International Journal of Advance Foundation and Research in Computer (IJAFRC)

Volume 2, Issue 8, August - 2015. ISSN 2348 4853

Performance Enhancement of Microstrip Patch Antennas

Using Slotting : A Review
D.D.Ahire Asst. Prof, S.R.Bhirud
Matoshri College of Engineering and Research Centre, Nashik,Savitri Bai Phule Pune University, Pune
dda007132@gmail.com, supsbhirud@gmail.com
ABSTRACT
Nowadays there is increase in demand on antenna works for wireless application covering high
frequency range. The one which is best suitable for such purpose is microstrip patch antenna
because of its numerous advantages such as low cost, light weight, and small in size. MPA has
limitation of low gain and narrow bandwidth. To overcome these limitations various methods
have been employed such as a slotting, shorting pin, use of metamaterial. Slotting is one of the
best techniques used to develop the performance of microstrip patch antenna. Using specific
shape of slot the performance of microstrip patch antenna has been enhanced in terms of gain,
bandwidth, directivity and size reduction. This paper presents a compendious review of various
slotting technique, its applications pertaining to antenna design and developments to improve the
transmission rate and control of direction of transmission. The performance of different slotting
based microstrip patch antennas have been reviewed, compared and presented in this paper.
Index Terms: Directivity, Microstrip patch antenna, Slotting, Wi-Max, WLAN,
I.

INTRODUCTION

Nowadays, the electromagnetic spectrum, outside the visible region, has been employed for
communication, through the use of radio in human history. Antenna is one of the best suitable elements
for wireless transmission. In wireless communication area un attachable element is antenna which is a
continuous partner from the beginning in this area. In high-performance applications, where to achieve
larger bandwidth, high gain and high directivity, multiband operation in compact size are the major
constraints for microstrip patch antennas. Antenna researchers are striving to design substantially
diminutive antennas according to the progressively reducing size of the communication devices and
handheld equipment with efficient, high gain and large bandwidth, multi band antennas. This paper has
been organized into five sections. In section II consider theory of slotting technique has been presented.
The brief review of microstrip patch antennas using slotting has been presented in section III.
Comparison of various configurations of microstrip patch antennas using slotting has been presented in
section IV. Finally the paper is concluded in section V.
II. BRIEF THEORY OF SLOTTING TECHNIQUE:

Slotting is most commonly used for bandwidth, gain improvement, broadband operation, and size
reduction. In this slotting method a slot of specific shape is introduced on the patch. The slot may be
rectangular, square, circular, triangular, U shaped, H shaped, E shaped, diamond shaped. The length
and position of a particular slot may affect the impedance bandwidth of microstrip patch antenna. By
loading suitable slots along the radiating edges of a patch improve the bandwidth of patch antenna.
Also by embedding suitable slots in the radiating patch, microstrip patch antenna with compact and
multi band can be obtained. Along with single slot multiple slots are also used to control the
impedance of the patch antenna. The analysis of slot on the patch has been done by using duality
relationship between the dipole and slot.

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International Journal of Advance Foundation and Research in Computer (IJAFRC)

Volume 2, Issue 8, August - 2015. ISSN 2348 4853
III. REVIEW
In this section, brief review of various slot loaded microstrip patch antennas has been presented.
U.Chakraborty, et.al proposed a compact dual-band rectangular microstrip antenna (RMSA) by two
different single-slotted single-band rectangular microstrip antennas with slotted ground plane.
Researcher group have been initially designed two -10dB impedance bands of the dual band by two
different designs of compact microstrip antennas with same dimensional slotted ground-plane
structures. Later, these two designs are combined to form the geometry of the dual-band (5.155.35 and
5.7255.825 GHz) antenna. Each open-ended slot in the single-slotted antenna is responsible to generate
a wide impedance band that is shifted to lower frequencies by the effect of the ground slot. Authors
achieved compactness of about 53.73% with respect to a conventional unspotted rectangular microstrip
patch antenna. [1]
A novel H-Slot is proposed for differentially driven microstrip antennas to improve the bandwidth. The
researcher has proposed that the H-slot provides the improvement in the bandwidth of about 4.1%.
However, it has been observed that there is no substantial improvement in the gain of the antenna
[2].The analysis of slot loaded microstrip patch antenna using equivalent circuit concept is studied by
S.Sharma, and B.R.Vishvakarma. The slot is taken as a capacitive reactance on the patch. It is found that
resonance frequency decreases with increasing slot width for a given slot length. Also the decrease in
resonance frequency (0,040GHz) is in the higher side for lower slot length and it is on minimum side
(0.016GHz) for longest slot length. The insertion of slot in the patch makes resonating frequency shift
from its original position. Also it affects the bandwidth, input impedance and gain also [3].
A novel feeding scheme for microstrip patch antennas is presented, which consists of a coaxial probe and
shorting pin separated by a narrow slot centrally cut at the radiating patch. The impedance and radiation
characteristics of a conventional probe-fed microstrip patch antenna and the proposed microstrip patch
antenna are experimentally examined and compared by researcher. The effects of the slot length on the
antenna operation are also discussed [4].
A new broad-band design of a probe-fed rectangular patch antenna with a pair of wide slits is proposed
and experimentally studied by Kin-Lu Wong and Wen-Hsiu Hsu. The proposed design is with an air
substrate, and experimental results show that, simply by inserting a pair of wide slits at one of the
radiating edges of the rectangular patch, good impedance matching over a wide bandwidth (408MHz)
can easily be achieved for the proposed antenna. With an air substrate of thickness about 8% of the
wavelength of the center operating frequency, the proposed antenna can have an impedance bandwidth
of about 24%. For frequencies within the impedance bandwidth, good radiation characteristics are also
observed, with a peak antenna gain of about 7.2 dBi [5].
Dual-band patch antenna array element has been proposed for three-dimensional (3-D) microwave
tomography system for breast imaging [6]. Dual-band operation (1.34 and 2.87 GHz) is achieved by
manipulating the fundamental resonant mode of the patch antenna and one of its higher order modes.
Miniaturization and tuning of the resonant frequencies are achieved by loading the antenna with nonradiating slots at strategic locations along the patch. This results in a compact, dual-band antenna with
symmetric radiation patterns and similar radiation characteristics at both bands of operation.
The microstrip patch antennas are widely used in wireless communication system, however the
conventional microstrip patch antennas have the disadvantage of narrow bandwidth. The U-slot has been
proposed by Shing-Lung Stevan Yang et.al. The addition of U shaped slot on the microstrip patch antenna
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International Journal of Advance Foundation and Research in Computer (IJAFRC)

