International Journal of Electronics and Communication Engineering & Technology (IJECET), ISSN 0976

6464(Print), ISSN 0976 6472(Online), Volume 5, Issue 6, June (2014), pp. 33-43 IAEME
33










STACKED RECTANGULAR MICROSTRIP ANTENNA WITH
ELECTROMAGNETIC BAND GAP STRUCTURE


Savita M. Shaka,
1
Prashant R.T.,
2
Vani R. M.
3
and Hunagund P.V.
4

1
Dept. of Applied Electronics, Gulbarga University, Gulbarga, Karnataka, India,
2
Dept. of Applied Electronics, Gulbarga University, Gulbarga, Karnataka, India,
3
USIC, Gulbarga University, Gulbarga, Karnataka, India,
4
Dept. of Applied Electronics, Gulbarga University, Gulbarga, Karnataka, India,



ABSTRACT

In this work the stacking technique is studied with the Electromagnetic band gap structure to
enhance the performance of the conventional rectangular microstrip antenna (RMSA).The proposed
antennas are experimentally studied and the results are compared with the RMSA. By stacking
technique multi bands are obtained and overall bandwidth is 130.8% when compared to the
conventional rectangular microstrip antenna. This antenna is small size, low cost, compact, easy to
fabricate, and gives good radiation characteristics with a reduction in side lobes. These antennas can
have wide application in wireless Communication and X-band applications.

Keywords: Bandwidth, back lobes, Electromagnetic Band Gap (EBG) structures, microstrip
antenna.

I. INTRODUCTION

Microstrip antenna is most common small sized antenna in which a metal patch is deposited
on dielectric material. Microstrip patch antennas have been an attractive choice in mobile and radio
wireless communication. They have advantages such as low profile, low cost and robust. However,
at the same time they have disadvantages of low efficiency, narrow bandwidth and surface wave
losses. Recently, considerable research effort in the electromagnetic band gap (EBG) structure for
antenna application to suppress the surface wave losses and improve the radiation performance of the
antenna [1-2]. Many new technologies have emerged in the modern antenna design arena and one
exciting breakthrough is the discovery development of electromagnetic band gap (EBG) structures.
The electromagnetic-band gap (EBG) structures are periodical cells composed of metallic or
dielectric elements. The major characteristic of EBG structures is to exhibit band gap feature in the
suppression of surface-wave propagation. This feature helps to improve antennas performance such
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International Journal of Electronics and Communication Engineering & Technology (IJECET), ISSN 0976
6464(Print), ISSN 0976 6472(Online), Volume 5, Issue 6, June (2014), pp. 33-43 IAEME
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as increasing the antenna gain and reducing back radiation [3]. The substrate properties that are taken
into consideration while selecting a dielectric include: dielectric constant and loss tangent and their
variation with temperature and frequency, homogeneity, dimensional stability with processing and
temperature, humidity and aging. Other physical properties such as resistance to chemicals, impact
resistance, formability, bonding ability, Foil adhesion etc, are important in fabrication [4]. Small
antenna design is always compromised between size, bandwidth and efficiency. The bandwidth can
be increased with the use of stacked patch structure in a microstrip antenna (MSA) (Ollikainen,
Fischer and Vainikainen, 1999). The radiation characteristics can be further improved by an
electronic band gap structure on one side of the substrate. This reduces the surface waves induced in
the antenna and also increases the radiation pattern (Gonzalo, Maagt, Sorolla, 1999). The use of the
reflector plane is fed on the finite size ground plane at the rear end of the antenna to reduce the level
of back radiations (Raghava and Ashok De, 2009). The use of Photonic Band Gap (PBG) structure is
becoming attractive for many researchers in electromagnetic and antenna field. PBG had been used
to improve the performance of various antennas such as patch antenna and resonant antenna. Micro
strip patch antenna is promising to be a good candidate for future wireless technologies [5].
Surface waves are undesired because when a patch antenna radiates a portion of total
available radiated power becomes trapped along the surface of the substrate. It reduces total available
power for radiation to space waves, and there is harmonic frequency created. Recently there has been
an increasing interest in studying the Microstrip patch antenna with various periodic structures
including Electromagnetic Band Gap (EBG) [6-7]. This uniplanar compact EBG (UC-EBG) structure
is realized with metal pads etched in the ground plane connected by narrow lines to form a
distributed LC network. A distinctive stop band over a wide range of frequency is observed and the
measurement results agree with finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) simulations. Another unique
feature of this new EBG structure is the realization of a slow-wave microstrip line with low insertion
loss. Slow-wave mode propagation is of great interest for its use in reducing the dimension of
distributed components in integrated circuits [8]. EBG always referred as high impedance surface
that increase antenna surface efficiency by suppressing the unwanted surface wave current.
Suppression of surface waves excitation helps to improve antennas performance such as it reduces
backward radiation and increase antenna gain (Gonzalo et al., 1999) [9].
In this paper, stacking technique is studied with the rectangular microstrip antenna EBG
structure to enhance the performance of the RMSA. The results of the proposed antennas are
compared with the conventional microstrip antenna.

