Engr. Omer .

A Sulieman

3. Microstrip Antennas

3.1 Introduction
Microstrip patch antenna is most popular antenna type. Owing to its
unique and attractive properties, the demand for patch antenna application has
been increasing rapidly. These properties include low profile, light weight,
compact and conformable to mounting structure, easy fabrication and
integerable with solid state devices.
3.2 Features of Microstrip Patch
Patch Antenna, shown in figure (3-1), is generally a single layer design
and consists of a radiating metallic patch or array of patches situated on one side
of a thin, nonconducting, substrate panel with a metallic ground plane situated
on other side of panel.

Figure 3-1: Configuration of Microstrip patch elements

The metallic patch is normally made of thin copper foil or is copper-foil plated
with a corrosion resistive metal or nikel. Each patch can be designed with a
variety of shapes with the most popular shapes being rectangular and circular.
The substrate panel generally has a thickness in the range of 0.01-0.05 free
space wavelength. It is used primarily to provide proper spacing and mechanical
support between the patch and its ground plane. The substrate also used with
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high dielectric constant material to load the patch and reduce its size. Substrate
materials can be divided into three categories in accordance with their dielectric
constant as:
1- Having relative dielectric constant (e

) in the range of 1 to 2.
2- Having relative dielectric constant (e

) in the range of 2 to 4.
3- Having relative dielectric constant (e

) in the range of 4 to 10.

Although, there are materials with relative dielectric constant much higher than
10. They can significantly reduce the antennas radiation efficiency.
3.3 Advantages and Disadvantages Trade-Offs
From comparison between microstrip patch antenna and other
conventional antenna (Horn, Reflector etc) we can determine many
advantages of microstrip antenna. These advantages are related to its low profile
and light weight with also easy, simple and inexpensive to fabricate.
Due to its low profile and light weight, it becomes very little that it can occupies
a very little volume of structure so it can conformably mounted onto planar and
coplanar surface. In terms of fabrication, the patch element or array of patches
can be fabricated with a simple etching process which can lead to greatly
reduced fabrication cost.
These antennas are very versatile in terms of resonant frequency, polarization,
pattern and impedance. In addition, adaptive elements with variable resonant
frequency can be designed by adding loads such as pins and varactor diodes
between the patch and the ground plane.
Major operational disadvantages of microstrip patch antennas are their
low efficiency, low power, poor polarization purity, poor scan performance,
spurious feed radiation and very narrow frequency bandwidth. In some
applications such as in government security systems, narrow bands are
desirable. There are many techniques used to increase the bandwidth from only
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a fraction of percent up to 50% bandwidths. One way is by increasing the height

of the substrate which can be used to extend the efficiency and bandwidth.
Increasing of the substrate height leads to introduce surface waves that usually
not desirable because they extract the power from the total available power for
direct radiation. The bandwidth widening techniques such as multiple stacked
patches, thicker substrate with aperture slot coupling, external matching circuits,
sequential rotation antenna element arrangement, are used with sacrifice of
increasing physical volume.
Lower power of microstrip patch is because of the small separation between the
radiating patch and its ground plane. Generally, a few tens of watts of average
power or less is considered safe. The microstrip arrays generally, have larger
ohmic insertion loss than other types of antennas of equivalent aperture size.
This ohmic loss mostly occurs in the dielectric substrate and the metal
conductor of the microstrip line power dividing circuit. By using several
approaches such as the series feed power divider lines, waveguide and
combined power dividers we can minimizes the loss in power circuit of
microstrip arrays.
3.4 Material Considerations
The function of the substrate material of microstrip patch is primarily to
provide mechanical support for the radiating patch elements and to maintain the
required precision spacing between the patch and its ground plane. The patch
size also can be reduced by choosing substrate material has higher dielectric
constant.
The selection of the appropriate substrate material should be based on the
desired patch size, bandwidth, insertion loss, thermal stability, cost and any
other constrains. Substrate material must satisfy three major factors in case of
employ microstrip patch for space applications. These factors together are
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directly affecting the performance of the microstrip patch and it related to the
space environment.
One of these major effects is the radiation exposure, which means exposure to
cosmic radiation like beta, gamma and X-rays. Cosmic radiation can damage
the substrate materials after prolonged exposure typical of long space mission.
Another factor is a material outgassing, a phenomenon of concern for material
in space. It will cause losing of material mass which leads to affect mechanical
and electrical properties of the substrate material. Also, important factor must
take onto account is temperature changes, which affects the physical properties
of the substrate material like dielectric constant and substrate thickness, which
together cause an impedance change of microstrip patch or transmission line.
The most popular type of material is Teflon based with relative dielectric
constant between 2 and 3. It also named PolyTetraFluoroEthylene (PTFE).
PTFE is a fluorocarbon solid, as it is a high-molecular-weight compound
consisting wholly of carbon and fluorine. It has a structure form very similar to
fiberglass material used for digital circuit boards but has much lower insertion
loss.
3.5 Feeding Methods
Microstrip patch can be fed or excited to radiate by several techniques.
There are four common methods employing to fed microstrip patch, these
common methods are the microstrip transmission line, coaxial probe, aperture
coupling and proximity coupling
1
,
2
. As shown in figure (3-2) below. The
simplest feeding methods to realize are those of microstrip transmission line and
coaxial probe. Both of these methods utilize direct contact with the patch to
induce excitation. Contact point is adjustable, enabling the designer to control

