A Low-Profile Aperture-Coupled Microstrip Antenna With Enhanced Bandwidth Under Dual Resonance

Abstract

A low-profile aperture-coupled microstrip patch antenna (MPA) using the TM10 and TM30 resonant modes to enhance the impedance bandwidth is proposed in this paper. Based on the cavity model for a square MPA, the TM10 and TM30 modes as well as both higher odd-order and even-order modes between them can be characterized. In order to combine the dual radiative resonant modes for a wide impedance bandwidth, a rectangular radiating patch with an aperture-coupled feeder is employed and theoretically investigated at first, aiming to demonstrate that all of the undesired modes between them can be removed effectively. After that, by loading the shorting pins properly underneath the patch, the resonant frequency of TM10 mode is shown to progressively turn up with slight effect on that of TM30 mode. As a result, these two radiative modes can be allocated in proximity to each other, resulting in a wide impedance bandwidth with a stable radiation pattern and the same far-field polarization. Moreover, the principal parameters of the MPA have been extensively studied in order to investigate the sensitivity in input impedance of the aperture-fed patch antenna. Finally, the proposed antenna is fabricated and measured. Simulated and measured results are found in good agreement with each other and illustrate that the antenna achieves a wide impedance bandwidth of about 15.2% in fraction or 2.32–2.70 GHz under $\vert \text{S}_{\mathrm {\mathbf {11}}}\vert dB, while keeping a low profile property with the height of 0.032 free-space wavelength. Besides, a stable gain varied from 3 to 6.8 dBi within the whole operating band is also obtained.