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PIERS Proceedings, Xian, China, March 2226, 2010

High Performance Antenna Array with Patch Antenna Elements

Dau-Chyrh Chang1, 2 , Bing-Hao Zeng2 , and Ji-Chyun Liu3
1

Department of Communication Engineering, Oriental Institute of Technology Banciao, Taipei 220, Taiwan 2 Department of Communication Engineering, Yuan Ze University Chung-li, Tao-yuan 32003, Taiwan 3 Department of Electronics Engineering, Ching Yun University Chung-li, Tao-yuan 32097, Taiwan

Abstract In this paper, a high-gain multilayer 2 2 antenna array for the application of
WLAN (wireless local area network) AP (access point) is presented. The antenna array consists of four square patch antenna elements fabricated on FR4 substrate. The FR4 substrate is with air gap to the ground plane. By adjusting the thickness of FR4 substrate and geometry of antenna array the maximum gain of array can be achieved. The proposed antenna is designed, fabricated and tested. The measured 10 dB return loss impedance bandwidth is around 14.2% (2.30 2.65 GHz). The gain of simulated and tested antenna array is about 13 dBi. The radiation eciency for 2.4, 2.5 and 2.6 GHz are all larger than 65% at 2.4 GHz band. The 3 dB beamwidth for E -plane and H -plane is about 30 . The test results of power gain and return loss are agreed with that of simulation. 1. INTRODUCTION

Proposed rstly by G. A. Deschamps early in 1953 that the microstrip antenna has been widely applied because of its several advantages over conventional microwave antennas [1]. Microstrip antenna array is widely used due to its several advantages, such as low prole, light weight, and low cost, etc. [1, 2]. However, microstrip antenna suers from low gain, low eciency, and low power handling capability [3]. Various broadband techniques have been reported using multilayer or stacking the patches [3, 4]. High-gain antenna is usually realized by using either parabolic reectors or line-fed antenna arrays or reectarrays [5]. In this paper, the high gain antenna array using 2 2 elements and excited with probe-feeding is proposed and applied for IEEE 802.11b/g WLAN AP systems [610]. In nowadays microstrip print circuit board (PCB) antenna is widely used for communication systems which include WLAN, global system for mobile communications (GSM), radio-frequency identication (RFID). . . etc. Recently, various types of antenna with WLAN systems are also widely used [1116]. In general, both the requirements of electrical performances and environment conditions of outdoor wireless AP are very critical. For special point to point communication outdoor AP antenna, compact, high gain, and narrower beamwidths at both planes are required [15, 16].

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Figure 1: Simulated structure of array antenna. (a) Top view, (b) side view.

Progress In Electromagnetics Research Symposium Proceedings, Xian, China, March 2226, 2010 2. DESIGN AND SIMULATION OF ANTENNA ARRAY WITH 2 2 ELEMENTS

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Based on the requirements of outdoor AP antenna the compact size, high gain, and narrower beamwidth antenna array is designed as shown in Fig. 1. The antenna array is composed of four patch antenna elements. The physical dimension of the radiating array is 203 220 mm2 . The radiating patch antenna array with 2 2 elements distribute on the FR4 substrate (190 180 mm2 ) and the size of each patch is a5 b4 mm2 . The dimensions are a1 = 1.5 mm, a2 = 6.5 mm, a3 = 3.0 mm, a4 = 7.5 mm, a5 = a6 = 54 mm, b1 = 27.5 mm, b2 = 25 mm, b3 = 29.5 mm, and b4 = 43 mm. The substrates dielectric constant of FR4 and air are 4.4 (1 ) and 1 (2 ), and the thickness are 1.6 mm (h1 ) and 5 mm (h2 ). The simulated tool is using Ansoft HFSS. The simulation return loss with various heights of air substrate (h2 ) of patch antenna element is compared as shown in Fig. 2. Results of the air substrate (h2 ) varied from 5 to 8 mm are presented. While result of return loss is smaller than 10 dB at the 2.4 GHz band, the best return loss is with air substrate height h2 = 5 mm.

Figure 2: Simulation of return loss for various heights of air substrate.

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Figure 3: Simulated of antenna radiation patterns. (a) 2.4 GHz, (b) 2.5 GHz, (c) 2.6 GHz.

Figure 4: Simulated and measured results of the return loss.

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PIERS Proceedings, Xian, China, March 2226, 2010

The simulated radiation patterns for frequency at 2.4 GHz 2.5 GHz and 2.6 GHz are also obtained. Fig. 3 shows the result of E -planes (Y -Z plane) and H -planes (X -Z plane) with air substrate height 5 mm. The simulated gains are above 13.6 dBi 14 dBi for various height (5 8 mm) at 2.4 GHz, 2.5 GHz and 2.6 GHz. The thickness of FR4, either 1.2 mm or 1.5 mm, is not so sensitive to the gain of patch array antenna. The simulated gain with various air substrate heights is shown in Table 1.
Table 1: Gains with parameters of air substrate height and substrate thickness. Frequency Air\FR4(h1 ) h2 = 5 mm Gain (dBi) h2 = 6 mm h2 = 7 mm h2 = 8 mm 2.4 GHz 1.2 mm 1.5 mm 14.2 13.7 13.7 13.8 13.9 14.0 13.7 13.7 2.5 GHz 1.2 mm 1.5 mm 14.2 13.1 13.8 12.9 13.6 13.0 13.3 12.7 2.6 GHz 1.2 mm 1.5 mm 14.1 13.1 13.8 12.8 13.4 12.9 13.1 12.5

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Figure 5: Measured of antenna radiation patterns. (a) 2.4 GHz, (b) 2.5 GHz, (c) 2.6 GHz.

Figure 6: Measured peak gain and radiation eciency.

3. MEASUREMENT RESULTS

The antenna is measured using the Anritsu 37369C network analyzer. The measured return loss of the proposed array antenna is shown in Fig. 4. Concerning the 10 dB return loss at the 2.4 GHz band, the impedance bandwidth of the antenna ranges from 2.30 GHz to 2.65 GHz with the fractional bandwidth (FBW = (fH fL )/f0 = 14.2%). The simulated and measured results of the return loss and are in good agreement. The measured radiation patterns of the proposed antennas at 2.4, 2.5 and 2.6 GHz for both E -plane (Y -Z plane) and H -plane (X -Z plane) are shown in Fig. 5 which are in good agreement

Progress In Electromagnetics Research Symposium Proceedings, Xian, China, March 2226, 2010

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with simulations as shown in Fig. 3. From Fig. 5, the beam pattern is a like a pencil beam. Fig. 6 shows measured antenna gain and radiation eciency for the proposed antenna array. The peak gains for 2.4, 2.5 and 2.6 GHz are 13.1, 13.08 and 12.6 dBi respectively. The radiation eciency for 2.4, 2.5 and 2.6 GHz are all larger than 65%.
4. CONCLUSIONS

In this paper, a high-gain multilayer 2 2 antenna array for WLAN AP application is presented. The measured 10 dB return loss impedance bandwidth is around 14.2% (2.30 2.65 GHz). The gain of simulated and measured antenna array is about 13 dBi. The radiation eciency for 2.4, 2.5 and 2.6 GHz are all larger than 65%. The 3 dB beamwidths are 30 for both E -plane and H -plane The results from both simulated and measured are quite agreed. The high gain antenna array is proposed and applied for IEEE 802.11b/g WLAN AP systems.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The authors will thank to National Science Council and Loopcomm Technology Inc. for funding support.
REFERENCES

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