STUDY OF FREQUENCY SELECTIVE SURFACE (FSS) RESONATOR ELEMENTS ON A CIRCULAR

DIELECTRIC ROD ANTENNA FOR MOBILE COMMUNICATIONS.

G.J. Cox, K. Zorzos, R.D. Seager and J.C. Vardaxoglou

Loughborough University, UK.

ABSTRACT

This paper reports on the development of antennas for

mobile communications systems based on a dielectric
rod antenna fed from a circular waveguide. The results
presented are for a linearly polarised antenna with
partial Frequency Selective Surface (FSS) cover and
without an endcap.
The complete system was modelled using the
Transmission Line Matrix (TLM) Method.
This
allowed an accurate design to be achieved before
committing to any hardware production.
Good
agreement between measured and modelled results has
been observed. Clear beamforming by the addition of
FSS elements has also been demonstrated.

INTRODUCTION

This paper reports the initial development of a mobility

antenna system based on a dielectric rod antenna. By
covering the dielectric rod, completely or partially with
FSS resonators, the antenna pattern can be optimised for
a particular application. A dielectric rod antenna is used
as it can be reduced in size by judicious choice of
dielectric constant. Dielectric loaded antennas such as
bifilar and quadrifilar helix antennas have been used for
design of mobile handset antennas (1) before. The
antennas being investigated here do not require accurate
metallisation to obtain a resonant circuit, as is the case
in bifilar and quadrifilar helix antennas. The proposed
pattern control is achieved by use of resonant elements
attached to the dielectric rod.

never been reported for this type of application. Here,

the effect of a square-loop FSS element section on the
end-fire pattern of a dielectric rod is discussed. This
can be seen to have applications in satellite
communications where the end-fire beam pattern may
be tailored to a particular requirement. If an endcap is
placed on the dielectric rod and suitable resonators are
used the rod may be used in terrestrial applications.

FEEDING TECHNIQUES

Coaxial cables and Microstrip slots are an established

way of feeding waveguides and have been extensively
reported in the literature (3), (4) and (5). These feed
types easily allow for linear and circularly polarised
fields in the waveguide by altering the number and
orientation of the coaxial probes or changing the
geometry of the slot or feed line. All feeds have been
designed to work in the dominant mode region of the
waveguide and, as such, will excite the TE11 mode in
the solid guide.

Coaxial Cable

Figure 1 shows a cross-section of the computer model

used for the coaxial fed antenna being investigated. The
air gap was used to improve the Return Loss of the
antenna.
Dielectric

Pin
By choosing to use a conductive endcap, and the correct
feed structure, the antenna can be targeted towards
either terrestrial or satellite communications. Two
different feed structures (coaxial cable and microstrip
fed slots) have been investigated to produce either linear
or circular polarised radiation from the antenna. For
convenience, the work was scaled to 9GHz using a low
dielectric constant material (PTFE). Although an
aperture feed may be seen to be preferable both coaxial
and aperture feeds were investigated. The Transmission
Line Matrix (TLM) method was used in the design
process and this proved to be a successful technique. It
is proposed to use resonant elements based on FSS
technology to control the antenna pattern. Beam control
using FSS elements has been reported before (2) but has

Air gap
Spacer
and SMA

Figure 1 Cross-section of Coaxial Fed Dielectric Rod

Antenna
The waveguide has a radius of 7.5mm and is 45mm
long.
It is filled with dielectric with a relative
permittivity of 2. It is fed with an SMA connector, the
centre of the feeding pin being 5.4mm from the back

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Reflection Coefficient(dB)

wall of the waveguide. The SMA connector had the

dielectric surrounding the pin removed, to yield an air
gap, giving an improved match. The pin was inserted to
different fractions of the diameter of the waveguide to
obtain the optimum match. Results for the coaxial cable
are presented in Figure 2.

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8

8.2

8.4

8.6

8.8

9.2

9.4

9.6

9.8

10

Reflection Coefficient

Frequency (Ghz)

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Figure 3 Measured Reflection Coeffcient of the

Microstrip Slot

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1/4 Insertion
3/8 Insertion
1/2 Insertion
3/4 Insertion
TLM Simulation of 1/2 Insertion

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7.5

8.0

8.5

9.0

9.5

10.0

10.5

11.0

Frequency (GHz)

Figure 2 Comparison of coaxial cable feed insertions

in circular waveguide.
The effect of different insertion lengths, whilst keeping
the distance from the back wall constant, can clearly be
seen. Good agreement in frequency is seen between the
measured and modelled results of guide diameter
insertion. The modelled result shows that TLM can be
used to guide the design of the feed structures. A very
good match has been achieved.

an angle of incidence of 45 degrees. The most

successful design for this application was the squareloop. The dimensions of a simulated and measured
square-loop FSS are summarised below in Table 1. 6
square-loop resonators were placed in a 3x2 pattern on
the dielectric rod. This meant that the rod had a
complete longitudinal covering of elements and a partial
covering around the circumference. Elements could be
placed perpendicular (position A) or Parallel
(position B) to the TE11 field inside the waveguide.
This is shown schematically below in Figure 4. The
complete waveguide, rod and element assembly, from
the modeller, is shown in Figure 5.
Dx
12.7mm

Dy
12.7mm

Lx
9mm

Lx
9mm

W
0.6mm

Table 1 FSS Design summary

Microstrip Slot

The final application of this technology (mobility

antennas) suggests that Microstrip slot coupling into the
waveguide is preferable to a coaxial feed. To evaluate
this feed a slot aperture (9.5mm in length by 3.5mm in
width) was etched onto the ground plane of an MC3D
substrate. The ground plane formed the back wall of a
solid circular waveguide. A microstrip line feeds power
through the aperture into the waveguide (4). The
extension of the Microstrip feed line beyond the
aperture was adjusted to allow maximum coupling of
power into the waveguide. The measured S11 for this
feed is shown in Figure 3.