1
Constantine A. Balanis, Antenna Theory; Analysis and Design, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2005.

2
Constantine A. Balanis, Modern Antenna Handbook, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2008.
Engr. Omer .A Sulieman

the impedance matching between the antenna and the feed, polarization, modes
of operation and excitation frequency.

(a)Microstrip Line feed (b)Coaxial Probe feed


(c)Aperture coupled feed (d)Proximity coupled feed

Figure 3-2: Typical Feeds for Microstrip Antenna

In general for direct contact feed, the best impedance match is obtained when
the contact point is off-centered. This produces asymmetries in the patch
excitation, which generates higher order modes leads to induce a cross polarized
component in the principal plane patterns, which draw power from dominant
mode and result in degradation of the antennas main beam. Another
disadvantage of the direct contact feed is that they are inherently narrowband
because of that these two approaches, transmission line and coaxial probe, are
match to specific impedance for selected range of frequencies. The operation
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outside this range will degrades antenna performance due to inherent mismatch
between the antenna and the feed.
A variety of non-contacting coupled feeds has been developed in order to
overcome some of the shortcomings of the direct coupled feeds. There are two
of them are popular, aperture coupled and proximity coupled feeds. The aperture
coupled feed configuration consists of two parallel substrates separated by a
ground plane. Excitation of the patch element is accomplished by coupling
energy from microstrip line through a small aperture in the ground plane. This
arrangement gives the ability to design microstrip feeder on a thin-high
dielectric constant substrate while the patch element is designed on a thick-low
dielectric constant substrate. The ground plane isolates the feed from the patch
element and thus minimizes spurious radiation from the feed which would
interfere with antenna pattern. Therefore, design of the patch element and feed
line are independent.
In contrast, the proximity coupled technique operates in a mode similar to that
of the aperture coupled configuration except the ground plane is removed.
In both these non-contacting configurations, there is an undesirable increase in
thickness of the antenna. Therefore, to reduce the complexity and size of the
antenna, there is a decision of designing the structures on a thin high dielectric
constant substrate using a coaxial probe feed
1
. Figure (3-3), is the equivalent
circuits for typically feed methods shown in figure (3-2).

Figure 3-3: Equivalent Circuits of Feed Methods

1
Keith C. Huie, M.Sc. Thesis, Microstrip Antennas: Broadband Radiation Patterns Using Photonic Crystal
Substrate, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 2002.
Engr. Omer .A Sulieman

3.6 Modeling of Microstrip Antennas

There is several analysis techniques used for modeling microstrip
antennas. These techniques are developed in order to provide a means of
designing the antenna without costly and tedious experimental iteration and also
give the designer the ability of discovering the physical mechanism of how
microstrip antenna operates. Most of these developed techniques can be divided
into two sub division
1
:
1- Full wave Models.
2- Analytical Models.
The full wave models of microstrip antennas are delicate and accurately model
the dielectric substrate. There are three commonly types of those models, which
are: Moment Method (MoM), Finite Difference Time Domain Models (FDTD)
and Finite Elements Method (FEM).
Moment Method assumes that, the substrate to be infinite and model it with
exact greens function and the patch with the ground plane are model with basis
function. The Finite Difference Time Domain Method and Finite Elements
Method are despot force type of methods and have the capability to handle any
shape of the structure.
Analytical models for microstrip antennas make significant approximations to
greatly simplify the tasks. Compared to the full wave models, analytical models
allow the derivation of closed form equations with the results that solution can
be computed with much lesser computation expense. There are two main types
of analytical models are developed for microstrip antennas, Transmission Line
Model and Cavity Mode Model.

