This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been

fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI
10.1109/LAWP.2015.2481084, IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters
1

Compact Printed Parasitic Arrays

for WLAN Applications
M. Farran, D. Modotto, S. Boscolo, A. Locatelli, A.D. Capobianco, M. Midrio, and V. Ferrari

Abstract—Antenna arrays enable to achieve high gains and to

select the main lobe direction; on the other hand these arrays
require a complicated feeding network. In this Letter we show
that, whenever a radiating structure with a planar geometry
is preferable and only a moderate gain (< 6 dB) is required,
a microstrip array composed of an active monopole and two
parasitic elements is a very simple, yet effective design. The
phases of the currents flowing through the active and passive
elements determine the main lobe direction and can be adjusted
during the design procedure by inserting planar meanders. The
active element can be fabricated on the front of a standard FR4
substrate, whereas the ground plane and the parasitic elements
are located on the back of the same substrate. We present the
design and the experimental characterization of both broadside
and end-fire arrays working in the wireless local area network
(WLAN) band around 2.4 GHz. The design is extremely simple Fig. 1. Drawing of the planar broadside array; the dark area is the microstrip
(with meander) on the top layer, whereas the light gray area refers to the
and neat since a balun section is not necessary, therefore the
ground plane and the parasitic strips on the bottom layer. Dimensions are
proposed antennas occupy a circuit board area smaller than given in mm.
0.6λ × 0.5λ.
Index Terms—Planar arrays, microstrip antennas, directive
antennas. In this Letter we present planar arrays which differ re-
markably from the microstrip Yagi-Uda concept; indeed, the
I. I NTRODUCTION active element is a monopole [8]–[10] directly connected to the
input microstrip and the balun is unnecessary since the current
P RINTED antennas are lightweight, low cost and can be
easily integrated on a circuit board: these features are
ideal whenever avoiding an external antenna is preferable.
flowing on the ground plane flows from the ground itself
to the parasitic radiating strips. We can design our parasitic
arrays starting from the guidelines valid for linear arrays;
Planar directive antennas are required for compact transceivers
we demonstrated that, by delaying the currents feeding the
to be used in point-to-point WLAN links and they are a very
active or parasitic radiating metallic strips, a principal lobe
active and significant research area. Several printed directive
perpendicular to the board plane or lying in the board plane
antennas reported in the literature are based on planar ver-
can be obtained. The designed arrays and the experimental
sions of the well known Yagi-Uda array. These antennas are
characterization of the prototypes are described in the follow-
fabricated starting from standard substrates, the active element
ing sections.
is a half-wavelength resonant dipole [1]–[3] (or a folded-
dipole [4]), the truncated ground plane acts as a reflector and II. PARASITIC ARRAY DESIGN
microstrip directors boost directivity: an array occupying an
area slightly larger than 0.5 λ × λ, and having three directors A microstrip monopole [8] is chosen as active element of the
can reach a gain of 5 dB at 2.45 GHz [3]. The differential array with the aim of decreasing the total area of the board.
feeding required by the dipole is obtained by inserting a balun
based on a T-junction transition [1] or a microstrip to parallel
strips transition [2], [3], [5] between the input microstrip and
the active element, but more sophisticated solutions have been
presented, as well [6], [7]; an obvious drawback of the balun
is that it takes up space on the circuit board.
M. Farran, D. Modotto, A. Locatelli and V. Ferrari are with the Dipartimento
di Ingegneria dell’Informazione, Università degli Studi di Brescia, via Branze
38, 25123 Brescia, Italy (e-mail: mhd.farran@gmail.com).
S. Boscolo and M. Midrio are with the Dipartimento di Ingegneria Elettrica,
Gestionale e Meccanica, Università degli Studi di Udine, via delle Scienze
208, 33100 Udine, Italy (e-mail: stefano.boscolo@uniud.it).
A.D. Capobianco is with the Dipartimento di Ingegneria dell’Informazione,
Università degli Studi di Padova, via Gradenigo 6/b, 35131 Padova, Italy (e- Fig. 2. Computed (dashed lines) and measured (solid lines) reflection
mail: adc@dei.unipd.it). coefficient of the broadside (black lines) and end-fire (red lines) arrays.

