Empirical analysis of microstrip patch antenna for different substrate materials and shapes using aperture coupled technique

Abstract

The dielectric material used as a substrate and the shapes of the patches play an important role in the performance of bandwidth, return loss, and gain of the microstrip patch antenna. This paper presents the relative study of different shapes of microstrip Patch antenna for different dielectric materials. The main application of these antennas is for satellite communication in Ku-Band. The height of the substrate plays an essential role in the enhancement of bandwidth and it is chosen 1.012mm and three substrate materials (RT Duroid (5880), Teflon, and FR4) with different dielectric constants were chosen for the performance comparison. Aperture coupling, which is again one of the promising techniques for bandwidth enhancement, is used as a feeding technique for the designs. Coupling must be taken care of while using aperture coupling, which is done by precisely optimizing the feed line dimensions, feed position, slot dimensions, and patch dimensions. The antenna performance is studied by varying the parameters like patch, feed line, and slot dimensions, the size of the substrate, and the feed line position concerning the slot. Optimization is also performed for the position of the ground layer within the substrate material and the ground plane in the middle position of the substrate is chosen for the final designs. Return loss and impedance matching were analyzed for all designs. The rectangular and circular patches are used for a comparative study, which is conducted from 12GHz to 14GHz out of which the circular patch is found to give better performance. The analysis is carried out for RT Duroid (5880) material and the bandwidth obtained in both cases is almost 3GHz. Similarly, the analysis is carried out for different dielectric materials over the frequencies of 12GHz to 14GHz in which RT Duroid and Teflon give better performance in terms of return loss and FR4 gives better performance in terms of miniaturization. The analysis is carried out for rectangular patches and the bandwidth obtained for FR4 is 1GHz whereas, for RT Duroid (5880) and Teflon, it comes out to be 3GHz. The results are depicted in various tabular and graphical formats. This study is conducted using an HFSS, an electromagnetic solver.