Microstrip Patch Antenna Array at 3.

8 GHz for
WiMax and UAV Applications
Hassan Sajjad, Waleed Tariq Sethi, Khan Zeb, Adnan Mairaj
Electrical Engineering Department, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
hs fastian@yahoo.com, wsethi@ksu.edu.sa
AbstractThis paper presents the design of a rectangular
microstrip line-fed patch antenna array with a centre frequency
of 3.8 GHz for WiMAX and Unmanned Air Vehicle (UAV)
applications. A single element, 1x2 and 2x2 microstrip rectangular
patch antennas were designed and simulated in Computer Simulation Tool (CST) Microwave Studio environment. The results of
designed antennas were compared in terms of Return Loss (S11
parameters), bandwidth, directivity, gain and radiation pattern.
Compared to traditional microstrip antennas the proposed array
structure achieved a gain and directivity of 13.2 dB and 13.5 dBi
respectively. The antenna was fabricated using Rogers Duroid RT5880 substrate with a dielectric constant r of 2.2 and a thickness
of 1.574 mm respectively. The array antennas were measured in
the laboratory using Vector Network Analyser (VNA) and the
results show good agreement with the array antenna simulation.

Keywords Microstrip 22 array, 3.8 GHz, WiMax, UAV,

Rogers RT-5880 Substrate
I.

I NTRODUCTION

With the increase in data rates and a trend of miniature

electronic circuits for wireless digital applications, the antennas required for these applications should be light weight,
easily mountable and have a broad bandwidth [1]-[3]. These
requirements can be met by using microstrip antennas and
patch arrays. Balanis [4] states that an antenna should be low
profile, simple and inexpensive to fabricate and it should be
easy to mount on planar and non-planar surfaces. When the
type of patch to be used for an application is chosen, the
dimensions should be carefully analysed. A small change in
any dimension can cause a noticeable change in the results e.g.,
the frequency, impedance matching, bandwidth, directivity and
gain etc. Microstrip single element antenna has advantages but
it also has several disadvantages, such as low efficiency, narrow
bandwidth, low gain and directivity. These disadvantages can
be overcome by using multiple patch elements in different
configurations called patch arrays.
Unmanned Aerial vehicle (UAV) has gained an immense
popularity among researchers due to its surveillance, reconnaissance and sensing applications. The earliest UAV was used
in 1916 [5] during World War I for military applications but
now it has found its importance in RADAR applications as
well. The antennas used in UAV should be low profile, compact
and directional. This paper shows a single element, 1 2 and
2 2 rectangular microstrip patch array antennas with edge
feeding method and quarter wave transformer for impedance
matching. All the antennas are centred at 3.8 GHz which
can be used for UAV and WiMax applications. However, we
need a more directive beam for the UAV which would require

the arrays to be bigger, for example an array of the order

10 10. As visible from the simulation results the patch array
antenna outperforms the single element antenna in terms of
gain, directivity and bandwidth.
The paper is organized as described. Section II explains the
antenna design, synthesis and measurements. Section III shall
discuss the results and section IV shows the conclusion.
II.

A NTENNA D ESIGN

The goal of designing a microstrip antenna at 3.8 GHz was

to improve gain and directivity for the UAV application. There
are various important steps in designing microstrip antennas.
The most important one is choosing the right kind of substrate.
Different substrates can be used to fabricate an antenna with
a good response. The dielectric constants of the substrates lie
in the range of 2.2 r 12. Usually the substrate chosen
for the antenna design is thick and has a dielectric constant
on the lower end. This provides better performance in contrast
to thin substrates with higher dielectric constants [4]. FR-4
and Rogers 5880 was available for fabrication, since FR-4 has
higher losses and has higher dielectric constant, Rogers 5880
was chosen for fabrication and simulation purpose.
Once the single element antenna was designed and simulated then the array configuration performance evaluation was
carried out. Table I shows the specifications for the rectangular
single patch antenna.
TABLE I.

D ESIGN SPECIFICATIONS FOR S INGLE E LEMENT

Substrate

Rogers-5880

Center Frequency,

3.8 GHz

Copper Thickness

0.035 mm

Substrate Height

1.574 mm

Loss Tangent

0.0009

Dielectric Constant

2.2

A. Single Element Antenna Design

This section describes the design of a rectangular single element patch antenna with quarter wave transform for
impedance matching. The most important design features of
the patch are its width (W ), length (L), width of transmission
line and the length of the feeding line. These specifications
are dependent on each other as well as the frequency of
operation. Different equations given in [4] and [7] were used
to calculate the patch dimensions i.e., W and L: The patch
was fed by a 50 discreet port. Quarter wave transformer
network was used for impedance matching of the feed line,

patch and the connector. The single element rectangular patch

design in shown in Fig. 1.

