IEEE 2012 International Conference on RFID -Technologies and Applications (RFID - TA)
Aperture Coupled UWB Microstrip Patch Antenna Array
for mm-Wave Chipless RFID Tag Reader
Md. Aminul Islam, Nemai Karmakar and A K M Azad
Abstract A 4x4 aperture coupled UWB microstrip patch
antenna array for mm-wave chipless RFID tag reader is
presented. The antenna is operating over the 21-27 GHz
frequency band with 20 dBi gain. A systematic approach has
been followed to design the antenna array, where, firstly a
single antenna element is optimized, then a feed network using
multistage power divider is designed and finally, the 4x4
antenna array is developed and optimized. Simulation and
measurement results of the antenna are described in details
with gain, radiation pattern and impedance behavior. Finally,
the assembled antenna is used for measuring mm-wave chipless
tag to validate its functional accuracy. The antenna can be used
in commercial mm-wave chipless RFID tag reader due to its
lower profile, cost and higher gain.
I. INTRODUCTION
R adio Frequency Identification (RFID) is a wireless data
capturing technology that uses radio frequency (RF)
waves for extracting the encoded data from remotely placed
tags. This system consists of two main elements, the RFID
tag, where data is encoded, and the RFID reader for the tags,
which consists of reader antenna, digital section and RF
section. The RFID tag has the potential to replace barcode,
but it is still not used in low-cost applications because of its
higher price compared to the barcode. The cost of the
widely-used passive tags depends mainly on the chips used
in them [1]. Therefore, research has been focused on
developing chipless printable RFID tags and reliable readers
for detecting those tags.
A number of printable chipless RFID tags have been
reported using time, frequency, phase domain and image-
based encoding techniques. Among the time domain based
tags, only SAW-based tags have the required data capacity
[2], but it is not printable and costly also. In phase domain-
based tags only the tag using stub-loaded multiple patch
antennas (SLMPA) [3] is printable, but the phase is varied
due to multipath, which may cause bit encoding errors.
Image-based tags are still in the experimental phase and
need costly submicron-level printing.
Manuscript received July 21, 2012. This work was supported in part by
the Australian Research Council Linkage Project grant (LP0991435: Back-
scatter based RFID system capable of reading multiple chipless tags for
regional and suburban libraries). Support from ECSE departmental
scholarship of Monash University is also acknowledged
M. A. Islam, N. Karmakar and AKM Azad are with the Department of
Electrical and Computer Systems Engineering, Monash University, Victoria
3800, Australia (e-mail: aminul.islam@monash.edu,
nemai.karmakar@monash.edu and akm.azad@monash.edu).
978-1-4673-0328-6/12/$31.00 2012 IEEE
However, the frequency domain-based tags have higher
data density than time-domain based tags. Hence,
researchers around the world are now concentrating more on
this and the number of proposed tags using the UWB
microwave frequency band of 3.1 GHz to 10.6 GHz is
increasing significantly. In the beginning, chipless tag using
spiral resonators and cross-polarized monopole antennas is
presented in [4]. Then, several others frequency domain
based chipless tags using dipoles [5], Multi-Resonant Dipole
Antennas (MRDA) [6], capacitively-tuned dipoles [7], space
filling curves [8], Split Ring Resonators (SRRs) [9],
coplanar strips [10], dual polarized U and I slots [11] and
few more are proposed in literature. However, none of them
get commercial acceptance due to the higher size of the tag
in microwave frequency range and also the requirement for
larger reader antennas.
Recently, mm-wave frequency bands are getting
importance for designing frequency domain based tags [12]-
[13] because of its advantages over microwave frequencies.
The mm-wave is more susceptible to interference and the tag
and reader antenna size is also decreased, which make it
more suitable for commercial production than the tags which
uses microwave frequency band. Hence, 21 to 27 GHz
frequency band is getting acceptance for short range
wireless communication [13] and many research groups are
working on developing whole chipless RFID tag and reader
system in mm-wave. Readers digital and RF components
for mm-wave chipless RFID tag are now also available in
the market. But yet no suitable reader antenna has been
proposed for the reader for mm-wave tags which can be
used commercially. Although, horn antennas are used
widely by the researcher for proving the design concepts of
new chipless RFID tag and reader for prototype
development, they cannot be used as a commercial chipless
RFID reader antenna due to their larger profile, higher
weight and huge manufacturing cost. Hence, a high-gain
antenna with very low-profile with 21-27 GHz bandwidth