1
Manik Gujral, M.Sc. Thesis, Bandwidth Enhancement of Dual Patch Microstrip Antenna Array Using
Dummy EBG Patterns in Feed Line, National University of Singapore, 2007.
Engr. Omer .A Sulieman

Transmission Line based approach models the region between patch and ground
plane as a section of transmission line of length L. Dimensions of patch and
substrate parameters determine the characteristic impedance and propagation
constant of transmission line
1
. Transmission line model is the easiest one of all
models but it yields the least accurate results and it lacks the versatility. In this
model microstrip radiator can considered as or characterized by two slots with
width W and height h (height of the substrate), separated by transmission line
where each slot is represented by a parallel circuit of conductance G and
susceptance B as shown in figure (3-4).
For designing using transmission line model, we need to select the operating
frequency, substrate with desired relative dielectric constant and the width of the
substrate in order to achieve designed antenna with a certain desired
performance as bandwidth and efficiency. Here, the constrains are the substrate
width and the relative dielectric constant of the substrate material.

Figure 3-4: Microstrip Patch radiation source represented by two equivalent slots.

Bandwidth and efficiency are increased with choosing of thick substrate and
low dielectric constant, on the other hand we can get smaller size of antenna
with lower bandwidth and a higher radiation loss.

1
Ahmed Fatthi Alsager, M.Sc. Thesis, Design and analysis of Microstrip Patch Antenna Arrays,
Uuniversity College of Bors , 2011.
Engr. Omer .A Sulieman

Figure 3-5: Equivalent Circuit of Microstrip Patch Element.

Study of this model depends on two different cases:
1- The ratio of
w
b
, < 1, it is a case of narrow transmission line, which its
characteristic impedance can be approximated by:
Z
0
=
60

s
rc]]
ln(8
w
h
+ u.2S
w
h
) 3.1
2- The ratio of
w
b
, 1, the case of wider transmission line, which the
useful approximation of its characteristic impedance can written as:
Z
0
=
120n

s
rc]]
(1.393+
W
h
+
2
3
In(
W
h
+1.444))
3.2
e
c]]
Is the effective dielectric constant, which is defined as the dielectric
constant of the uniform dielectric material so that the line has identical electric
characteristics.
The width w of the transmission line is a function of the resonant frequency

and can be expressed as:
w =
1
2]
r

0
s
0
_
2
s
r
+1
=

0
2]
r
_
2
s
r
+1
3.3
Where:
p
0
onJ e
0
are the permeability and permittivity of free space.
And :
0
is the velocity of light of free space.
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10

We have an effective length of transmission line differ from its physical length
L by I from two sides as shown in figure (3-6). There is a popular
approximation to calculate the extension of the length; this approximation can
be written as:
L
c]]
h
= u.412
(s
rc]]
+0.3)(
W
h
+0.264)
(s
rc]]
-0.258)(
W
h
+0.8)
3.4
Where: I
c]]
is the effective extension length.

Figure 3-6: Physical and Effective Length Of Microstrip Patch.

So, the effective length I
c]]
, can be formulated as:
I
c]]
= I + 2I
c]]
3.5
Thus, we should estimate the effective dielectric constant by considering the
radiating patch is embedded into the dielectric as shown in figure (3-7).
Assuming the same dimensions; W, h, and the dielectric constant of the
substrate. From the condition of
w
b
, 1, we have that: 1 < e
c]]
< e

. For
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11

1, e
c]]
is more closer to the actual value of the dielectric constant e

of
the substrate.


Figure 3-7: Microstrip line embedded into dielectric.

This estimation is done because of used of the effective dielectric constant as a
function of resonance frequency, which it can be expressed as:

=

0

s
rc]]
(L+2L
c]]
)
3.6
At the high frequency, the behaviour of the transmission line is a homogeneous
line as its only one dielectric constant is closer to the actual dielectric constant.
The effective dielectric constant, which is a function of transmission line width
W, height of the substrate h, and actual dielectric constant e

, can be calculated
as:
e
c]]
=
s
r
+1
2
+
s
r
-1
2
|1 + 12
h
w
]
-
1
2
3.7
The design process is simple and it might be used with any of the available feed
methods.



Engr. Omer .A Sulieman

12

The cavity mode model is the second one of popular commonly used
methods of analytical techniques for microstrip patch antennas. It is a based
approach models the region between patch and ground plane as cavity with
electric walls on top and bottom, and magnetic walls along the periphery
1
. The
dimensions of the patch and substrate parameters determine the modes of the
cavity.

