A Practical Guide to the Design of Microstrip Antenna Arrays — Arya College
A microstrip antenna is used to process ultra-high frequency signals. It is often used as a satellite radio or cell phone receiver or is mounted on a spacecraft or aircraft. This type of antenna has the benefit that it costs little to make but the drawback is that it has limited bandwidth.
An antenna is basically a device designed to transmit or receive electromagnetic waves by the students of best engineering colleges in Jaipur. It is used in radio equipment to transform radio waves into electrical currents or electrical currents into radio waves. The only difference between a transmitting antenna and a receiving antenna is the direction in which the signal is traveling. A microstrip antenna is also used to transmit or receive signals in the ultra-high frequency spectrum. These waves have the frequencies between 300 MHz and 3000 MHz (3GHz).
The most common type of microstrip antenna is considered as microstrip patch antenna. It is made by engraving the antenna pattern into metal trace. It is bonded to a layer of insulating material like plastic, glass, certain ceramics, or certain types of crystal, then the insulating layer, known as the dielectric substrate, is bonded to a layer of metal. You cannot create this type of antenna without a dielectric substrate.
Benefits Of Microstrip Patch Antenna
A microstrip antenna is a low-cost and versatile antenna that can be manufactured easily and produces high-quality signals. Its benefits include lightweight, low manufacturing cost, and directivity.
Low cost
Patch antennas are highly versatile and low-cost in terms of manufacturing. They are low in weight, small in size, and offer low radiation power to the students of top engineering colleges in Jaipur. They can operate in dual and triple frequencies and are perfect for various applications. The low-profile design of these antennas allows easy incorporation into a circuit board. Also, they are easy to mount on a rigid surface.
Typically, Microstrip antennas are very thin. Therefore, people often print them on a single dielectric substrate. Patch antennas includes a layer of dielectric material. Each layer has 60 RF MEMS varactor elements.
Easy to manufacture
Microstrip antennas are simple and inexpensive that is very flexible. The planar structure allows enable them to conform to surfaces without losing their mechanical strength, even when mounted on rigid materials. Such antennas are helpful in various applications, and their low profile makes them easy to integrate into a device. Also, they are inexpensive to produce and can print onto a circuit board.
The microstrip antenna consists of many different materials. A common material is an aluminum, which is incredibly easy to work with. You can cut and form the metal in a simple machine. The aluminum microstrip can be easily assembled and the aluminum substrate makes it lightweight and durable.
Lightweight
Microstrip patch are popular as low-profile and lightweight antennas that operate at a wide frequency range. Additionally, they are easy to manufacture and integrate. These features help students of private engineering colleges in Jaipur to make them attractive candidates for use in wireless communication systems. Patch antennas are available in different shapes and uses a series of strips in an array. Some common shapes include a circular ring, a square, or an elliptical shape.
Small distances
Patch antennas are categorized into a conductive strip and a dielectric substrate. This method is useful for short distances, where you fabricate high-frequency signals without sacrificing efficiency. Here, the antennas narrow bandwidth makes them unsuitable for use in large area networks.
Patch antennas are a modern invention that allows easy integration of antenna and driving circuitry on a single circuit board or semiconductor chip. It maintains high dimensional accuracy, which was previously impossible with traditional fabrication methods.
Types Of Microstrip Antennas
Custom antenna PCB
Microstrip patch includes several types of materials. The conducting patch can be RT-Duroid, FR-4, foam, Nylon fabric, etc. Also, they consist of dielectric substrates with different dielectric constants. They are helpful for fabrication, and it is usually thick. Each type uses a different feeding technique to feed the patch to the substrate by the students of best BTech colleges in Jaipur.
Parasitic patch
A parasitic patch antenna is a stacked microstrip antenna that has a radiating part composed of nine rectangular metal patches arranged basically in three rows and three columns. Due to this, the regular concept makes the antenna’s radiation pattern uniform and can cover a wide bandwidth.
The antenna has a central patch 24 that combines several smaller patches, or “parasitic patches,” which further connects each other at the center frequency f. The central patch 24 has a slot 40 and two equal-sized notches, 44 a and b, each 125 mm wide. With the increase in the parasitic patches, the antenna’s profile also got increased.
Dielectric chip
The dielectric loading in a microstrip antenna that affects the radiation pattern and impedance bandwidth. The higher the dielectric constant, the smaller the bandwidth of the antenna will become. Additionally, increasing the substrate’s relative permittivity increases the antenna’s Q factor. Due to this, the radiation pattern of a rectangular microstrip antenna is an array of slots. The highest directivity only occurs when the dielectric of the substrate is air. Therefore, the relative permittivity of the dielectric expands as the substrate becomes more dielectric.
Microstrip
A microstrip antenna is an important and popular type of internal antenna. They are helpful for microwave frequencies and consist thin strips of metal, and are useful in many applications. These strips are made of gold or silver. This type of antenna is also helpful in microwave ovens. A microstrip antenna is useful in different applications where a longer, stronger antenna is needed.
