1

Omnidirectional Ultra-wideband Superellipse Patch Antenna for

mm-Waves Applications
R. A. dos Santos1 , R. A. Penchel2 , G. P. Rehder3 , and D. H. Spadoti1
1
Institute of Systems Engineering and Information Technology
Universidade Federal de Itajubá, Unifei, Brazil
2
Universidade Estadual Paulista, Unesp, São João da Boa vista, Brazil
3
Laboratory of Microelectronics, Polytechnique School, University of São Paulo, Brazil

Abstract— This paper presents an omnidirectional ultra-wideband printed antenna for millime-
ter waves applications. A novel superellipse based model is proposed to increase the microstrip
antenna bandwidth, creating a structure that operates from 46 to 170 GHz. The antenna patch
is formed by two halves of superelipse planes, with different smoothing coefficients, optimized to
minimize return loss. In order to estimate the electromagnetic performance, a numerical analyzes
were performed by ANSYS HFSS, which employs the Finite Element Method (FEM).

1. INTRODUCTION
New applications demand high definition uncompressed video streaming and extremely fast device-
to-device wireless data transfers. To achieve this, rates of 6 Gb/s or more are required, which is only
possible in the millimeter wave (mm-wave) frequency range due to the large bandwidths available.
Other applications such as Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) focus in miniaturization and can also
benefit from the mm-wave range due to the drastic reduction of the antenna size.
At these frequencies, signal attenuation due to atmospheric absorption is high, especially at the
license-free 60-GHz-band (57–66 GHz worldwide) that has an oxygen absorption peak. Therefore,
line-of-sight with high gain antennas is mandatory in order to achieve longer communication dis-
tances. Beam alignment can be critical and beam-steering using phase shifters and antenna arrays
becomes important. However, beam-steering systems tend to consume considerable power [1] and
can be detrimental to battery-operated devices (cellular phones and wireless sensor nodes), as well
as the increase in area due to the antenna array. In these cases, the high gain antenna with large
arrays can be located in the fixed transceiver, such as a modem or a router, and an omnidirectional
antenna on the mobile/miniaturized terminal. Vehicular extended band 76–81 GHz, have been
used for some variety of purposes, such as vehicle occupant detection sensor, collision avoidance
and adaptive cruise control [2, 3]. This spectrum bandwidth enables deployment of ultra-wideband
high precision short-range vehicular radar (SRR) applications [4].
In last years, many types of monopole omnidirectional UWB antennas have been proposed,
most of them based on principles of conventional UWB antenna, such as biconical and cone-disc
antenna [5]. In [6] octagonal-shaped microstrip patch antenna was compared to the circular, ellip-
tical and eye-shaped patch elements, all of them design to operate, approximately, 2–18 GHz.
In the present work a novel technique to increase the microstrip antenna operation band is
proposed. The technique uses a generalization of a rather widespread concept: smoothing transition
feed line-patch and the edges of the irradiating element. In this new approach the patch is formed
by two halves of super elipse planes, with different smoothing coefficients, increasing the degree of
freedom in the structure optimization process.
This paper is divided in four sections. In Section 2, we propose the wideband superellipse printed
antenna operating in millimeter waves. In Section 3, an ultra-wideband superellipse printed antenna
array is proposed and analyzed. Finally, Section 4 presents the final conclusions.
2. CONVENTIONAL MICROSTRIP ANTENNA VS MICROSTRIP ANTENNA WITH
TRUNCATED GROUND PLANE
Microstrip printed antenna (MSA) is widely used due to the low manufacturing cost and reduced
dimensions. However, as limitation, MSA is intrinsically narrow band [7]. In [8] we presented a
simple and efficient way to increase the MSA bandwidth. That technique basically consists of three
modifications: patch impedance matching slots withdrawal, ground plane reduction and patch lower
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vertices rounding of according to the radius. As an evolution of that technique, modeling the patch
like a superellipse is now proposed to increase the operation band, controlling, thus, all geometry
patch. However, initially it was studied microstrip antenna with truncated ground plane as design
initial step.
Figure 1 shows the design parameters for: (a) conventional microstrip antenna, (b) microstrip
antenna with truncated ground plane (TGMSA). Microstrip antenna design parameters are: patch
width (W ) and length (L), dielectric width (Wd ) and length (Ld ), impedance matching slots width
(Ws ) and length (Ls ), and feedline width (W` ) and length (L` ). The equation of these variables is
well known [7], being dependent on the thickness (h) and dielectric relative permittivity (εrd ).

(a) (b)

Figure 1: Printed antennas. (a) Conventional mi- Figure 2: Printed antennas reflection coefficient.
crostrip antenna, (b) microstrip antenna with trun-
cated ground plane.