Figure 3-8: Magnetic wall Model for microstrip patch antenna.

The assumption of that the region between the microstrip patch and ground
plane is a resonance cavity, is based on some observations for thin
substrate(b z), where z is the wavelength. These observations might be
included in the following:
There are only three field components in the region enclosed by the
cavity. These components are Electric component in z axis (E
z
) and two
magnetic components along x and y axis (E
x
, E

).
The height of the substrate is very thin, so the field in the interior region
do not vary with z coordinates for all frequencies.
The electric current in the microstrip patch has no component normal to
the edge of the patch at any point.

1
Ahmed Fatthi Alsager, M.Sc. Thesis, Design and analysis of Microstrip Patch Antenna Arrays,
Uuniversity College of Bors , 2011.
Engr. Omer .A Sulieman

13

When the microstrip patch is provided power, a charge distribution is seen on

the upper and lower surface of the patch, and at the bottom of the ground plane,
as shown in figure (3-9). The distribution of charges is controlled by two
mechanisms
1
; attractive mechanism between opposite charges on the patch and
on the ground plane, which it creates a current density [
b
inside the dielectric at
the bottom of the patch. The other one is repulsive mechanism between the like
charges tends to push the charges from the bottom of the patch around the edge
of the patch to the top patch and this will creates the current density [
t
as shown
in figure (3-9).

Figure 3-9: Charges distribution and current density creation on the microstrip patch.

The cavity model assumes that the height to width ratio is very small (w b).
Result of this is the attractive mechanism. Much less current would flow on the
top surface of the patch. The current on the top surface of the patch would be
almost equal to zero, which would not allow the creation of any tangential
magnetic field components to the patch edges. Hence, the four side walls could
be modeled as perfectly magnetic conducting surface. This implies that the
magnetic field and electric field distribution beneath the patch would not be
disturbed. In practice, a finite width to height ratio would be there and this
would not make the tangential magnetic fields to be completely zero but they

1
Manik Gujral, M.Sc. Thesis, Bandwidth Enhancement of Dual Patch Microstrip Antenna Array Using
Dummy EBG Patterns in Feed Line, National University of Singapore, 2007.
Engr. Omer .A Sulieman

14

being very small, the side walls could be approximated to be perfectly magnetic
conducting
1
.
The cavity would not radiate and its input impedance would be purely reactive.
This is due to property of lossless of the cavity. Therefore, we must introduce a
radiation resistance and loss resistance in order to account for radiation and loss
mechanism. The loss is taken into account by the effective loss tangent o
c]]
,
which expressed as:
o
c]]
=
1

T
3.8
Where:
Q
T
is total antenna quality factor, which has been calculated from:
1

T
=
1

d
+
1

c
+
1

r
3.9
Where:
Q
d
is the quality factor of the dielectric and is given by:

d
=
o
r
w
T
P
d
=
1
tan6
3.10

is the angular resonant frequency.

w
1
is the total energy stored in the patch at resonance.
P
d
is the dielectric loss.
tano is the loss tangent of the dielectric.
Q
c
is the quality factor for the radiation and it given by:

c
=
o
r
w
T
P
c
=
h

3.11

1
Manik Gujral, M.Sc. Thesis, Bandwidth Enhancement of Dual Patch Microstrip Antenna Array Using
Dummy EBG Patterns in Feed Line, National University of Singapore, 2007.
Engr. Omer .A Sulieman

15

P
c
is the conductor loss.
is the skin depth of the conductor.
b is the height of the substrate.
Q
r
is the quality factor for radiation and is given by:

=
o
r
w
T
P
r
3.12
P

is the power radiated from the patch

Substituting equations (2.9), (2.10), (2.11) and (2.12) to get an expression
describe the total effective tangent loss for micro strip patch antenna, which
may written as:
o
c]]
= tano +

h
+
P
r
o
r
w
T
3.13

As a comparison between the mainly two models of analytical techniques used
for microstrip antennas, we can said that transmission line model can be
realized and implemented by easiest way. The major drawback of this model is
that the fields along the width of the patch and substrate thickness are assumed
to be uniform. Therefore, this model is restricted to a thin substrate, single layer,
linearly polarized antenna.
On the other hand, the cavity model has been generalized to include the
variation of fields along the substrate thickness. Generally, analytical models
have limited accuracy in resonant frequency and input impedance for the
substrates that are not thin. Also, they have a limited capacity to handle
problems such as mutual coupling, large arrays, surface wave effects and
different substrate configurations
1
.