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This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI
10.1109/LAWP.2015.2481084, IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters
2

The expected monopole length is a quarter-wavelength, but

this value must be tuned by using numerical tools since the
resonance condition is affected by the finite size of the ground
plane. All the numerical simulations presented in this study
have been performed by using the transient solver (i.e. in the
time domain) of CST Microwave Studio. In many applications
it is desirable to have the main lobe direction perpendicular
to the circuit board plane, hence as first design we consider a
broadside array whose schematic drawing is shown in Fig. 1:
a three-element array is fabricated by placing symmetrically
around the driven monopole two parasitic metallic strips.
Differently from the design described in [11], these parasitic
elements are protrusions of the ground plane. A 50-Ohm (a)
microstrip line is used for excitation of the antenna. The
current densities in the parasitic strips are induced by the
driven monopole, but there is also the contribution of the
fraction of the current feeding the input port which passes
across the ground plane and reaches the parasitic elements.
The separation between the parasitic strips and the active
monopole is about 0.25λ and such a small distance avoids
the presence of grating lobes [12] in the radiation pattern. In
order to have a broadside radiation pattern (with two main
lobes orthogonal to the board plane) the currents feeding the
three strips must oscillate in phase: a transmission delay line
formed by a meandered line is inserted between the input
microstrip and the monopole to guarantee the correct phase
(b)
lag for the current entering the monopole. We underline how
Fig. 3. Simulated current density vectors in the broadside array at 2.44 GHz:
meandered lines are routinely used in printed circuit boards (a) with meander, (b) without meander. The arrow length gives the magnitude
and for small-sized antennas [13], [14]. The meandered delay of the current density (in a logarithmic scale). Also the input SMA connector
line is composed of 5 segments, separated by 1.1 mm and is included in the model.
with a width of 0.5 mm; its total length l must compensate
for the phase delay accumulated by the field traveling from
the input microstrip to the parasitic elements and a numerical the broadside array of Fig. 1, without changing the ground
optimization procedure involving the fine tuning of all the plane dimensions. The calculated gain of the broadside array
geometrical parameters gave the value l = 46 mm. The final is 4.4 dB and we verified that it is the global maximum value
design of the broadside array with all the relevant geometrical that can be achieved by tuning the geometrical parameters of
dimensions is displayed in Fig. 1: the substrate total area is the proposed design; for instance, if the separation between
0.56λ×0.48λ (42 cm2 ), the meander sizes are 2.35×0.35 cm2 the monopole and the parasitic elements is varied by ± 5 mm
and driven and parasitic strips have a width of 2.9 mm. This (and the ground plane width is varied accordingly) the gain is
design also satisfies the impedance matching condition in a decreased by 0.4 dB.
wide band around 2.4 GHz, as it is shown by the calculated Figure 3(b) shows a snapshot of the current density for the
reflection coefficient (black dashed line of Fig. 2). Inspecting same array of Fig. 1 but without inserting the meandered line:
how the current density in the metallic parts of the antenna the current density reaches its maximum magnitude in the
is evolving as a function of time explains which parts of central monopole but it is negligible in the parasitic radiators
the antenna contribute to the radiation. A snapshot of the and the analysis of the current density over a full oscillation
simulated current in the broadside array of Fig. 1 is shown period confirms that the currents in the three strips are not
for a frequency of 2.44 GHz in Fig. 3(a); at the selected time, anymore in phase. Besides, the impedance matching condition
equally oriented current density vectors reach their maximum is lost since a current partial standing wave is immediately
magnitude simultaneously in the three metallic strips: i.e. those recognized in the input microstrip. We can conclude that in
currents are in phase. Moreover, the currents in the parasitic absence of the meander the array factor cannot lead to any
radiators have values comparable to the current in the active substantial gain increment.
monopole, which is beneficial for the array gain. A similar approach, based on the control of the phases of
The dashed black lines of Fig. 4 are the calculated radiation the radiating currents, can be employed to design a three-
patterns in the two principal planes: it is apparent that the element array having a single maximum lying in the plane
array directivity is larger than the monopole directivity, whose of the board: we will refer to this case as end-fire antenna.
patterns are plotted as gray lines in the same figure. We under- The distance between the driven monopole and the left-hand
line that the monopole antenna of this example is obtained by parasitic radiator determines the phase delay ∆φ between the
removing the parasitic elements and the meandered line from currents feeding these two strips, which must be equal to the

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This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI
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3

at several other times) confirm that the currents feeding the

radiating strips exhibit the optimum phase delay to impose
a single main lobe lying in the xy plane. It can be noticed
that some current is concentrated in the upper edge of the
ground plane: this current feeds the parasitic radiators and
contributes to the far field, as well. The numerical results
show that the main lobe of the radiation pattern is tilted
by 53 degrees with respect to the monopole, whereas in a
conventional end-fire array this angle would be 90 degrees:
this is largely due to the above mentioned currents flowing on

(a)

Fig. 5. Drawing of the planar end-fire array; the dark area is the microstrip
on the top layer, whereas the light gray area refers to the ground plane and
the parasitic strips on the bottom layer. Dimensions are given in mm.
(b)
Fig. 4. The black lines are the computed (dashed lines) and measured (solid
lines) radiation patterns of the broadside array. The gray line is the computed
radiation pattern of the monopole. The display scale is from -10 to 5 dB (5 dB
per division). (a) E-plane: angles are measured starting from y axis towards
z axis; (b) H-plane: angles are measured starting from x axis towards z axis.

