both sides of the antenna. The loading stepped dielectric
materials are significantly important for reducing the size of the
antenna. The widths of the Polyflon substrate are W1 = 420 mm
and W2 = 70 mm.
The detailed dimensions are shown in Fig. 2. The design
parameters of the LPDA antenna are the scaling factor
τ = dn +1 /dn = Rn +1 /Rn = Ln +1 /Ln = wn +1 /wn = 0.91,
where dn is the element spacing, Rn is the distance between

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2760
Fig. 2. Detailed dimensions of the proposed antenna. (a) Exploded view.
(b) Stepped dielectric material (Taconic CER-10). (c) Top view of LPDA printed
on both sides of Polyflon substrate. (d) Side view of Polyflon substrate loading
an air layer.
the nth element and the apex, and Ln and wn are the length
and the width of the nth element, respectively [4]. The
spacing factor σ = dn /(2Ln ) is 0.047, and the half-angle is
α = 25.6◦ . The length and the width of the first element are
L1 = 506 mm and w1 = 13 mm, respectively. The number
of dipole elements is 22. The sinusoidal curves are used
in the LPDA. The sinusoidal-shaped dipole can extend the
current path and has a lower resonance frequency than the
straight-line dipole of the same length. In order to reduce
the width of the antenna, a capacitive loading method is
adopted in the proposed antenna [11]. The capacitive loads
are formed by four rectangular parasitic elements, which
are placed on the ends of the first two sinusoidal-shaped
dipoles. The optimized dimensions of the proposed antenna
are: Ld1 = 192.4 mm, Ld2 = 118.4 mm, Ld3 = 135.1 mm,
Ld4 = 144 mm, Ld5 = 150 mm, h1 = 13.3 mm, h2 = 7.9 mm,
h3 = 5.7 mm, h4 = 3.5 mm, wp = 4 mm, la1 = 90 mm,
wa1 = 13 mm, la2 = 62 mm, wa2 = 12 mm.
The design of the proposed antenna was achieved by using
HFSS 15. With the optimized parameters, broad impedance
bandwidth can be achieved from 200 to 800 MHz for VSWR
ࣘ 2. The effects of the air layer are also studied as shown in
Fig. 3. For the case of conventional substrate without the air layer
(the antenna is presented with stepped dielectric materials), the
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IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL. 16, 2017
Fig. 3. Effects of the air layer on the VSWR.
Fig. 4. Effects of stepped dielectric materials on the VSWR.
impedance-matching bandwidth (VSWR ࣘ 3) is from 196 to
765 MHz, and a worse matching condition appears over the
frequency band. The air layer reduces the effective dielectric
constant to improve the impedance matching performance.
Fig. 4 shows the simulated VSWR of the proposed antenna
compared to the antenna without stepped dielectric materials
(with the air layer). It is seen that the lower cutoff frequen-
cies of the proposed antenna and the antenna without stepped
dielectric materials are 200 and 281.6 MHz, respectively. The
high permittivity (εr = 10) of stepped dielectric materials is
used to obtain miniaturized antenna. To investigate the effect
of the thickness (h1 , h2 , h3 , h4 ) of stepped dielectric materi-
als, the proposed antenna was simulated with different values,
and the results are shown in Fig. 5. It is clear that the thickness
of stepped dielectric materials has a significant effect on the
impedance matching performance.
III. MEASURED RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
For verification of simulated results, the proposed antenna
was fabricated according to the parameter values in the computer
simulation. A photograph of the fabricated antenna is shown in
Fig. 6. Fig. 7 compares the measured VSWR of the proposed
antenna to the simulated results. The measured impedance band-
width (VSWR ࣘ 2) is from 200 to 803 MHz, corresponding to
CHANG et al.: COMPACT DIELECTRIC-LOADED LPDA ANTENNA 2761

TABLE I
COMPARISONS OF PROPOSED AND REFERENCE ANTENNAS

Proposed [6] [8] [9]

VSWR ࣘ2 ࣘ2 ࣘ 2.35 ࣘ2
Lower 200 MHz 0.9 GHz 2.05 GHz 820 MHz
cutoff
frequency
Width 0.28λ2 0 0 MHz 0.39λ9 0 0 MHz 0.35λ2 . 0 5 GHz 0.34λ8 2 0 MHz
(electrical (λ200 MHz is the (λ900 MHz is the (λ2.05 GHz is the (λ820 MHz is the
size) free-space free-space free-space free-space
wavelength at wavelength at wavelength at wavelength at
200 MHz) 900 MHz) 2.05 GHz) 820 MHz)

Fig. 5. Effects of the thickness of dielectric materials on the VSWR. Fig. 7. Measured and simulated VSWR of the proposed antenna.

Fig. 6. Photograph of the fabricated dielectric-loaded LPDA.

approximately 120.2% fractional bandwidth. A slight mismatch

in the simulation and measurement results might be caused
by the feeding cable and N-type RF connector, which are not
included in the simulation model. The width of the proposed
antenna is only about 0.28λ (λ is the free-space wavelength at
200 MHz). The width (electrical size) of the proposed antenna
compared to the recently reported compact LPDA antennas
[6]–[9] is listed in Table I. It is clear that the proposed LPDA
antenna achieves the miniaturization.
The gain (direction θ = 0◦ ) of the proposed antenna is shown
in Fig. 8. The measured antenna gain ranges from 3.2 to 5.5 dBi
over the whole band. It is found that measured gain is lower
than the simulated one. The reason is that the loss of feeding
Fig. 8. Comparison of measured and simulated antenna gain of the proposed
antenna.
cable has not been included in the simulation model using HFSS
software.
The measured and simulated results of the normalized ra-
diation patterns of the proposed antenna are shown in Fig. 9.
The antenna exhibits stability directional radiation patterns in
the xz and yz planes over the entire operating band. The simu-
lated cross-polarization levels are less than 27 dB. The measured
cross-polarization levels in the xz and yz planes are both below

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2762 IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL. 16, 2017

23 dB. The measured patterns may have been caused by the

feeding cable and test fixture.
To assess the power capacity of the proposed antenna, the
measurement of the antenna excited with 100 W CW RF power
excitation for 30 min was implemented. The experimental setup
is shown in Fig. 10. Table II shows a comparison of measured
VSWR between before and after excited with high-power am-
plifier at 200, 325, and 450 MHz, respectively. As shown, the
change of measured VSWR is very small. It is indicated that
the antenna can still work normally after excited with the RF
power.

IV. CONCLUSION
A miniaturized LPDA antenna loaded with two stepped di-
electric materials is proposed for wideband application. By us-
ing dielectric-loaded and sinusoidal-shaped dipoles, the size
miniaturization is achieved. An air layer is introduced to
achieve good impedance matching. The optimized antenna has
wide bandwidth from 200 to 803 MHz with VSWR of less
than 2, gain of more than 3 dBi, and stable radiation patterns.
In addition, the antenna is miniaturized with width of 420 mm
(0.28λ) and has a high power capacity. The performance of com-
pact size and high power handling makes the proposed LPDA
antenna promising for high-power radiation applications in air-
borne platforms.

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