1
Ramesh Garg, Microstrip Antenna Design Handbook, Artech House, 2001.
Engr. Omer .A Sulieman

16

3.7 Microstrip Antenna Array

A single element of patch antenna may be suffer from limitation of its
narrow bandwidth when employ it for some applications. To overcome this
problem, the association of group of elements may permits to improve their
performances and to realize particular functions adapted to some type of
applications.
Generally, there are three types of arrays such as linear, planar and circular
array. The synthesis problem of microstrip antennas array consist in estimating
the variations of amplitude and phase of feed and space distribution of radiant
elements in order to approach as well as possible to fix the constraints of
radiation, which may considered in side lobe level and beam pattern.
In an array antenna the fields from the individual elements add constructively in
some directions and destructively in the remaining space. Antenna arrays have
an advantage of electronic scanning capability, which the major lobe can be
steered toward any direction by changing the phase of the excitation current at
each array element. Furthermore, by also controlling the magnitude of the
excitation current, a large variety of radiation patterns and side lobe level
characteristics can be produced.
The efficiency of microstrip antenna arrays may be improved by reducing losses
in feed network. Losses in feed network are due to conductor loss, radiation loss
and dielectric loss.
The performance of an array is governed by about five parameters, which are
1
:
1- The geometry, like linear, circular and planar array.
2- Distance of separation between adjacent elements.
3- Amplitude current excitation of each individual element.
4- Phase excitation of each individual element.

1
Constantine A. Balanis, Modern Antenna Handbook, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2008.
Engr. Omer .A Sulieman

17

5- Radiation pattern of each individual element.

There is important concept using for calculation of array pattern, which is
mostly considered in far field where the field depends on tow parameters,
distance of the receiver and spherical coordinates. The concept of array factor,
which is define as a function of the total number of elements; their geometrical
arrangement, their relative magnitudes, their relative phase and their spacing.
With all of those controlled parameters, it is possible to obtain a desired
radiation pattern of the array, which can be formulated as:
Arroy Pottcrn = Elcmcnt Pottcrn Arroy Foctor (AF) 3.14
Where, the array factor determined the overall radiation pattern of the array
while the element pattern describes the radiation pattern of the individual
element.
The array factor of the uniform antenna can be written mathematically as:
AF =
sInN 2
sIn 2
3.15
One may normalize the array factor, the maximum value is equal to unity:
(AF)
n
=
1
N
(
sInN 2
sIn 2
) 3.16







Engr. Omer .A Sulieman

18

3.8 Mutual coupling between array elements

Microstrip antenna arrays are suffering from the problem of mutual coupling
between adjacent elements. This advantage appears and cause due to the surface
waves which exist whenever the substrate has dielectric constant greater than
one (e

> 1)
1
.

Figure 3-10: Equivalent Network of Two Antenna Array
Surface waves are guided by the dielectric-air interface and propagate partially
within the dielectric substrate. Their imprisonment to the substrate and then
their excitation are functions of thickness of the substrate.
Mutual coupling effect appears in the performance of an array by directly affect
the radiation properties of the array. To avoid mutual coupling and grating the
lobes at the same time, the separation between adjacent elements must be in the
range between
z
2
, up to z depends on angular scan range.
The amount of coupling depends on the following:
1- Radiation characteristics.
2- Actual separation between elements.
3- Relative orientation of elements.

1
Constantine A. Balanis, Advanced Engineering Electromagnetics, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1989.
Engr. Omer .A Sulieman

19

3.9 Broadband Microstrip Antenna

The major drawback of microstrip patch antenna is its low impedance
bandwidth (narrow bandwidth). The operating bandwidth of a single patch
antenna is limited by its reflection loss at input terminals and inversely
proportional to the Q-factor of the patch resonator. Since many wide band
applications require a low profile conformal antenna, much work has been done
in order to achieve designing of wide band microstrip patch antenna or arrays of
patch antenna.
The bandwidth of microstrip patch antenna is define as the frequency range over
which the input reflection loss is less than certain specified value, s. this value
is usually taken equal 2 but in certain specification it taken equal to 1.5
1
.
There are several techniques that employed for broadband designing of
microstrip antenna elements and arrays. These techniques may classify as
follows:
Optimizing the Substrate Properties for Increasing Bandwidth; the most
straight forward way and easiest technique for improving the bandwidth
of microstrip antenna by increase the substrate thickness. Thick substrate
tend to trap surface waves especially if the dielectric constant of the
material of the substrate is high, longer coaxial probe feeds is used. The
surface waves lead and supporting degradation in the primary radiator
and cause of pattern distortion.
Also we can increase the bandwidth by decreasing of the dielectric
constant of the material of substrate. Decreasing of dielectric constant
results an effect of antenna size reduction since the resonant length of
microstrip antenna is shorter for higher substrate dielectric constant.

