Design of Bow-tie Antenna over High Impedance
Surface for Bluetooth and WLAN Applications
Akash Kumar Gupta
Research Scholar, Department of Electronics and
Communication Engineering
Centurion University of Technology and Management
Odisha, India
akgupta452@gmail.com
2023 IEEE Wireless Antenna and Microwave Symposium (WAMS) | 979-8-3503-1243-0/23/$31.00 ©2023 IEEE | DOI: 10.1109/WAMS57261.2023.10242947
M Vamshi Krishna
Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering
Dhanikula Institute of Engineering and Technology
Vijayawada, India
vamshi51@yahoo.co.in
Abstract— This work proposes a bow-tie antenna for
wearable Bluetooth applications designed over a square-ring
High Impedance Surface (HIS). HIS structures have the
advantage of surface wave reduction and zero-phase reflection
of radiation. These properties are much required for wearable
antennas. In this work, square-shaped HIS cell is studied for via
and via less in terms of its reflection phase characteristics. The
proposed bow-tie antenna over square-ring HIS 𝟔 × 𝟔 array
provides a wide bandwidth of 1.8 GHz with a frequency range
of 4.43 GHz–6.31 GHz with a maximum return loss of -28.9 dBi
with a peak gain of 3.7 dBi.
Keywords—bow-tie antenna, High Impedance Surface,
Return loss
I. INTRODUCTION
Nowadays wearable devices are equipped with various
sensors which exchange information using Bluetooth, and
WLAN. One of the primary requirements for these devices
is having a miniatured antenna that has high gain with low
back radiation. For these reasons High Impedance Surface
(HIS) based antennas are a good choice. High Impedance
Surface antennas coined by Sievenpiper [1,2] use a periodic
arrangement of mushroom structure as HIS structure. Each
mushroom is shorted to ground using conducting vias or
protrusions. This arrangement is equivalent to a parallel LC
circuit where Conducting via along with the ground plane
will constitute an inductive effect and the gap between the
mushroom constitutes a capacitive effect. Thus, this
arrangement acts as a narrowband filter with the resonance
frequency of a parallel LC circuit. Thus, the HIS structure
can be used to minimize unwanted surface waves with a
frequency equivalent to the resonant frequency. The surface
waves in microstrip patch antennas cause ripples in radiation
patterns and radiation along the undesired directions. The
surface waves that propagate over the ground plane cause a
destructive reflective wave which also reduces the gain of
radiating patch.
When RF waves are reflected from Perfect Electric
Conducting (PEC) ground plane, their phase will be changed
by 1800 . To get the in-phase reflection the radiating patch
must be positioned at a separation of 𝜆⁄4 .But practically,
thin dielectric substrates are used thus it will produce ripples
in radiation. When HIS ground plane is used even with a
small distance of (<< 𝜆⁄4 ) produces in-phase reflections.
XXX-X-XXXX-XXXX-X/XX/$XX.00 ©20XX IEEE
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P. Satish Rama Chowdary
Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering
Raghu Institute of Technology
Visakhapatnam, India
satishchowdary@ieee.org
Harish Chandra Mohanta
Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering
Centurion University of Technology and Management
Odisha, India
harishmohanta@cutm.ac.in
The phase measurements of HIS are measured by applying
PMC boundaries around the unit cell where field incidence
at a distance of 𝜆⁄4 from the surface of HIS patch. HIS is
also classified as an Artificial Magnetic Conductor due to the
in-phase reflection of incidence waves over HIS surface. The
HIS will act as pseudo-AMC within a reflection phase angle
of ± 90° [3,4]. A bow tie antenna for bandwidth
enhancement and performance of single-layer and double-
layer HIS is compared in [5]. The Hilbert curve fractal based
HIS structures is investigated [6]. A bow tie antenna over
square HIS is presented in [7] and has a bandwidth of 45%
in the frequency range of (2–3.2) GHz. The effective model
of bow tie antenna design is validated through the method of
Moments in [8]. The bandwidth enhancement of HIS
structure is discussed in [9] and the design HIS without vias
and bow tie dimensions is optimized using evolutionary
programming. The work also reports the performance
improvement of bow tie by use of HIS. The work in [10]
reports Mushroom with vias based HIS bow-tie antenna for
wireless applications that provides bandwidth of 45% in
operational frequency range of (0.45–0.71) GHz. It also
explores the performance of Bow tie antenna with Fr-4
dielectric substrate and air gap structures.
The paper is organized into three sections where
section 1 gives an introduction and literature review, section
2 briefs about the proposed design methodology and section
3 discusses about results and discussions. The proposed
design includes the design of a square-shaped HIS cell
design, bow-tie antenna design over HIS, and bow-tie
antenna design over square-ring HIS.
(a)
(b)
 B. Design of Bow-tie Antenna over HIS
For the antenna design a HIS ground plane is used with an
array size of 6×6 having a gap of 1 mm in between elements.
The bow-tie antenna has been built on top of a Fr-4
foundation that has the thickness of 1.6 millimetres[11] .The
design parameters are shown in table 2. The bow-tie antenna
is a simple and cost-effective design that provides directional
radiation patterns and can be easily mounted on the surface.
The designed bow-tie antenna over the square-shaped HIS
ground plane(BTSH) is shown in Fig.3(a). To improve the
bandwidth square slots are made and HIS is modified to a
bow-tie antenna over square-ring HIS (BTSRH) as shown in
fig.3(b).
Table 2. Design parameters
(c) Design Parameter Dimensions (in mm)
Fig.1 Square-Shaped HIS Unit Cell (a) with Via (b) Sides of Square HIS 10
Cross-View with via (c) Without Via (𝐿𝐻 = 𝑊𝐻 )
Thickness of HIS substrate 1(h) 1.6
Thickness of Substrate 2 (h) 1.6
II. DESIGN METHODOLOGY Square-ring width (a) 5
Size of HIS array 6× 6
A. Square Shaped HIS cell Design
Length of bow-tie arm 𝐿𝑎 27
A square-shaped HIS cell is constructed with dimensions Width of bow-tie arm 𝑤𝑎 30
of 10 𝑚𝑚 × 10 𝑚𝑚 . The HIS cell is designed over Fr-4 Gap (g) 1
substrate whose dielectric constant is 4.4 and loss tangent of Ground plane (𝐿𝑔 × 𝑤𝑔 ) 66 × 66
0. 001. The mushroom-shaped unit cell is designed with a via
radius of 0.5 mm and without via as depicted in Fig.1 (a), (b)