II. ANTENNA & EBG STRUCTURE

In this paper a conventional rectangular microstrip antenna (RMSA) has been designed for
6GHz.The antenna is designed on FR4 with dielectric constant r = 4.4 and with the height of
h=1.6mm with the width of W=15.24mm and the length L=11.33mm respectively. The antenna is
fed by stripline fed Lf
50
=6.18mm & Wf
50
=3.06mm to match the impedance and quarter wave
transformer Lt=4.92mm & Wt=0.5mm is used and ground plane Lg=40mm & Wg=40mm is
considered for the design. The geometry is as shown in Fig.1 (a) and the photographic view of the
conventional RMSA antenna is shown in the Fig.1 (b).








International Journal of Electronics and Communication Engineering & Technology (IJECET), ISSN 0976
6464(Print), ISSN 0976 6472(Online), Volume 5, Issue 6, June (2014), pp. 33-43 IAEME
35


Fig.1 (a) Geometry of top and Fig.1 (b) Photographic view of top
bottom RMSA and bottom RMSA

Initially the study is carried out by keeping all the parameter of the RMSA radiating patch
constant. The antenna is fed by stripline fed and the ground plane of the antenna is kept constant.
For obtaining dual wide slits RMSA (DWS-RMSA), pair of wide slits are incorporated in one of the
radiating edge of the rectangular microstrip antenna. The two wide slits are placed at equal distance
from the centerline of the patch width. ls = 9mm and ws=1mm are the slits length and slits width
respectively w
1
is the separation between these two slits. The geometry of the DWS-RMSA is as
shown in the Fig.2 (a). The photographic view of the top and bottom of DWS-RMSA antenna is as
shown in Fig.2 (b).


Fig. 2(a) Geometry of DWS-RMSA Fig. 2(b) Photographic view of top
and bottom DWS-RMSA

The study is carried by loading the swastika EBG structure on the ground plane of the
RMSA. By keeping all the parameter of the radiating patch constant, the antenna is fed by stripline
feed as in RMSA. The ground plane is replaced by the swastikEBG. The geometry of the DWS-
swastikEBG is as shown in the Fig 3(a). The 8x8mm EBG structure with length of the slot (sl)
=4mm, width of the slot (sw) =1mm, the gap between swastika EBG is g=8mm, by connecting center
swastika EBG four arms to the adjacent swastik EBG arms. The photographic view of the DWS-
swastikEBG is as shown in Fig3 (b). The swastika EBG structure prohibits propagation of
electromagnetic waves in a certain frequency bands. This suppresses the surface waves and hence
gives enhancement in the performance of the proposed antenna. Further the study is carried out by
the stacking method, by keeping all the parameter of the radiating patch and the ground plane of the
DWS-swastikEBG constant. The geometry view of stacked-swastikEBG is as shown in Fig.4 (a).
Another rectangular patch of same size (r
2
= 4.4 and h
2
=1.6mm) has been stacked on this RMSA-
swastikEBG. The total height of this stacked swastikEBG is h=3.2mm (h
1
=1.6mm+h
2
=1.6mm).The
photographic view of stacked-swastikEBG is as shown in Fig.4 (b). Fig.5 (a) shows the single

International Journal of Electronics and Communication Engineering & Technology (IJECET), ISSN 0976
6464(Print), ISSN 0976 6472(Online), Volume 5, Issue 6, June (2014), pp. 33-43 IAEME
36

enlarged unit of swastika EBG. The final view of the stacked-swastikEBG is as shown in Fig.5 (b).
The parameter of the swastikEBG is as shown in table1.











Fig.3 (a) Geometry of top & Fig.3 (b) Photographic view of
bottom of DWS-swastikEBG top & bottom DWS-swastikEBG










Fig.4 (a) Geometry of top and bottom of stacked-swastikEBG











Fig.4(b) Photographic view of top and bottom stacked-swastikEBG










Fig.5 (a) The enlarged geometry Fig.5 (a) The final view of stacked-
swastikEBG swastikEBG

International Journal of Electronics and Communication Engineering & Technology (IJECET), ISSN 0976
6464(Print), ISSN 0976 6472(Online), Volume 5, Issue 6, June (2014), pp. 33-43 IAEME
37