1
K. C. Gupta, Scientific Report No. 98,Broadbanding Techniques for Microstrip Antenna-a Review,
University of Clorado, 1988.
Engr. Omer .A Sulieman

20

Stack Microstrip Patch Antenna; one of the commonly used methods is

to stack two patches on top of each other separated by a dielectric
substrate or spacer. The lower patch is fed by using coaxial probe feed
and the upper one was electromagnetically coupled to the lower one.
When two patches are stacked on top of each other, the distance between
them affects the performance of the antenna. Closely spaced stacked
patches resulting improved impedance bandwidth. For increasing the
separation space, the upper patch tends to work as a director and improve
the gain instead of bandwidth of the antenna. The separation space, s,
may be categorized into three regions: the first region has extension from
u up to u.14z (where z is the wavelength) and it called the improved
bandwidth region where the upper patch acts as another resonant antenna
with resonant frequency close to that of the fed patch. The second region
extends from u.14z up to u.29z, in this region the radiation patterns of
the antenna becomes abnormal that H-plane pattern becomes
unsymmetrical and E-plane pattern shows a dip at broadside. The third
region called the high gain region where the separation space is greater
than u.Suz.
Non-contacting feed configurations; impedance bandwidth can be
increased by using of non-contacting technique which employ proximity
feed method or aperture coupled method.
Proximity feed uses a stacked two layer substrate with patch printed on
the top surface of the upper substrate or superstrate. The feed line is
located on the top surface of the lower substrate and the ground plane is
on the bottom surface of the lower substrate. They using open circuit
capacitive shunt stub to tune the input impedance of the antenna. The
proximity feed dose not directly contact the patch element. Therefore, it
is easy to adjust the location of the feed. In addition, proximity feed
allows at least two degrees of freedom to tune the antenna, the substrate
Engr. Omer .A Sulieman

21

thickness between the patch and feed line and the location of the line with
respect to the patch. These dimensions are adjusted to tune the antenna
for optimum bandwidth. The location of the shunt stub also tune the input
impedance of the antenna, so it important to make the tuning stub as short
as possible because longer stub lengths will cause undesirable radiation.
Aperture coupled uses two parallel dielectric layers separated by ground
plane. The lower dielectric layer called the substrate and the upper called
superstrate. The patch is printed on the top of the superstrate and the feed
line is located on the bottom of the substrate. An aperture of arbitrary
shape is cut into ground plane located between the dielectric layers. This
configuration allows the feed line and the antenna to use different
substrates. The ground plane between the antenna and the feed line
isolates the patch radiator from feed line radiation and surface waves.
This leads to better polarization purity and radiation patterns. Optimal
performance is achieved for a thick patch radiator substrate with low
dielectric constant and a thin feed line substrate with high dielectric
constant.

3.10 Fringing Fields & Substrate Trade-Off
An antenna may design for operating at a certain frequency, but their
resonant may suffer from a shift to be at another many frequencies. This shift is
due to which it called fringing fields. Patch antenna can be viewed as an open
circuited transmission line, the voltage reflection coefficient will be(-1). When
this occurs, the voltage and current are out of phase. Hence, at the end of the
patch the voltage is at maximum (+I) and at the start of it the voltage is at
minimum(-I). Due to this distribution of the voltage, the appearance of
fringing fields is near to the surface of the patch.
Engr. Omer .A Sulieman

22

Fringing E-fields on the edge of the microstrip patch add up in phase and
produce the radiation of the microstrip antenna, while currents are equal but
with opposite direction and each other cancels the radiation pattern. So, fringing
fields can be useful to explain why patch antenna radiates. Microstrip antennas
radiation arises due to the distribution of voltage from fringing fields. We can
say that microstrip antenna is a voltage radiator in opposite to wire antenna
which it known as a current radiator.
Furthermore, using of very high permittivity on the substrate of the patch
significantly reduce the fringing fields. This tells us to use smaller permittivity
in the substrate of microstrip patch radiator while using of higher permittivity is
useful at microstrip transmission line which it governs by its very low radiation.