(a)

Fig 2. Reflection phase characteristics of Square HIS cell with

and without via

& (c). The reflection phase characteristics of square-shaped

HIS cell with and without via is shown in fig. 2 and
summarized in Table.1. From the observations of Table
1.We can observe that there is a very less significant effect
of via on resonance frequency. Thus, square-shaped HIS cell
will as act Pseudo PMC material the within frequency range
of 4.45 GHz –5.22 GHz. Thus, for ease of fabrication via less
HIS is chosen.

Table.1 Reflection Phase characteristics HIS Cell

Reflection Phase Angle (degrees) &
HIS Cell Frequency (GHz)
𝟎𝒐 +𝟗𝟎𝟎 −𝟗𝟎𝟎
HIS Cell with
5.22 4.86 5.77 (b)
Via
Fig.3 Bow-tie antenna (a) with Square shaped HIS
Via less HIS (b) With Square-ring-shaped HIS
4.76 4.45 5.22
Cell

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 III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS response of BTSRH is shown in Fig.4(b). When compared to
The designed BTSH and BTSRH antenna are analysed in the response of BTSH, BTSRH has improved bandwidth. It
High Frequency Structure Simulator and investigated for has a bandwidth of 1.88 GHz (4.43GHz—6.31GHz). with a
reflection coefficient, radiation pattern, gain, and surface center frequency of 5.16 GHz. The observations are
current density. tabulated in Table 3.
A. The Reflection Coefficient Table 3. Return loss response.
The rreflection coefficient is a measure of the power Design 𝒇𝑪 𝒇𝑳 𝒇𝑯 BW 𝑺𝟏𝟏
Name (GHz) (GHz) (GHz) (MHz) (In dB)
reflected toward the source in a transmission system. In 5.11 — — — –2.38
antenna analysis, the return loss is measured and used to BT 5.70 — — — –9.5
determine how well an antenna is matched to the 8.09 — — — –10.42
transmission line that is connected to it. A lower return loss 5.18 5.09 5.23 140 –33.13
indicates a better match, leading to less power being reflected 5.63 5.56 5.70 140 –12.79
BTSH
6.23 6.18 6.30 120 –23.86
back and more being transmitted. Fig.4(a) shows the return
8.95 8.68 9.47 790 –12.89
loss response for BTSH. It shows that the Bow-tie antenna 5.16 4.43 6.31 1880 –28.9
with conducting metal as the ground plane has no frequency BTSRH 6.43 6.36 6.50 140 –14.30
components under -10 dBi When a square-shaped HIS 8.83 8.54 9.09 550 –13.83
ground plane is used, it has a resonance frequency of 5.18
GHz with a return loss of -33.13 dBi. The return loss
B. The Radiation Pattern
The radiation pattern is a pictorial depiction of the radiated
power from the antenna as into the space. It describes the
distribution of the antenna's power in the far-field region and
is usually shown as a 2D or 3D plot. The radiation pattern of
BTSH and BTSRH are shown in Fig.5 (a) & (b).