Table1. Parameter of the proposed swastikEBG









Further the study is carried out by stacking other type of EBG structure. All the parameter of
the (DWS-RMSA) radiating patch constant. The antenna is fed by stripline feed by replacing the
ground plane of the DWS-RMSA by a high impedance spiral EBG structure. The geometry of the
DWS-spiralEBG is as shown in the Fig. 6(a). The ground plane is loaded with four arms metal strip
connected to the spiral EBG structure below the radiating patch of the antenna with metal strip width
w= 1mm and the gap between each metal strip g= 1mm is used to improve the impedance matching
and reduce the antenna size. The photographic view of the DWS-spiralEBG is as shown in the Fig.
6(b).This spiral EBG is stacked with DWS-RMSA. The geometry of stacked-spiralEBG is as shown
in Fig.7 (a). Another rectangular patch of same size (r
2
= 4.4 and h
2
=1.6mm) has been stacked on
this RMSA-swastikEBG. The total height of this stacked spiralEBG is h=3.2mm
(h
1
=1.6mm+h
2
=1.6mm).The photographic view of stacked-spiralEBG is as shown in Fig.7 (b).



Fig. 6(a) Geometry of DWS-spiralEBG Fig. 6(b) Photographic view of top and
bottom DWS-spiralEBG












Fig. 7(a) Geometry of stacked-sprialEBG


Antenna
part
Parameters Size in mm


Swastik
EBG
Length(X) 8
Width(X) 8
Gap(G) 8
Length of the slot(SL) 4
Width of the slot(Sw) 1

International Journal of Electronics and Communication Engineering & Technology (IJECET), ISSN 0976
6464(Print), ISSN 0976 6472(Online), Volume 5, Issue 6, June (2014), pp. 33-43 IAEME
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Fig. 7(b) Photographic view of top and bottom stacked-spiralEBG

III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

Prototypes of the proposed antennas Conventional Microstrip Antenna RMSA were
constructed and experimental results are studied. The antenna bandwidth over return loss less than -
10 dB is tested experimentally on Vector Network Analyzer (Rohde & Schwarz, Germany make
ZVK model 1127.8651). The variation of return loss verses frequency of RMSA is as shown in fig.8
the antenna is resonating at 5.99GHz, the overall bandwidth of the RMSA is 4.18%. From this graph
the experimental bandwidth (BW) is calculated using the equations,

(1)

Where, f2 and f1 are the upper and lower cut off frequency of the resonated band when its
return loss reaches -10 dB and fc is a centre frequency between f1 and f2.
The variation of return loss versus frequency of DW-RMSA antenna is as shown in Fig.9, it
gives three bands. The overall bandwidth of DW-RMSA antenna is 26.30% and increase in gain
13.70 dB, this is due to the dual slit in the radiating patch of the RMSA. The variation of return loss
versus frequency of DWS-swastikEBG antenna is as shown in Fig.10, it gives a 05 bands. The
overall bandwidth of DWS-swastikEBG antenna is 109.15% and a increase in gain of 15.95dB,
virtual size reduction 65.55%. This is due to the dual slit in the radiating patch of the RMSA and the
swastika EBG on the ground plane. Fig.11 shows the variation of return loss versus frequency of
stacked-swastikEBG antenna. The overall bandwidth of the antenna is 118.90% and a increase in
gain of 15.25dB virtual size reduction 65.21%, this is due to the stacking technique with
swastikEBG.
The variation of return loss versus frequency of DWS-spiralEBG antenna is as shown in
Fig.12, it gives a 05 bands. The overall bandwidth of DWS-spiralEBG antenna is 114.72% and a
increase in gain of 10.87dB, virtual size reduction 34.60%.This is due to the dual slit in the radiating
patch of the RMSA and the spiral EBG structure on the ground plane. Fig.13 shows the variation of
return loss versus frequency of stacked-spiralEBG antenna .It gives 06 bands the overall bandwidth
of the antenna is 130.8% and a increase in gain of 12.45dB virtual size reduction 56.81%. The results
of the proposed antennas are as shown in table2.







International Journal of Electronics and Communication Engineering & Technology (IJECET), ISSN 0976
6464(Print), ISSN 0976 6472(Online), Volume 5, Issue 6, June (2014), pp. 33-43 IAEME
39
















Fig.8 The return loss versus frequency of RMSA
















Fig.9 The return loss versus frequency of DW-RMSA
















Fig.10 The return loss versus frequency of DWS-swastikEBG

International Journal of Electronics and Communication Engineering & Technology (IJECET), ISSN 0976
6464(Print), ISSN 0976 6472(Online), Volume 5, Issue 6, June (2014), pp. 33-43 IAEME
40
















Fig.11 The return loss versus frequency of stacked-swastikEBG















Fig.12 The return loss versus frequency of DWS-spiralEBG















Fig.13 The return loss versus frequency of stacked- spiralEBG



International Journal of Electronics and Communication Engineering & Technology (IJECET), ISSN 0976
6464(Print), ISSN 0976 6472(Online), Volume 5, Issue 6, June (2014), pp. 33-43 IAEME
41