Fig. 1.

Single element rectangular patch design

Fig. 2.

Corporate feed network for 2 2 array

A 50 surface mount adapter (SMA) connector was used

to connect to the feed line. The feed line will be fed to the
patch through a quarter-wave transformer matching network.
Table II shows the dimensions for the feed line impedance
matching.

"

'

&

&

TABLE II.

F EEDLINE DIMENSIONS

Impedance ()

Width (mm)

Length (mm)

50

4.84

28.8

70

2.83

29.2 (QWT)

100

1.40

29.7

B. Rectangular Patch Array Design

After designing and simulating a single patch, 2 2 array
was designed and fabricated. The design uses corporate feeding
network for matching the impedance. Corporate fed arrays are
more efficient than single fed arrays. In the former case design,
feed of each element can be controlled which helps in beam
steering and scanning in case of phased arrays.
Another important phenomenon is mutual coupling which
occurs between antenna elements and the transmission line.
It is important to take into account mutual coupling and
internal reflections in an array [6]. For better radiation and
efficient power transfer the spacing between antenna elements
is very important. In this paper, the centre to centre distance
between the patches is set to /2. Width and length of different
branches (50 , 70 , 100 ) of the transmission line are
tabulated in table II, where QWT is the quarter wavelength
transform length. Fig. 2 is a rough sketch of the corporate
feed network of 2 2 array.
III.

Fig. 3.

Return loss of single element rectangular patch antenna

Fig. 4.

Bandwidth of 1 2 array

Fig. 5.

Bandwidth of 2 2 array

R ESULTS AND D ISCUSSION

The return loss of a single element microstrip patch

antenna, both measured and simulated, is shown in Fig. 3.
The simulation result gives a return loss of 18.2 dB at an
operating frequency of 3.8 GHz while the measurement result
gives a return loss of 14.22 dB at 3.82 GHz. Minor flaws
during the fabrication process leads to a shift of the operating
frequency of measurement result.
Fig. 4 and 5 show the bandwidth for both 1 2 and 2 2
array antenna. The bandwidth of single element antenna is

about 2.8% (3.76173.8683 GHz). Meanwhile the bandwidth

of 1 2 and 2 2 patch array antenna is 1.63% (3.7727
3.8349 GHz) and 1.84% (3.7693 3.8413 GHz) respectively.
There is a percentage decrease of about 0.92% which rises due
to coupling loss and needs better element spacing optimization.

Fig. 6.

Simulated radiation pattern of a single element

Fig. 8.

Measured polar plot for 2 2 array

Fig. 9.

Fabricated 2 2 microstrip rectangular patch array antenna

TABLE III.

G AIN AND D IRECTIVITY FOR THE SIMULATED A NTENNAS

Gain
Directivity

Single Element
7.02 dB
8.19 dB

IV.

Fig. 7.

Simulated polar plot for 2 2 array

Fig. 6 shows the simulated radiation pattern of a single

microstrip patch antenna along the z-axis. The achieved directivity of a single patch antenna was 8.19 dB and gain of
7.02 dB. Compared to [8] the simulation of 1 2 patch array
antenna showed a directivity and gain of 9.83 dB and 9.39 dB,
respectively. Fig. 7 shows the improved directivity and gain of
13.5 dB and 13.2 dB respectively. The measured polar plot
in Fig. 8 had a decrease of 1 dB in the directivity and gain
due to fabrication and connector losses. Table III shows the
comparison of gain and directivity of the simulated antennas.
Comparing the results conclude that the array design generates
intense radiation at the centre and achieves more directivity and
gain. The fabricated antenna is shown in Fig. 9

12
9.39 dB
9.83 dB

22
13.2 dB
13.5 dB

C ONCLUSION

A rectangular microstrip patch antenna at 3.8 GHz for

Wimax and UAV applications was designed and tested. The
single microstrip antennas performance was then improved
in terms of directivity and gain by comparing it with 1 2
and 2 2 array structures. The array antennas outperformed
the single antenna in terms of directivity, and gain. However
the sidelobes level was too high (> 10 dB) to be used as
conformal antennas. The final 2 2 array antenna design was
then fabricated and the performance was then compared with
the simulated array antenna. Overall, the performance of the
array antenna met the desired requirement in terms of return
loss. The simulation return loss was equal to 18.2 dB at
the centre frequency of 3.8 GHz. The maximum directivity
and gain achieved for 2 2 array antenna was 13.5 dB and
13.2 dB respectively.
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