(a)

(a)

(b)

Fig.4 Return Loss Plot (a) BTSH (b)BTSRH (b)

Fig. 5 Radiation Pattern (a) BTA & BTSH (b) BTSH & BTSRH

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 As shown in Fig. 5 far field pattern of the bow-tie antenna
over the metallic ground plane and square-shaped HIS has
uniform gain over the upper hemisphere. There is no back
lobe, but significant radiation is observed in the lower
hemisphere in both cases. The radiation pattern of BTSH and
BTSRH has an almost similar response and no effect of slot
on the radiation pattern is observed.
C. The Gain 3-D Polar plot
A polar plot in an antenna refers to a 3-D graphical
representation of the far field power or field of an antenna.
The polar plot displays the strength of the electromagnetic
field radiated by the antenna in a 360-degree view, with the
origin at the center of the plot and the radius of the plot
representing the strength of the radiation.
(a)
(b)
(c)
Fig.6 Gain 3-D Polar Plot of Bow-tie Antenna
(a) with Metal Ground plane (b) With Square HIS
(c) with Square-ring HIS.
The gain plot of the bowtie depicted in Fig.6(a) has a
maximum gain of 1.5 dB and has maximum gain at the upper
hemisphere. The gain for BTSH is shown in Fig. 6(b) has a
maximum gain of 4.2 dB at the outer sphere and the gain is
reduced near the center of the plot. The gain for the bow-tie
antenna with square-ring-shaped HIS BTSRH is shown in
Fig. 6(c) has a maximum gain of 3.7 dB at the outer sphere
and the gain is reduced near the center of the plot. As square-
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ring HIS is used due to the slots the gain has been reduced
when compared to BTSH.
D. The Surface current density
Surface current density in antennas refers to the distribution
of electrical current over the surface of an antenna. It is an
important parameter in antenna design, as it determines the
antenna's radiation pattern and efficiency.
(a) (b)
(c) (d)
(e) (f)
Fig7. Surface Current Distribution (a) On Metal Ground plane (b) On Bow-
tie antenna over metal ground (c) Square shaped HIS (d) Bow-tie antenna
over Square shaped HIS (e) Square-ring HIS (f) Bow-tie antenna over
Square-ring-shaped HIS
The surface current of the bow-tie antenna over the metallic
ground plane is shown in fig. 7(a) has more current beneath
the top bow-tie patch and it is undesirable. Fig. 7(b) shows
the current distribution over the bow-tie antenna. It is
observed that the current decreases from the feed position to
the end of an arm of a bow tie. The current distribution of
square shaped HIS plane is shown in fig.7 (c). It has a very
low current distribution over the surface i.e., surface currents
are suppressed due to the use of a square HIS structure. The
surface currents over the bow-tie antenna placed over the
square are shown in fig. 7(d) has more current from the feed
to the center of the arm and then the current decreases. The
current distribution of the square-ring-shaped HIS plane is
shown in fig.7 (e). It has a very low current distribution over
the surface i.e., surface currents are suppressed due to the use
of a square-ring HIS structure. However, it has a few more
surface currents compared to square HIS. The surface
 currents over the bow-tie antenna placed over the square-ring
HIS are shown in fig. 7(f) has more current from the feed to
the center of the arm and then the current decreases.
IV. THE PROTOTYPE
Fig.8. Prototype of BTSRH
The prototype of BTSRH is shown in Fig.8. The comparison
of the simulated and measured reflection coefficient is shown
in Fig.9
Fig. 9. The reflection Coefficient plot BTSRH
Fig. 10. The Radiation Pattern
The measured results have a triple band response with first
band at 4.87 GHz– 6.26 GHz, second band of 6.63GHz–7.14
GHz and Third band 8.80 GHz – 9.47 GHz. The measured
and simulation results have good agreement. The Measured
radiation pattern has good agreement with the simulated
results.
V. CONCLUSION
In this work, a bow-tie antenna over a square-ring-shaped
HIS is presented. The reflection phase characteristics of
square-shaped HIS with via, square-shaped HIS without via,
and square-ring-shaped HIS cell are studied. The effect of
via on reflection characteristics is less significant and can be
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negligible. Hence for ease of implementation via less HIS is
considered. When the metallic ground plane is used no
resonant frequency is seen in the band around 5.1 GHz.
When the metal ground plane is changed with Square shaped
HIS then the surface waves are suppressed as seen from the
surface current density plots and lead to improvement of gain
and a maximum gain of 4.2 dB is obtained over a narrow
band of frequency 5.09 GHz – 5.23 GHz. To improve the
bandwidth of the antenna square-ring-shaped HIS cell has
been used and obtained the bandwidth of 1.88 GHz in the
frequency range of 4.43 GHz–6.31 GHz. Due to the use of a
slot in the square-ring shape the gain of the bow-tie antenna
slightly dropped and has a maximum gain of 3.7dB.
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