needs to be developed for the reader.
A number of techniques for the development of mm-
wave UWB antennas have been analyzed. A symmetric
approach using Vivaldi notch elements is presented in [14]
and another design using log-periodic folded dipole is
shown in [15]. But these types of end fire antennas possess a
very large profile and cannot be used commercially. In [16]
another unsuitable high profile UWB antenna array is
described, which is made of broadband monopoles.
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 In this paper, a 4x4 aperture coupled microstrip patch
antenna (ACMPA) array is proposed for the mm-wave
chipless RFID tag reader. At first, a single ACMPA element
is designed and optimized. Then, for achieving the wide
band for the feed line in mm-wave range, a 4-stage power
divider is designed and optimized. The 4-stage power
divider is then used for designing the 4x4-corporate feed
line for the antenna array. The antenna array is optimized for
achieving the required bandwidth, radiation pattern and
gain. Corresponding to the optimum design, an antenna
array has been fabricated, assembled and tested. Finally, the
mm-wave tag measurement performance is analyzed by the
assembled antenna.
Rest of the paper is organized as follows: Section II
presents the design of the single element antenna and feed
line using multistage power divider with simulation results.
Section III presents the design of the antenna array. Section
IV presents the return loss and tag measurement
performance of the assembled antenna, which is followed by
conclusion in section V
II. DESIGN OF THE SINGLE ELEMENT ANTENNA AND FEED
NETWORK USING MULTISTAGE POWER DIVIDER
A. Single Element Antenna Design
The design and simulation of the structure are performed
using CST Microwave Studio 2012. The configuration of
the single element aperture coupled microstrip patch antenna
is shown in Fig. 1. The antenna consists of two substrate
layers. Taconic TLX-8 (permittivity, r = 2.55, loss tangent,
tan = 0.0019) with thickness (h) of 0.13 mm is used for the
mm-wave antenna fabrication to achieve the wide bandwidth
and also to satisfy the microstrip theory (h < /20) at mm-
wave frequency band.
Fig. 1. Configuration of the proposed aperture coupled microstrip patch
antenna: (a) plan view and (b) expanded view. Dimensions: lp = 8mm, wp =
4.1mm, b = 1mm, ls = 7.1 mm, ws = 1.1mm, s = 0.47mm, w50=0.455mm.
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The rectangular patch is etched on the top substrate and
the aperture and feed line are etched on the bottom substrate.
The center of the patch, aperture and feed line are perfectly
aligned with each other. Air gap is kept between the two
substrate layers for bandwidth enhancement. For the same
objective, the lengths and widths of the coupling aperture
and patch are optimized such that both the radiating patch
and the coupling slot resonate at close frequencies.
Dimensions of different parameters for optimum
performance are: patch length, lp = 8 mm, patch width, wp =
4.1 mm, air gap, b = 1 mm, aperture length, ls = 7.1 mm,
aperture width, ws = 1.1 mm, matched stub length, s = 0.47
mm and feed line width, w50 = 0.455 mm.
B. Feed Network Design Using Multistage Power Divider
Corporate (parallel) feed network is used for the
proposed ACMPA array because of its controlled aperture
distribution, bandwidth and polarization. Multistage T-
junction type power divider is used as a building block for
the 4x4 parallel feed-network, since it has better bandwidth,
return loss and insertion loss performance than single stage
power divider and simpler and more compact than
Wilkinson power divider. The multistage T-junction power
divider and its simulation results are shown in Fig. 2(a) and
(b). Optimized values for different parameters are: l2 = 1
mm, l3 = 1 mm, l4 = 1 mm, l5 = 1 mm, w1 = 0.455 mm, w2
= 0.4 mm, w3 = 0.3 mm, w4 = 0.2 mm, w5 = 0.16 mm.
From the simulation results it observed that the reflection
co-efficient is less than -15dB, average transmission co-
efficient is -3.4 dB over the entire bandwidth.
Magnitude (dB)
Fig. 2. Multistage power divider for antenna feed network (a) Design
layout with parameters and (b) Simulation results.
The optimized multistage T-junction power divider is
then used for designing the feed network as the effects of the
feed network are important in high gain ACMPA array with
large numbers of radiating elements. In this paper equal
phase and power distribution are applied in the array and the
spacing between individual radiating elements in the array is
chosen as 0.88 times of free-space wavelength (a= 11 mm).
This spacing reduces the side lobes in the far-field radiation
pattern of the array while maximizing its gain. The feed
network layout and simulation results are shown in Fig. 3 (a)
and (b).
Fig. 3. Antenna feed network (a) Design layout and (b) Simulation
results