phase delay accumulated by a plane wave traveling between

them. As the basic theory of linear uniform arrays explains, in
order to obtain an end-fire radiation it is sufficient to enforce
the same phase delay ∆φ between the right-hand radiator and
the driven monopole. The correct phase delay for the current
in the right-hand parasitic strip is accomplished by inserting
between that strip and the ground plane a meandered line (a)
whose total length must be numerically tuned. We observe that
without that meandered line the phase delay between the right-
hand strip and the central monopole would be −∆φ instead
of the required ∆φ. An optimization procedure, aiming at
widening the impedance matching bandwidth (see the calcu-
lated reflection coefficient, dashed red curve of Fig. 2) and at
maximizing the gain, gave a meandered delay line composed
of 6 segments, separated by 1.5 mm, with a width of 0.5
mm, and having a total length of 33.7 mm. The final design is
depicted in Fig. 5 and its overall size is 0.6λ × 0.4λ (38 cm2 ).
The radiation patterns in the E and H planes are shown as
red dashed lines in Fig. 6(a) and (b), respectively; whereas the
main lobe is tilted and not symmetric in the xy plane (E-plane)
it exhibits a good symmetry in the H-plane. Simulated current (b)
density vectors for a frequency of 2.44 GHz are portrayed in Fig. 6. Computed (dashed lines) and measured (solid lines) radiation patterns
Fig. 7. The two snapshots of Fig. 7(a) and (b) are separated of the end-fire array. The display scale is from -20 to 10 dB (5 dB per division).
(a) E-plane: angles are measured starting from x axis towards y axis; (b) H-
by a time delay ∆t corresponding to a phase difference of plane: angles are measured starting from pattern maximum direction towards
ω∆t = π/2: those figures (and a thorough analysis also z axis.

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This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI
10.1109/LAWP.2015.2481084, IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters
the ground plane. Extensive numerical simulations showed that
it is not possible to appreciably shift the tilt angle towards 90
degrees by changing only the separation between the strips (or
their length) and without varying the ground plane dimensions.
III. M EASUREMENT RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
Prototypes were fabricated on FR4 substrates (with thick-
ness 1.58 mm, εr = 4.5, tanδ = 0.025) and measured in
anechoic chamber by using a two port Agilent N5230 PNA-L
network analyzer. As shown in Fig. 2, the measured reflection
coefficients (solid lines) are in good agreement with CST
results (dashed lines); the WLAN channels around 2.44 GHz
can readily fit in the measured impedance matching bands
(whose widths at -10 dB are about 400 MHz). According to the
measurements, the resonance of the broadside array occurs at
2.39 GHz (reflection coefficient value of -47 dB with fractional
bandwidth of 17%) and the resonance of the end-fire array
occurs at 2.5 GHz (reflection coefficient value of -20 dB with
fractional bandwidth of 17%).
The radiation patterns of the broadside array in the E
and H planes are plotted in Fig. 4(a) and 4(b), respectively:
the measured diagrams exhibit a good agreement with CST
simulations and confirm the symmetry with respect to the
board plane. The measured (calculated) gain is 3.8 dB (4.4
dB). The numerically calculated efficiency at 2.4 GHz is about
94%. The radiation patterns of the end-fire array are shown
in Fig. 6(a) (E-plane) and 6(b) (H-plane). The main lobe is
pointing towards the side where the meander is inserted (on the
right in Fig. 5), its measured (calculated) maximum direction is
tilted by 48 degrees (53 degrees) with respect to the monopole
axis and the gain is 5.5 dB (4.9 dB), which can be compared
to the value of 6.57 dB, obtained by summing the printed
monopole gain (1.8 dB) and the antenna factor of a three-
element uniform array (4.77 dB); the calculated efficiency at
2.4 GHz is 90%. For both the fabricated prototypes the far-
field is almost linearly polarized since the measured cross-
polarization components are always at least 15 dB smaller
than the co-polarization components.
IV. C ONCLUSION
Two printed arrays with one active microstrip-fed element
and two parasitic strips have been designed and characterized
at 2.4 GHz. Meanders are used to enforce a phase lag to the
currents flowing in one of the radiating metallic strips and
determine the main lobe direction. In spite of the compact
area (smaller than 0.6λ×0.5λ) gains of 3.8 dB and 5.5 dB are
achieved for broadside and end-fire configurations. Moreover,
the insertion of a planar balun is not necessary since the
currents flowing on the ground plane are used to feed the
parasitic elements. The proposed antennas have larger gain or
a smaller footprint than alternative microstrip parasitic arrays
discussed in the literature and may be suitable candidates for
WLAN point-to-point operations. Our study opens the way
to the realization of more complex printed arrays wherein
meanders are introduced in order to simplify the feeding
network.
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4
(a)
(b)
Fig. 7. Simulated current density vectors in the planar end-fire array for
a frequency of 2.44 GHz at two different times separated by ∆t (the
corresponding phase difference is ω∆t = π/2). The arrow length gives the
magnitude of the current density (in a logarithmic scale). Also the input SMA
connector is included in the model.
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