Microstrip Patch Antenna: a Survey

Arun Kumar Sharma, 1st (Author) Danveer Mandal, 2nd (Author)

M.Tech (ECE) Assistant Professor (ECE)
I.E.T Bhaddal, Dist. /Ropar, Punjab. IET Bhaddal Dist. / Ropar Punjab
Ropar, India Ropar, India
arun.k.sh@gmail.com danvir.mandal@gmail.com

Abstract—The Study of microstrip patch antenna has made Microstrip antenna is characterized by a large number of
great progress in recent years. Compared with conventional physical parameters than are conventional microwave
antennas, microstrip patch antenna has more advantages and antennas. They can be designed to have many geometrical
better prospects. Microstrip Antennas have characteristics like shapes and dimensions as shown in fig2.All microstrip
low cost and low profile, smaller in dimensions and ease of
antennas can be divided in to four basic categories.
fabrication make it well suited for various wireless service
requirements. Moreover, the microstrip patch antennas can
provide dual and circular polarization, dual frequency operation, Microstrip Antennas
broad band-width, feedline flexibility. In this paper we discuss
the microstrip antenna, types of microstrip antenna, feeding
techniques with their advantages and disadvantages over
conventional microwave antennas. Microstrip
Patch Microstrip Printed Slot Microstrip travelling
Key Words: Microstrip Antenna (MSA), Microstrip Patch
Antenna Dipole Antennas wave antennas
Antenna (MPA), feeding techniques.

I. INTRODUCTION
Microstrip patch antennas are among the most common
antenna types in use today, particularly in the popular
frequency range of 1 to 6 GHz. Deschamps first proposed the
concept of the Microstrip antenna (MSA) in 1953. However,
practical antennas were developed by Munson and Howell in
the 1970s. Often microstrip antennas are also referred to as
microstrip patch antennas, or simply patch antennas. The
unique property of the microstrip patch antenna is its two-
dimensional structure. Antenna is a transducer designed to
transmit or receive electromagnetic waves. Microstrip antenna
Figure2: Common shapes of Microstrip patch elements
in its simplest configuration are shown in Fig1.It consists of a
radiating patch on one side of dielectric substrate which has a
ground plane on other side.
II. Microstrip Patch Antenna
A microstrip antenna in its simplest form consists of a
radiating patch on one side of a dielectric substrate and a
ground plane on the other side. The radiating elements and the
feed lines are usually photo etched on the dielectric substrate.
The microstrip antenna radiates relatively broad beam
broadside to the plane of substrate. Thus the microstrip
antenna has a very low profile and can be fabricated using
printed circuit (photolithographic) technology. The radiating
patch may be square, rectangular, thin strip (dipole), circular,
elliptical, triangular or any other configuration. There are
many configurations that can be used to feed microstrip
antennas. The four most popular are the microstrip line,
coaxial probe, aperture coupling and proximity coupling.
There are mainly two analysis methods for patch antennas-
transmission line model and cavity model. A large number of
Fig 1: Microstrip antenna configuration microstrip parch antenna have been studied to date. The
rectangular and circular patches are the basic and most
commonly used microstrip antennas. These patches are used Coaxial-Line feed is feeding method in which the inner
for the simplest and the most demanding applications. conductor of coax is attached to the radiation patch
Rectangular geometrics are separable in nature and their while the outer conductor is connected to the ground
analysis is also simple. The circular patch antenna has the plane. Advantage of coaxial feeding is easy to
advantage of their radiation pattern being symmetric. A fabricate, easy to match, low spurious radiation and its
rectangular microstrip patch antenna in its simplest form is disadvantage is narrow bandwidth and more difficult to
shown in figure3. model specially for thick substrate.

Fig4: Coaxial probe feed patch antenna

The microstrip feed line is easy to fabricate, simple to

match by controlling the inset position and rather
simple to model. It is a conducting strip, usually of
much smaller width compared to the patch. However
the disadvantage of this method is that as substrate
Fig.3: Structure of rectangular patch antenna
thickness increases, surface wave and spurious feed
radiation increases which limit the bandwidth.
The characteristics of microstrip patch antenna, microstrip slot
antenna and printed dipole antenna are compared in Table 1.