BEAM FORMING ELEMENTS

FSSs consisting of dipoles, cross-dipoles and squareloops have been designed and simulated at 9GHz with

Positions A
Positions B

TE11 E-field in
waveguide

Field in
Microstrip slot

Figure 4 Parallel and Perpendicular FSS positions.

Diagram not to scale

z
y

z
y
x
Figure 5 Complete modelled assembly of waveguide,
rod and FSS elements

ANTENNA PATTERNS

Figure 7 Simulated radiation plot of the plain

dielectric rod antenna with FSS elements and with
no ground plane at 9GHz with the elements in
position A
If the frequency is increased away from the resonant
frequency of the elements the beam direction returns
back to bore-sight. The beam at 9.99GHz, where
resonance is fading, is only 3 degrees off the bore-sight
axis. This is shown in Figure 8.

Antenna patterns have been obtained using a TLM

modeller and measured experimentally for the squareloop design described in Table 1. Figure 6 shows the
main beam of a dielectric rod antenna with no FSS
elements at 9GHz. The TE11 field is in the y-direction.

z
y

z
y

Figure 6 Simulated radiation plot in the y-z

(elevation) plane of dielectric rod antenna with no
ground plane at 9GHz

As would be expected with a dielectric rod antenna the

majority of the power radiates in the main beam.
Figure 7 shows how the beam has been directed by
positioning FSS elements in Position A (Figure 4).
Approximately a 20-degree shift from the bore-sight
direction is observed.

Figure 8 Simulated radiation plot of the plain

dielectric rod antenna with FSS elements and with
no ground plane at 9.99GHz with the elements in
position A

Azimuth and Elevation Cuts

Azimuth and Elevation cuts have been taken for the

dielectric rod antenna with and without the elements.
These are shown in Figure 9 and Figure 10. The offset
seen in the radiation pattern in Figure 7 is clearly visible
in Figure 9. There is no beam movement in the
elevation, as one would expect.

Well matched feed structures to the antennas have been

produced, using simulations to guide the design process.

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Acknowledgements

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This work is supported by an EPSRC studentship. The

authors would like to thank Flomerics for their
continued help with aspects of the TLM modelling
using the Micro-Stripes simulation package.

Measured Dielectric Rod with Ground Plane

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Simulated Dielectric Rod
Simulated Dielectric Rod with Ground Plane
Measured Dielectric Rod with FSS

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Simulated Dielectric Rod with FSS

Simulated Dielectric Rod with FSS & Ground Plane
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80

Angle (Degrees)

1 O.P.Leisten, A Combined Right Hand Circular and

Linear Polarisation Antenna For GPS and Cellular
Telephone Usage Institute of Navigation Conference,
Kansas City, 17-20 September 1999

Figure 9 Co-Polar Azimuth cut

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2 Chandran, S. and Vardaxoglou, J.C., Experimental

Results on the Focusing Properties of Tapered
Frequency-Selective Surfaces, Microwave and Opt
Technology Letters , 11(5) , April 1996, pp 277-279,
ISSN: 0895 2477

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Relative Power

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Measured Dielectric Rod with Ground Plane

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Simulated Dielectric Rod

Simulated Dielectric Rod with Ground Plane

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Measured Dielectric Rod with FSS

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Simulated Dielectric Rod with FSS

Simulated Dielectric Rod with FSS and Ground Plane

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Angle (Degrees)

Figure 10 Co-Polar Elevation cut

If the elements are rotated so that they are parallel to the
Electric field the interaction between the two becomes
insignificant and no beamshifting is observed.

CONCLUSIONS

Dielectric rod antennas have been successfully built and

fed using TLM modelling in the design process. It has
been shown that good agreement can be achieved
between TLM simulations and measured insertion loss
and radiation patterns.
The effects that an FSS has on the radiation
characteristics of a dielectric rod antenna have been
shown in terms of simulations and measured results,
which show good agreement. This beam steering or
beam shaping can be used in applications where
communication to satellites is required. Using an
endcap and carefully designed resonant elements should
allow the dielectric rod to be used for terrestrial
applications.
The use of different polarisations for satellite or
terrestrial applications will require correct choice of
propagation mode within the waveguide and also
correct choice of FSS resonators

3 Pozar, D. M., Aperture Coupled Waveguide Feeds

for Microstrip Antennas and Microstrip Couplers IEEE
Antennas and Propagation Conference, Vol. 1, 1996
pp700-703
4 Das, B. N., Prasad, K. V. S. V. R., and Seshagiri Rao,
K.V., Excitation of Waveguide by stripline and
Microstrip Line Fed Slots, IEEE Transactions MTT,
34(3), March 1986, pp 321-327
5 Deshpande, M. D. and Das, B. N., Input Impedance
of Coaxial Line to Circular Waveguide Feed, IEEE
Transactions MTT, 25(11), November 1977, pp 954957 and subsequent corrections.