IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL.

10, 2011 435

Compact Broadband Crescent Moon-Shape

Patch-Pair Antenna
Jingli Guo, Yanlin Zou, and Chao Liu

Abstract—A novel compact wideband patch antenna is pre-

sented. The antenna consists of two simple patch pairs with op-
posite phase feed. Considering the coupling between two patches
in the design, an antenna with a size about 54.5 22 20 mm3
is constructed and tested. The simulated and measured results
show that the antenna has the active reflection coefficient less than
9.6 dB in the band 2.6–6 GHz. The radiation performance of the
antenna is good over the whole frequency band.
Index Terms—Broadband antenna, compact antenna, direc-
tional antenna, patch antenna.

I. INTRODUCTION

HE DEMAND for compact-size, low-cost printed wide-

T band antennas is increasing due to the prosperity of
modern broadband communications systems. For unidirec-
tional patch antennas, various printed dipole patch antennas are
investigated. Coplanar waveguide (CPW)-fed printed wide-slot
antennas [1] and CPW-fed monopole antennas [2] have wide
bandwidth and omnidirectional radiation patterns. However,
in some applications, directional radiation is needed [3]. A
tapered slot antenna is one type of endfire wideband antenna
that can provide a greater than 3:1 bandwidth [4], [5]. The aper-
ture-stacked patch (ASP) antenna can increase the bandwidth of
a microstrip antenna to over 90% [6]. However, these types of
antennas are always with relatively large heights. Besides that,
a series-fed printed strip dipole provides over 30% bandwidth
for VSWR [7]. The height of the antenna is low, but its
band is not wide enough. Fig. 1. Geometry of crescent moon-shape pair antenna. (a) Top view. (b) Side
In this letter, a novel broadband patch-pair antenna is pro- view. (c) Photograph of the fabricated antenna.
posed to make an antenna with directional radiation and com-
pact size that is easily integrated into communication systems.
II. ANTENNA DESIGN
The antenna is composed of two metallic crescent moon-shape
patches on the topside of the substrate and two small feeding The geometry of the proposed antenna is shown in Fig. 1. The
ground planes on the underside. The two patches are fed with antenna consists of two crescent moon-shape radiating patches
180 phase reversal, which leads the antenna to broadside ra- etched on a dielectric substrate and positioned above a reflector
diation. A reflector ground plane is mounted behind the radi- ground plane. The crescent moon shape is obtained by subtrac-
ating patches, which can increase the radiation in the direction tion of two concentration ellipses.
needed, similar to the dipole reflector antennas [8]. A prototype The two small feeding ground planes are at the other side
of the proposed antenna is constructed and tested. The simulated of the substrate, and the radiating patches are fed with equal
and measured results are given and discussed. amplitude and opposite phase, which leads to the current
on the two patches in the same direction and then makes a
Manuscript received March 30, 2011; accepted April 19, 2011. Date of pub-
broadside radiation. The size of the proposed antenna is about
lication May 05, 2011; date of current version May 23, 2011. This work was 54.5 22 20 mm . If the two patches were fed in same phase
supported by Xidian University under the Basic Science Research Fund. and oriented in the same sense, the impedance band will be
The authors are with the National Laboratory of Antennas and Microwave narrower in the same size with the proposed one. In addition,
Technology, Xidian University, Xi’an 710071, China (e-mail: guojl@xidian.
edu.cn). the maximum radiation direction is not perpendicular to the
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/LAWP.2011.2151170 patches due to the asymmetry of the antenna configuration. The
1536-1225/$26.00 © 2011 IEEE
436
Fig. 2. S -parameters of the proposed antenna.
coupling between two patches is utilized during the design of
the antenna. The idea is to make the active reflection coefficient
at the antenna excellent, where . The reflector
ground plane is used to change the omnidirectional radiation to
directional radiation.
III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
To analyze impedance and pattern, the proposed antenna was
first simulated by the electromagnetic (EM) full-wave simulator
HFSS and then fabricated on a substrate of permittivity of 2.2
and a thickness of 0.787 mm. To observe the property of an-
tenna thoroughly, a commercial 3-dB power divider with 180
phase reversal is connected to the feeding ports of the antenna,
as shown in Fig. 1(c). The size of the reflector ground plane is
100 84 mm . The optimized parameters of the antenna in ac-