Sr.No. Characteristics Microstrip Microstrip Printed

Slot Patch Dipole
antenns antenns antenna
1 Profile Thin Thin Thin
2 Polarization Both linear Both linear Linear
and circular and circular
3 Fabrication Easy Very Easy Easy
Substrate
4 Shape Mostly Any shape Rectangular
Flexibility rectangular and Fig5: Microstrip line feed patch antenna
and circular triangular
shape
5 Dual Frequency Possible Possible Possible The aperture coupling consists of two substrates
operation separated by ground plane. On the bottom side of
6 Spurious Exists Exists Exists lower substrate there is microstrip feed line whose
Radiation
7 Bandwidth 5-30% 2-50% -30% energy is coupled to the patch through a slot on the
ground plane separating the two substrates. This
arrangement allows independent optimization of the
III. Feeding Techniques feed mechanism and the radiating element. A high
dielectric material is used for the bottom substrate and
There are many configurations that can be used to feed thick low dielectric constant material for the top
microstrip antennas. The four most popular are the substrate. The ground plane between the substrates
microstrip line, coaxial probe, aperture coupling and also isolates the feed from the radiating element and
proximity coupling. minimizes interferences of spurious radiations for
pattern formation and polarization purity.
 IV ADVANTAGE AND DISADVANTAGE

Microstrip patch antenna has several advantages over

conventional microwave antenna with one similarity of
frequency range from 100 MHz to 100 GHz same in both
type. The various advantage and disadvantage are given in

Table3. Advantages and disadvantages of patch antenna

Sr.No. Advantage Disadvantage
1 Low weight Low efficiency
Fig6: Aperture coupled feed patch antenna 2 Low profile Low gain
3 Thin profile Large ohmic loss
in the feed
Proximity coupling has the largest bandwidth, has low structure of arrays
spurious radiation but fabrication is difficult. Length of 4 Required no cavity Low power
feeding stub and width to length ratio of patch is used backing handling capacity
to control the match. Its coupling mechanism is 5 Linear and circular Excitation of
capacitive in nature. polarization surface wave
6 Capable of dual and Polarization
triple frequency purity is difficult
operation to achieve
7 Feed lines and Complex feed
matching network structure required
can be fabricated high performance
simultaneously arrays

V. Conclusion
Fig6: Proximity coupled microstrip patch antenna A theoretical survey on microstrip patch
antenna is presented in this paper. After study of various
The major disadvantage of this technique is that it is research papers it is concluded that low gain and low power
difficult to fabricate due to two dielectric layers that handling capacity can be overcome through an array
need proper alignment and also there is increase in configuration and slotted patch. Some factors are involved in
antenna thickness. the selection of feeding techniques, particularly microstrip
patch antenna can be designed for each application and
Table2: Comparing the different feeding techniques different merits are compared with conventional microwave
Characteri Micro Coaxial Aperture Proxim antenna.
stics strip feed coupled ity
line coupled
Spurious more More Less Minimu
feed m
radiation
Reliability Better Poor due Good Good
to
soldering
Easy of Easy Solderin Alignment Alignm
fabrication g and required ent
drilling required
needed
Impedance Easy Easy Easy Easy
matching
Bandwidth 2-5% 2-5% 2-5% 13%
VI References

[1] C.A.Balanis, Antenna Theory: analysis and

design 2nd edition, John Willey & sons,Inc.,1997.

[2]Neha Parmar et al Int.Journal of Engineering

Research and Applications “Review of Microstrip
patch Antenna for WLAN and WiMax
Applications.

[3]Anisha Susan Thomas, Prof. AK Parkash

IJAREEIE Vol.2, Issue12, Dec 2013 A survey on
Microstrip Patch Antenna using Metamaterial.

[4] Amit Kumar Gupta,Ram Krishan Parsad

VSRD-IJEECE,Vol2 2012, Enhancement of Gain
of Microstrip Patch Antenna.