A WIDEBAND CONFORMAL FLEXIBLE

MONOPOLE ANTENNA
ASMAE HACHI HASSAN LEBBAR
Laboratoire d’Electronique, Energie, Automatique et Laboratoire d’Electronique, Energie, Automatique et
Traitement de l’Information Traitement de l’Information
Faculté des sciences et techniques Mohammedia Faculté des sciences et techniques Mohammedia
Mohammedia, Maroc Mohammedia, Maroc
asmae.ma@yahoo.fr h_lebbar@hotmail.com

MOHAMED HIMDI
Institut d’Electronique et de Télécommunications de
Rennes
IETR, UMR-6164 - Université de Rennes 1
Rennes Cedex, France
mohamed.himdi@univ-rennes1.fr

Abstract —This paper presents the development and design of
conformal flexible monopoles antennas. It can be used on
different curved surfaces while maintaining all its parameters,
The advantage of this monopole disc antenna consist on his
capacity to remain matched for all radius of curvature. In
addition, when the radius of curvature increase, the radiation
pattern change from dipolar behavior (null in the broadside)
to boresight axis. The proposed monopole antenna would be a
good candidate for tracking radar application.
The simulated results are compared successfully with
experimental results.
Keywords—Conformal, flexible, Disc monopole antenna,
radiation pattern change.
the input impedance, VSWR and return loss with
increasing radius of curvature.[9] and [10] added another
effect of reconfigurable plasma corner reflector antenna for
radiation pattern and gain.
In this paper, we present configurable conformal flexible
monopoles antennas using different radius of curvature.
All structures uses an flexible copper sheet with 18e-3 mm
as thickness printed on a composite substrate with
254 µm as thickness, dielectric constant εr = 2.6 and
mounted over a ground plane and excited by a 50 Ω coaxial
line. Antennas were simulated by CST [11].
II. ANTENNA DESCRIPTION AND DESIGN GEOMETRY

I. INTRODUCTION
Figure 1-a shows a printed disc monopole antenna, it is a
The demand of wireless communication systems is rapidly quarter wavelength at 1 GHz (R=36.5 mm) which can be
growing especially reconfigurable flexible and conformal bended on a cylindrical surface with R a curvature radius as
antennas [1-2] that become widely researched for different presented on Figure 1-b. In order to be flexible, the Rogers
fields of applications. Future wireless systems will provide
R5880 substrate with εr=2.2 and the thickness Ts =254 µm
various services such as broadband multimedia and high are choosing.
speed access. The related literatures to the conformal
flexible antenna have been reported by several authors,
[3] presented a curved strip dipole antenna , when they
increased the curving angle of curvature the return loss
became good and radiation pattern had some change, [4]
presented a curved microstrip antenna, the return loss for
they several curving angle is almost good at some
frequency and poor on the other, to resolve that , they
slightly tuning the key parameters of their curved
microstrip antenna. Inspired by several studies, such as [5]
that works on development and design of curved
rectangular patch arrays antenna, the proposed antenna
design will have a small size, light weight and simple (a) (b)
structure, [6] on their side presents a curved strip dipole
constructed of a metallic sheet that is bended to a half Figure 1. (a) photograph of the fabricated disk monopole antenna
annular. Because of their flexibility, antennas with (b) Structure of curved disc monopole antenna on cylindrical
composite materials are much requested by the new Rohacell foam
technology in various fields, [7] presents a flexible folded
slot dipole implantable antenna operating in the Industrial,
Scientific, and Medical for biomedical applications.
Furthermore of their flexibility, curved antennas change
their parameters with changing the radius of curvature, [8]
presents a conformal microstrip printed antenna that change

978-1-5090-6681-0/17/$31.00 ©2017 IEEE

 III. FLAT DISC MONOPOLE ANTENNA

A. Return Loss of flat disc monopole antenna

Results of the measurements are in good agreement with

results obtained by simulation as shows Figure 2. In
addition, it observed that the return loss of disc monopole
antenna is under -10 dB over a wide frequency band [12].

Figure 4. H-plane radiation pattern at 2 GHz for disk monopole

antenna versus φ : Simulated co-polarization Eθ for θ=90° ( )
Measured co-polarization ( ) Measured cross polarization
Eφ for θ = 90◦ ( )

Figure 2. Return Loss of Flat Disc Antenna: Simulation ( ),
Measurement ( )
B. E-plane of flat disc monopole antenna
Figure 3 shows a classical null radiation in the z direction
(theta=0°). However, the maximum radiation is obtained in
the -60° and 60°. The measurements results confirm the
simulation one.
IV- CURVED DISC MONOPOLE ANTENNA
For many applications like base station, plane wings ... the
curved antenna must be developed taking into account the
radius of curvature and keeping good performances in term
of matching and gain. As we can observe in next sections
the disc monopole can be proposed for this kind of
applications.
The results given for only two radius (R= 45 and 60
mm).

