IEEE 2007 International

Symposium on Microwave, Antenna, Propagation, and EMC Technologies For Wireless Communications

Design of Broad-Band Circularly Polarized Microstrip Patch Antenna Array

Dong Tao Satellite Application System Department,China Academy of Space Technology,Beijing 100086,China Email: dongtaoandy@sohu. com
Abstract: A Broadband circularly polarized microstrip antenna array is presented in this paper. This array has 8X8 elements and a parallel feed networks. The whole size of this X band array is 190mm X 190mm X 0. 787mm. The measurement of the bandwidth of this array is 7. 32%(VSWR<2), the gain is about 24dB and the axial ratio is less than 3dB in the operating band. This

characteristics is realized by the truncated corner of the square patch method. The gain of the element is about 7dBi and the axial ratio is ldB.

single layer microstrip antenna array is promising in application because of its compact size and excellent
characteristics. Index Terms: microstrip array, circularly polarized,

broad-band, single layer

1 Introduction
radar, communication and other electronic systems because of its compact size, low cost, easy
a

Microstrip patch antenna array is widely used in

manufacture and excellent characteristics. In this paper,

antenna array is

single layer circularly polarized microstrip patch proposed. This array has compact size and excellent characteristics, such as broadband, high gain and good circularly polarized axial ratio.

Fig.l microstrip pach element 2.2 parallel feed networks design This antenna array was formed by 2 X 2 elements, the layout of 2 X 2 feed networks is also optimized by Ansoft Designer. The optimization goals are resonant frequency, transmission and reflection coefficients. The simulation circuit model is shown in Fig.2, and the planar EM model is shown in Fig.3.

2
2.1

Design and Simulation

^Av>

circularly polarized patch element design The circularly polarized microstrip patch element is optimized by Ansoft Designer. The optimization goals are resonant frequency, gain and axial. The element planar EM model is shown in Fig.l.The substrate is RT/duriod 5880 (sr 2.2,tan 8 0.0009)
= =

Fig.2 layout of 2 X 2 feed networks(circuit model)

with a thickness of 0.787mm. The

circularly polarized
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Fig.3 layout of 2 X 2 feed networks(planar EM model) 2.3 whole size patch array simulation The whole size 8X8 elements array is shown Fig.4, which is simulated by Ansoft HFSS. It can be seen that the array is parallel fed, each element has equal amplitude and phase excitation. The spacing between
two elements is 0.7

Fig.5 radiation pattern(simulation)

3 Measurement and Results

A prototype of the antenna is shown in Fig. 6. The VSWR is measurement by using Agilent 8757D scalar

A0

in two dimensions. The whole

size of this X band array is 190mm X 190mm X 0.787mm.The radiation pattern of simulation in the principal plane is shown in Fig.5.

network analyzer. The measurement results and simulation results(by Ansoft Designer and HFSS) are compared in Fig. 7. We can see that they are good in agreement. The bandwidth(VSWR<2)of the antenna array is 7.32%(8.56GHz~9.21GHz) .The radiation pattern, gain and axial of this single layer antenna array are measured in the anechoic chamber. Circular polarization gain and axial ratio are measured by using a spinning horn and a gain comparison method. The radiation pattern in the central frequency is presented in Fig. 8. It can be seen that the gain is about 24.5dBi and the SLL is about -12dB.

Fig.4 simulation model

Fig.6(a) Prototype of proposed antenna(top)

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Fig.6(a) Prototype of proposed antenna(bottom)

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angle(DEG)

Fig.8 radiation pattern(measurement)

4 Conclusions
-HFSS_sim Designer_sim
-test

5.04.5 4.03.5 3.0 2.5 2.0 1.51.08.9 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4

This paper presents a high-performance single layer 8X8 elements circularly polarized microstrip patch array antenna. The measurement of the bandwidth of this array is 7.32%(VSWR<2),the gain is about 24dB and the axial ratio is less than 3dB in the operating band. References

frequency(GHz)

Fig.7 measurement of VSWR

[l]Kwok L. Chung,'A circularly polarized stacked electromagnetically coupled patch antenna," IEEE Trans.Antennas Propaga.,Vol.52(5),ppl365-1370, 2004. [2]Hao Wang,'A compact single layer monopulse microstrip IEEE antenna Trans.Antennas array," Propaga.,Vol.54(2),pp503-509,2006 [3]S.Holzworth, "planar antenna design at 60 GHz for high date rate point-to-point connections," Antennas and Propagation Society International Symposium, IEEE 2005 [4] M. L. Oberhart, Y. T. Lo, and R. Q. H. Lee, "New simple feed network of an array module of four microstrip elements,"
,

Electron. Lett., vol. 23,no. 9, pp. 436-437, 1987.

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