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Proceedings of ISAP2007, Niigata, Japan

3C1-2

Beam Steering Microstrip Antenna with Varactor Diode


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Yasumasa Tazaki , Eisuke Nishiyama and Masayoshi Aikawa

Faculty of Science and Engineering, Saga University Honjo-machi, Saga-shi, 840-8502, Japan yasu@ceng.ec.saga-u.ac.jp

1.

Introduction

Recongurable antennas are anticipated for advanced wireless communication systems. The structure of the antennas is very simple. Operating frequency, polarization,radiation pattern recongurable antennas are good candidate in future wireless communication systems due to its promising capability[1]. The conguration of conventional beam steering antennas is generally complicated, because the antennas are composed of the array elements and RF phase shift circuits. It has been reported that a microstrip array antenna with switching diodes has a switchable beam[2]. Because the resonant frequency of the antenna is changed by bias voltage, the directivity of the antenna can be switched very simply. In this research, the novel beam continuously steering microstrip array antenna is proposed. The proposed antenna is composed of a probe fed patch and four parasitic patches arranged around the fed patch. The two parasitic patches embed varactor diodes.

2.

Conguration and basic behavior

The basic structure of the proposed beam continuously steering microstrip antenna is shown Fig.1. The proposed antenna is composed of a probe fed patch and parasitic patches arrayed. These patches have a slot at center. The parasitic patches of #1 and #3 have anti-connected varactor diodes that is connected across the slot. These diodes are directly embedded the antenna element conductor to control the electric length of the patch. The #0 patch is excited by a probe, and #1-#4 patches are excited by mutual coupling.
#4

#4 #1 #0 sl1 sw1
feed point

#2 sl2

#1

#0

#2

sw2
0.8mm 2.4mm

lf

#3

#3

y
sw1

sl1

lg

x
Figure 1: Structure of beam steering microstrip antenna

ISBN: 978-4-88552-223-9 C3055IEICE

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The basic behavior of the antenna and the current distributions are shown in Fig.2 and 3. When a negative bias is applied to the diodes on the patches, the electric length of #1 patch is changed due to the variable capacitance of the diode. When the capacitance C1 of #1 diodes is low, the resonant frequency of #1 patch is higher than the one of #0 and #2. When the capacitance of C1 of #1 is high, the resonant frequency of #2 patch is lower than the one of #0 and #1. As the resonant frequency of the fed patch is xed, the mutual coupling of the patches depend on the resonant frequency of #1 patches. Consequently, this array antenna have the continuously beam control due to the coupling change.
#4 #1 #0
feed point

#2

#3

Low capacitance
#4 #1 #0
feed point

#2

#3

Hight capacitance Figure 2: Basic behavior The length of side of the fed patch and the parasitic patches lf and the ground plane lg are 24mm and 102.4mm, respectively. The patch distance of E-plane and H-plane are 0.8mm, 3.2mm, respectively. The slot length sl1 and slot wide sw1 of the #1 and #3 patches are 2.4mm and 6.4mm, respectively. The slot length sl2 and the slot wide sw2 of #0, #2 and #4 patches are 8.0mm. The patches are formed on a teon dielectric substrate (with a relative dielectric constant r of 2.15, thickness t of 0.8mm). The resonant frequency of the antenna without diodes is 3.6GHz. The capacitance C1 and C3 of #1 and #3 diodes are changed with from 1.08pF to 1.3pF and from 0.4pF to 1.3pF, respectively.

3.

FDTD analysis

The characteristics of the proposed antenna are calculated by the FDTD method. The space step used in the FDTD formulation are x y z = 0.8mm and the whole size of the computational domain is 180x 180y 80z. The time step t is 1.54ps to satisfy the courant stability condition. In the FDTD method, the varactor diodes of parasitic patches are replaced with a xed capacitor. Fig.3 show the radiation patterns of the antennas. Fig.3(a) and (b) shows the radiation pattern in E-plane and H-plane, respectively. When the capacitance C1 of diodes #1 is changed with 1.10pF to 1.30pF and the capacitance C3 of #3 is xed value of 1.23pF, the beam is tilted

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0 Rlative Power [dB] -5 -10 -15 -20 -25

C1=1.08pF C1=1.25pF

C1=1.17pF C1=1.28pF Relative Power [dB]

0 -5 -10 -15 -20

C3=0.4pF C3=1.25pF

C3=1.1pF C3=1.28pF

-30 -180-150-120 -90 -60 -30 0 30 60 90 120 150 180 Angle [deg.]

-25 -180-150-120 -90 -60 -30 0 30 60 90 120 150 180 Angle [deg.]

(a) Beam control in E-plane (Phi=0deg)

(B)Beam control in H-plane (phi=90deg)

Figure 3: Radiation pattern (3.6GHz) 16 degrees to -15 degrees in E-plane. When the capacitance C3 of #3 is changed with 0.4pF to 1.30pF and the capacitance of the #1 is the xed value of 1.23pF, the beam is tilted 10 degrees to -15 degrees in H-plane. When C1 =1.2pF and C3 =1.1pF, the maximum gain is obtained at =14 and =-45. When C1 =1.25pF and C3 =1.28pF, the maximum gain is obtained at =13 and =165. Thus, a beam tilt angle is controlled according to the changing the capacitance of the embedded varactor diodes in E-plane and H-plane.
600 400 Impedance [ 200 0 Impedance [

Resistance (C=1.08pF) Resistance (C=1.3pF )

Reactance (C=1.08pF) Reactance (C=1.3pF)

600 400 200 0

Resistance (C=0.4pF) Resistance (C=1.28pF)

Reactance (C=0.4pF) Reactance (C=1.28pF)

-200 -400 3.2 3.4 3.6 Frequency [GHz] 3.8 4.0

-200 -400 3.2 3.4 3.6 Frequency [GHz] 3.8 4.0

(a) C3 is xed Figure 4: Input Impedance

(B) C1 is xed

The frequency characteristics of the impedance are shown in Fig. 4. The antenna has three resonant frequencies. The resonant frequency is changed according to the capacitance of the embedded diodes.

4.

Conclusion

In this paper, the beam continuously steering microstrip antenna is proposed. The antenna consists of square fed patch and 4-element parasitic pathces. Two parasitic elements embed the anti-connected varactor diodes to control the beam direction. The characteristics of the antenna are analyzed accurately by FDTD method. The resonant frequency of parasitic patches is changed bias voltage, because the electric length of the parasitic patches is controlled by the capacitance of the diodes. Consequently, the beam of the array antenna can be tiled. As the beam can be controlled by the bias voltage, the beam continuously steering function is realized with very simple conguration. The results of the analysis make it clear that the proposed

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antenna has a capability of easy beam continuously control.

References
[1] F.Yang and Y.Rahmat-samii Patch Antennas with Swiching slots(PASS) in Wireless Communications: Concepts, Designes Applications IEEE Trans. on Antenna and Propagation Magazine, Vol.47,no2,pp13-29,2005. [2] E.Nishiyama, R.hisadomi and M.Aikawa,Beam controllable Microstrip array antenna with swiching diode, Proc. of 2006 IEEE AP-S, vol.3,pp.2337-2340,July 2006.

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