cordance with the configuration in Fig. 1 are given as follows:
mm, , , mm, mm,
mm, mm.
Fig. 2 shows the reflection coefficient and coupling coeffi-
cient between two patches. The active reflection coefficient is
also given in the figure. It can be seen that is larger than
9.6 dB (VSWR ) from 2.6 to 2.8 GHz, and is also
larger than 9.6 dB from 2.6 to 4 GHz, but the active reflection
coefficient is less than 9.6 dB in the bands of 2.6–6.6 GHz due
to the utilization of the coupling of the two patches. Because
both of the two ports will be excited when the antenna works,
active reflection coefficient is more valuable in the practical
applications. The measured reflection coefficient at the input
port of the power divider is nearly all below 9.6 dB from
2.6–6.6 GHz, which is consistent with the simulated active re-
flection coefficient. It appears fluctuant for the measured reflec-
tion coefficient because the stability of the power divider is not
very good.
In addition, it is found that the shape of the patch is not the
key point for the antenna by simulations. The frequency band
of elliptical shape is broader than triangular ones because of the
bigger area. The crescent shape can miniaturize the antenna a
IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL. 10, 2011
Fig. 3. Radiation pattern of the proposed antenna. (a) 2.6 GHz. (b) 4.3 GHz.
(c) 6 GHz. (d) 6.6 GHz.
Fig. 4. Characteristics of the antenna with/without reflector ground plane.
(a) 4.3 GHz. (b) Active reflection coefficient.
little, but not so much. One can design a different shaped patch
according to the requirement.
The radiation patterns of the antenna at the frequencies of
2.6, 4.3, 6, and 6.6 GHz are illustrated in Fig. 3. Though ac-
tive reflection coefficient is acceptable above 6 GHz, the good
consistency of the radiation pattern will be destroyed. The radi-
ation of this type of antenna can be seen as a two-element array
with inverse phase arranged at broadside of the reflector ground.
As frequency increases, the distance between the radiator and
reflector ground is close to 0.5 wavelengths, which leads to a
deep down-warp in the broadside direction. In conclusion, the
antenna can cover 2.6–6 GHz well. In addition, the front–back
ratio is larger than 15 dB.
It can be seen from Fig. 4(a), the front-back ratio is improved
about 20 dB at 4.3 GHz by using the reflector ground plane. Cer-
tainly, the introduction of the reflector ground plane will affect
reflection coefficient of the antenna. As shown in Fig. 4(b), the
usable impedance band of the antenna without reflector moves
to higher frequency.
The gain at the broadside, the direction perpendicular to the
patch, is shown in Fig. 5. It can be seen that the measured gain
GUO et al.: COMPACT BROADBAND CRESCENT MOON-SHAPE PATCH-PAIR ANTENNA
Fig. 5. Gain at the direction perpendicular to the patch.
is less than simulated one, which may be due to the attenuation
of the power divider.
The effects of varying parameters are discussed by the simu-
lation examples to follow. All parameter dimensions except for
one are held constant to the values given above. Fig. 6(a) depicts
the effect of varying the semi-major axis length of the ellipse ( )
on the active reflection coefficient. It is seen that the first reso-
nance frequency of the antenna become lower as increases,
and the frequency band will be wider, but the reflection coeffi-
cient at some frequency points of the band becomes larger than
9.6 dB.
The effect of altering the distance of the two patches ( ) is
shown in Fig. 6(b). It is observed that this is a critical parameter
as the action contributes to the whole frequency band. Fig. 6(c)
shows the effect of varying the ellipse ratio ( ). It is observed
that this can slightly adjust the property in the whole band. In
Fig. 6(d), the thickness of the antenna ( ) is varied. It is noted
that it plays a role in controlling the matching property of the
antenna in the whole frequency band. The resonance frequency
will decrease with an increase in . By adjusting the parameters,
a practicable antenna can be designed.
IV. CONCLUSION
A novel compact wideband crescent moon-shape patch-pair
antenna has been presented. The coupling between two patches
is utilized during the design. Measurement and simulation show
that the antenna provides about 87% bandwidth. Along with
437
Fig. 6. Active reflection coefficient of the antenna. (a) Varying L. (b) Varying
fd. (c ) Varying R1. (d) Varying h.
the good radiation property in the whole band, the antenna pro-
posed is a strong candidate for a wideband antenna. The cou-
pling theory of the antenna still needs to be studied comprehen-
sively in the future.
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