III. ANTENNA ARRAY DESIGN AND SIMULATION RESULTS

Layout of different layers of the simulated antenna array
and its simulation result are shown in Fig. 4. The antenna
array consists of a total of 16 (44) patch elements on the Fig. 5. Radiation pattern at different frequencies
top substrate layer without any metal plane on its opposite
Simulated realized gain and impedance of the antenna
side (Fig. 4a). Ground plane with slots and feed line are on
are shown in Fig. 6 (a) and (b) respectively. Average
the bottom substrate layer as shown in Fig. 4 (b) and (c).
simulated maximum realized gain of the antenna is around
The simulated reflection co-efficient is shown in Fig. 4(d)
20 dB over the entire bandwidth.
and -10dB bandwidth of the optimized array is 21-27 GHz.

22

20

18
Realized Gain
16

14

12
21 22 23 24 25 26 27

Fig. 6. Simulated (a) Realized gain and (b) Input impedance

IV. MEASUREMENT RESULTS

A. Measured Result of the Assembled Antenna

The optimized design is fabricated for prototype testing
and tag measurement. The fabricated PCBs for the antenna
array are shown in Fig. 7.

Fig. 4. Simulated antenna array (a) Top layer (patch) (b) Bottom layer
(ground view) (c) Bottom layer (feed line view) and (d) Simulation result

The E-plane radiation pattern of the antenna at 21, 23, 25

and 27 GHz are shown in Fig. 5. Here, 180 degree is the
front direction of the radiating patch in simulation and
almost symmetrical radiation is found in both E and H-
plane. The side lobe and the back lobe is around 12-15 dB
lower than the main lobe level. Further reduction in side
lobe level will be done using Chebyshev distribution in the Fig. 7. Fabricated PCBs (a) Top layer (patch) (b) Bottom layer (ground
view) and (c) Bottom layer (feed line view)
feed network and front to back lobe ratio will be improved
by addition of proper back reflector in future research. The PCBs are then assembled in proper jig arrangement
and return loss performance is measured in Agilent Vector
Network Analyzer E8361A. Measurement setup with the
assembled antenna is shown in Fig. 8.

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Fig. 8. Assembled ACMP antenna array testing setup
The measured reflection co-efficient is shown in Fig. 9,
where 10dB return loss bandwidth is found from 21 to 27
GHz with a small deviation around 22GHz. This deviation
might be due to the misalignment between the two PCB
layers and/or non-uniform air gap between the two layers.
0 Microwave and Wireless Components Letters, vol. 19, pp. 509-511,
-10
-20
-30
-40
21 22 23 24 25 26
Fig. 9. Measured return loss of the assembled fabricated antenna
B. Monash Developed mm-Wave Tag Measurement
Result Using the Assembled ACMPA Antenna Array
The assembled antenna is used for Monash University
RFID research group developed mm-wave chipless RFID
tag measurement. Two cross polarized antennas are required
for reading the tag and data is encoded in the peaks present
in the measured cross-polarized S21. The measured S21 is
shown in Fig. 10 and 5 peaks are seen in the cross polar
measurement, which represent 5 bits.
Fig. 10. Monash RFID research group developed mm-wave
measurement result using the proposed ACMPA antenna.
V. CONCLUSION
A 4x4 aperture coupled microstrip patch antenna
(ACMPA) array is proposed here for the mm-wave chipless
RFID tag reader. A 4-stage power divider is used for
achieving the wide band for the feed line in mm-wave range.
Corporate feed line is used for the antenna array. The
antenna array is optimized to achieve the required
bandwidth, radiation pattern and gain. Later, the antenna
array has been fabricated, assembled and tested. Finally, the
mm-wave tag measurement performance is analyzed using
the assembled antenna. In future, Chebyshev distribution in
the feed network and proper back reflector will be
introduced to improve the performance of the mm-wave
reader antenna.
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