Table2 Results of proposed antenna

The radiation characteristics of all proposed antennas were studied. The radiation patterns are
observed for all the cases. It is observed that there is reduction in back lobes of the DWS-
swastikEBG and stacked-swastikEBG when compared to the RMSA and it is as shown in E-plane
radiation pattern in Fig.14 (a). The typical radiation patterns for H-plane for the DWS-swastikEBG
and the stacked-swastikEBG are compared with RMSA and it is as shown in the Fig.14 (b). The
radiation pattern for DWS-spiralEBG and the stacked-spiralEBG is compared with the RMSA it is
shown in Fig.15 (a). From that it is clear that the back lobes are reduced. The typical radiation
patterns in the H-plane for the RMSA, DWS-spiralEBG and stacked-sprialEBG are as shown in the
Fig.15 (b).










Antenna
No. of
bands
Resonating
Freq.
(GHz)
Return
loss in
dB
Bandwidth
in MHz
Bandwidth in
(%)age
Size
reduction
in (%)age
Gain in
dB
Overall
Bandwidth
in (%)age

RMSA


01

5.99

-37.21

250

4.18

--

10.36

4.18

DW-RMSA

03
5.96
10.71
11.94
-13.50
-15.45
-15.45
22
70
192
3.69
6.53
16.08
--
13.70

26.30



DWS-swastikEBG



05
2.10
3.09
4.05
6.25
13.64

-34.52
-25.49
-17.70
-12.82
-49.20
19
93
86
47
563
9.04
30.09
21.23
7.52
41.27



65.55


15.95


109.15

Stacked-
swastikEBG


06
2.21
3.17
3.83
4.30
5.62
10.17
-21.15
-15.81
-11.60
-23.87
-12.86
-24.31
43
52
25
86
21
536
19.72
16.25
6.52
20
3.71
57.70

65.21

15.20

118.90

DWS-spiralEBG


05
4.06
5.54
8.04
11.10
11.97
-16.08
-25.41
-14.52
-12.90
-18.51
56
233
214
43
340
13.79
42.05
26.61
3.87
28.40

34.60

10.87

114.72

Stacked-
spiralEBG-


06
2.66
3.91
5.09
7.67
10.55
12.18
-15.30
-20.29
-23.77
-13.64
-11.25
-21.6
13
54
237
239
62
342
4.88
13.81
46.56
31.16
5.87
28.07


56.81


12.45


130.8

International Journal of Electronics and Communication Engineering & Technology (IJECET), ISSN 0976
6464(Print), ISSN 0976 6472(Online), Volume 5, Issue 6, June (2014), pp. 33-43 IAEME
42

-10
-5
0
0
30
60
90
120
150
180
210
240
270
300
330
-10
-5
0
RMSA
DWS-spiralEBG
Stacked-spiralEBG















(a) (b)
Fig. 14 E-plane and H-plane Radiation pattern of RMSA, DWS-swastikEBG and stacked-
swastikEBG















(a) (b)
Fig. 15 E-plane and H-plane Radiation pattern of RMSA, DWS-spiralEBG, and stacked- spiralEBG

IV. CONCLUSION

In this the rectangular Microstrip antenna with EBG and stacking technique has been
proposed. The two types of EBG structures i.e swastika and spiral structure have been embedded on
the groun plane of the dual wide slit RMSA (DWS-RMSA) and the performance of the antennas has
been studied. The experimental results shows that there is a improvement of bandwidth to 118.9%
with swastika EBG and stacking. Also the spiral EBG and stacking gives enhancement in bandwidth
to 130.85%. Then increase in gain and virtual size reduction of the antenna are also observed with
EBG and stacking. The antenna with spiral EBG and stacking gives more bandwidth. The antenna
with swastikEBG and stacking gives more gain. But both configurations suppress the back lobes
compared to conventional RMSA. This is the advantage of using EBG along with RMSA.
-12
-8
-4
0
0
30
60
90
120
150
180
210
240
270
300
330
-12
-8
-4
0
RMSA
DWS-spiralEBG
Stacked-spiralEBG
-12
-8
-4
0
0
30
60
90
120
150
180
210
240
270
300
330
-12
-8
-4
0
RMSA
DWS-swastikEBG
Stacked-swatikEBG
-10
-5
0
0
30
60
90
120
150
180
210
240
270
300
330
-10
-5
0
RMSA
DWS-swastikEBG
Stacked-swastikEBG

International Journal of Electronics and Communication Engineering & Technology (IJECET), ISSN 0976
6464(Print), ISSN 0976 6472(Online), Volume 5, Issue 6, June (2014), pp. 33-43 IAEME
43

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The authors would like to convey thanks to the department of science & technology (DST)
government of India, New Delhi, for sanctioning vector Network analyzer to this department under
FIST project.

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