The MSA dimensions was calculated and adjusted (finite element method in ANSYS HFSS
software) to minimize the input reflection. Considering the design frequency for f = 60 GHz
and the dielectric ULTRALAM° R
3850HT (εrd = 3.14, h = 0.175 mm and tan(δ) = 0.002), the
optimized parameters detailed in Fig. 2(a) are: W = 1.74 mm and L = 1.36 mm, Wd = 2.61 mm,
Ld = 2.38 mm, W` = 0.5 mm, L` = 0.68 mm, Ws = 0.08 mm and Ls = 0.48 mm.
Following our proposed technique formulation [8], the impedance matching slots were removed,
the ground plane length was reduced to, L` .
The frequency response comparison of the simulated reflection coefficient (S11 ) of MSA and
TGMSA is shown in Fig. 2. For S11 ≤ −10 dB, the commonly used criteria for determining
bandwidth, the MSA operates from 59 GHz to 61 GHz, representing a percentage band of 3.3%,
and TGMSA operates from 48 GHz to 75 GHz (43.9%). The large increase in bandwidth is produced
from the antenna merit factor reduction, associated to the ground plane truncation [8].
Figure 3 shows the comparison the MSA and TGMSA radiation pattern for f = 60 GHz. It
is observed that the reduction of the ground plane modifies the radiation format, comparing with
a conventional microstrip antenna. The antenna operates with a radiation pattern similar to a
half wavelength dipole at 60 GHz (omnidirectional in the xy-plane and with two nulls in the xz -
plane). The modification in the radiation pattern causes a gain reduction of 6.5 dBi to 1.5 dBi.
This behavior was already expected for an omnidirectional radiator.

3. SUPERELLIPSE PATCH ANTENNA

The new technique proposed in this work consists in modeling the patch as two halves of superelipse
(see Fig. 4), according to the Lamé curve [9, 10]. Basically, the patch is divided into two parts. The
antenna’s top (m) and bottom (n) regions are modeled as:

¯ x ¯m,n ¯¯ x ¯¯m,n
¯ ¯
¯ ¯ + ¯¯ ¯ =1 (1)
W L/2 ¯
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Figure 3: Printed antennas reflection coefficient. — Figure 4: Superellipse patch antenna.

MSA xy-plane, – – MSA xz-plane, ¨ TGMSA xy-
plane and ♦ TGMSA xz-plane.

in which, n and m are coefficients linked to the ellipse eccentricity, top and bottom, respectively.
The curve is given by the parametric equations:

x (α) = W |cos α|m,n sgn (cos α) , (2a)

y (α) = L |sin α|m,n sgn (sin α) , (2b)

where sgn(·) is signal function. For n = m → ∞, the patch is rectangle with L and W sides. For
n = m → 1, the patch is ellipse with L/2 and W /2 sides. For n = m → 1/2, the patch is a lozenge
with vertical and horizontal lengths, L and W respectively. Therefore, superellipse modeling aims
to smooth bottom and top vertices.
3.1. Reflection Coefficient
Figure 5 shows the study to independently determine coefficients n and m. Initially, was studied
the influence of n on S11 . It is observed that when n = 0.5 antenna operates only up to 50 GHz
(see Fig. 5(a)). As n increases, the band width becomes larger. However, the beginning of the
bandwidth shifts to higher frequencies with the increase of n. Thus, it was observed that the best
behavior of S11 runs for n = 1.

(a) (b)

Figure 5: Superellipse patch antenna reflection coefficient. (a) n coefficients study, (b) m coefficients study.

Studying the influence of m on S11 , it is observed, basically, the shift from the beginning of the
bandwidth to lower frequencies. However, there is little improvement for m > 2. For m = 8 a very
similar behavior is observed when there is no rounding of the upper part of the patch (m → ∞).
Therefore, it can be concluded that the top of the patch has little influence on the improvement of
the bandwidth. For n = 1 and m = 8, the superellipse patch antenna to have a bandwidth bigger
than 81% (f > 42.5 GHz).
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3.2. Radiation Performance

The radiation too patterns were simulated for f = 40, 60 and 80 GHz (xz -plane and xy-plane) (see
Fig. 6). The behavior similar to a wavelength dipole is again observed. In this way, a compact
antenna was found, with ultra-wideband bandwidth and omnidirectional, meeting the requirements
expected for the project.

(a)

(b)

Figure 6: Superellipse patch antenna. (a) xz -plane, (b) xy-plane. ¨ f = 40 GHz, — f = 60 GHz and M
f = 80 GHz.

4. CONCLUSION
In this work a superellipse patch antenna for millimeter waves was demonstrated. Firstly, a su-
perellipse methodology was presented to model the microstrip antenna patch, creating the structure
omnidirectional with bandwidth bigger than 81%. We believe that the proposed antenna presents
potential characteristics for technologies that apply to the future of wireless communications.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors acknowledgement CAPES, CNPQ, FAPEMIG and FAPESP.
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