A. Return Loss of curved disc monopole antennas

One advantage of the disk antenna, is his capability to

remains matched even if it is curved (figure 5 and figure 6),
the measurement results are in good agreement with
simulated results for low frequencies up to1.4 GHz and for
high frequency we observe a shift between simulations and
measurement, it due to the experimental prototype.

Figure 3. E-plane radiation pattern at 2 GHz for flat disk

monopole antenna versus θ: Simulated co-polarization Eθ for
φ=90° ( ), Measured co-polarization ( ), Measured
cross polarization Eφ for φ=90° ( )
Figure 5. Return Loss of Curved Disc Monopole Antenna
(R=60mm): Simulation ( ), Measurement ( )
C. H-plane of flat disc monopole antenna

It be observed (figure 4) that the measurement H-plane is in

good agreement with simulated H-plane. Moreover, cross
polarization still under co-polarization (-13 dB). Simulated
cross polarization is under -30 dB. The difference is
probably coming from the realization process.
Figure 6. Return Loss of Curved Disc Monopole Antenna
(R=45mm): Simulation ( ), Measurement ( )
B. E-plane of curved disc (R=60mm) monopole antenna
It be noted that the null disappears in the broadside
direction when the disk monopole antenna is curved.
The simulated cross polarization is lower than -50 dB. The
simulated results are in good agreement with the
measurement (Figure 7).
Figure 7. E-plane radiation pattern at 2 GHz for curved disk
monopole antenna (R=60mm) versus θ: Simulated co-polarization
Eθ for φ=90° ( ) Measured co-polarization ( ) Measured
cross polarization ( )
C. H-plane of curved (R=60mm) disc monopole antenna
Figure 8 shows that a maximal radiation is obtained in the
broadside direction (z direction, θ=0°), the main
component remains superior to that crossed and those
between -45° and 45°, beyond this interval the cross
component crossing remains in a value of -4dB. Measured
results are in good agreement with the simulated ones.
Figure 8. H-plane radiation pattern at 2 GHz for disk monopole
antenna (R=60mm): Simulated co-polarization Eφ versus θ for
φ=0° ( ) Simulated cross polarization Eθ versus θ for φ=0°
( ) Measured co-polarization ( ) Measured cross
polarization ( )
D. E-plane of curved disc (R=45 mm) monopole antenna
It is noted that also for the curvature (R=45mm) the null
disappears in the broadside direction. The simulated cross
polarization is lower than -50 dB. The simulated results are
in good agreement with the measurements (Figure 9).
Figure 9. E-plane radiation pattern at 2 GHz for curved disk
monopole antenna (R=45mm): Simulation co-polarization Eθ for
φ=90° ( ) Measured co-polarization ( ) Measured cross
polarization ( )
E. H-plane of curved (R=45 mm) disc monopole antenna
Figure 10 shows the simulated and measured H-plane
radiation pattern of curved disk monopole antenna for
(R=45mm). Once more, the comparison between simulated
and experimented validates the result.

Figure 10. H-plane radiation pattern at 2 GHz for curved disk
monopole antenna (R=45mm): Simulated co-polarization Eφ
versus θ for φ=0° ( ) Simulated cross polarization (
Measured co-polarization ( ) Measured cross polarization
( )
V- REALIZED GAIN OF DISK ANTENNAS
Table 1 presents the comparison between simulation and
measurement of realized gain for disk monopoles antennas
for different curvature. Good agreement is obtained and
shows that the gain remains around 5 dBi for all cases;
even the radiation pattern is not similar.
Table 1 Simulated and Measured Gain for flat and curved antennas
R (mm) ∞ (Flat) 60
Simulated Gain (dBi) 5.3 4.9
Measured Gain (dBi) 4.8 4.4
As expected, the curvature allows the monopole antenna to
radiate in the broadside. It can be easily imagine that this
kind of flexible antenna associated with mechanical
actuator and becomes reconfigurable.
Finally this solution is more interesting compared to patch
antenna one in term of bandwidth.
IV. CONCLUSION
This paper proposed the effect of curvature on the return
loss and on the radiation pattern for printed flexible disk
monopole antenna. The flexibility is due to the choose of
very thin dielectric substrate (Ts =254 µm).
Curvature affects the radiation in the beam axis but not he
matching who remain good for all the large bandwidth. A
simulated result shows a good agreement with experimental
measurements for the various conformal curved disc
monopole antennas.
The next step of this work, concern the possibility to allow
this structure to be reconfigurable in association with an
adequate actuators and it could be a candidate for tracking
radar.
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