An aperture coupled dual segment RDRA on glassceramic LTCC substrate

Abstract

In this paper, a dual segment rectangular dielectric resonator antenna (RDRA) designed on an MgO-B 2 O 3 -SiO 2 -TiO 2 (MBST) glass-ceramic LTCC substrate is described. The simulation results for the RDRA on MBST substrate is compared with those for RDRA on FR4 substrate. Another section of the simulation study includes the effect of composite substrates i.e. FR4-air (FR4C) and MBST-air (MBSTC) substrates on the antenna performance. From the simulation study of these substrate configurations, it was observed that in case of FR4 uniform substrate, impedance bandwidth of 670 MHz was achieved with E-plane radiation pattern beamwidth of 84° and antenna gain of 6.54 dB. While in case of MBST uniform substrate, impedance bandwidth of 680 MHz is achieved along with E-plane radiation pattern beam width of 90° and same antenna gain of 6.54 dB. Thus similar antenna bandwidth and gain is observed with some increase in E-plane beam width in the later case. When the composite substrates are compared, FR4C provides antenna gain of 6.60 dB at its resonating frequency of 9.06 GHz and MBSTC provides little higher gain of 6.63 dB at its resonating frequency of 8.99 GHz. No changes in the resonant frequency and bandwidth are observed for composite FR4C and MBSTC substrates when compared with the corresponding uniform FR4 and MBST substrates respectively. Since, the proposed MBSTC antenna provides similar antenna performance with reduced material and lower cost, it can be an alternative for conventionally available substrates. The simulation study was performed using Ansys HFSS software.