Volume 2, Issue 8, August - 2015. ISSN 2348 4853
is one of the techniques proposed to enhance the impedance bandwidth (2.6-3.35 GHz). With the use of U
shaped slot antenna can further add additional mode near to the resonant frequency which helps to
design the dual band antenna [8].
A wide operating bandwidth for a single-layer coaxially fed rectangular microstrip patch antenna can be
obtained by cutting a U-shaped slot on the patch. This antenna structure has recently been found
experimentally to provide impedance bandwidths of 10%40%, even with non air substrates [9].
With the loading of a pair of right-angle slots and a modified U-shaped slot in a rectangular microstrip
patch, novel bandwidth enhancement (1.1%) of microstrip antennas is demonstrated. Required
dimensions of the right-angle slots and modified U-shaped slot for bandwidth enhancement with good
radiating characteristics have been determined experimentally and the obtained antenna bandwidth can
be as large as about 2.4 times that of a corresponding unslotted rectangular microstrip antenna [11].A
small and compact triple-band microstrip-fed printed monopole antenna for WLAN and Wi-MAX has
been presented. The proposed antenna consists of a rectangular radiating patch with L- and U-shaped
slots and ground plane. A parametric study on the lengths of the U- and L-shaped slots of the proposed
antenna is provided to obtain the required operational frequency bands namely, WLAN (2.4/5.2/5.8
GHz) and WiMAX (2.5/3.5/5.5 GHz). The proposed antenna is small (15 x 15 x 1.6 mm) when compared
to previously well-known double and triple band monopole antennas. The simulation and measurement
results show that the designed antenna is capable of operating over the 2.252.85, 3.44.15, and 4.458
GHz frequency bands while rejecting frequency ranges between these three bands [15].
A planar dual-band antenna using a very compact radiator to cover all the 2.4/5.2/5.8GHz WLAN
operating bands is proposed. The radiator consists of L-shaped and E-shaped elements resonating at
around 5.5 and 2.44 GHz, respectively [16]. The L -element is microstrip fed. However, the E-element is
placed very close to the Lelement and is coupled fed through the L-element. Since only one feed point is
used for the two separate elements, the overall size is very compact. The antenna is designed and studied
using the EM simulation tool CST. The feeding cable used to connect the antenna to the measurement
system affects the measurement results, resulting in some deviations from the simulation results.
A rectangular microstrip patch antenna with several rectangular slits has been proposed. A dual
frequency, compact single probe-feed rectangular microstrip patch antenna with reduced size has been
proposed .The single layered antenna has been designed to resonate in dual frequency mode (3.1GHz and
5.5GHz). The novel design is achieved by cutting rectangular slits at two sides of the patch. Compared
with the conventional rectangular patch antenna, this antenna can achieve reduction in patch size up to
71%. In the proposed antenna we are concentrated on size reduction of the microstrip antenna by
introducing rectangular slits on the patch [18].
A novel dual frequency and broadband operations of a single feed triangular microstrip antenna are
presented by loading properly arranged slots in a patch antenna. The proposed design consist of two pair
of narrow slots in the triangular patch where one of the slot is close to the side edges of patch and other
one is inserted at the bottom edges of the patch with narrow width [20]. The obtained two operating
frequencies (1.710GHz and 3.370GHz) are of same polarization planes Also researcher gets bandwidth
2.6 times more than conventional triangular microstrip patch antenna.
Wireless technology is one of the main areas of research in the world of communication systems. With
the rapid advancement of various applications these antenna need to work at several frequency band
such as dual, triple, and sometimes multiband operations are needed. So researcher design a coplanar
capacitive coupled probe feed microstrip antenna for dual frequency band of operation. The proposed
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International Journal of Advance Foundation and Research in Computer (IJAFRC)

Volume 2, Issue 8, August - 2015. ISSN 2348 4853
antenna is excited by a single probe feed connected to a capacitive feed. In this radiating patch and feed
are etched on the same dielectric material. The SMA connector is used to connect the feed strip which
couples the energy to a radiating patch by capacitive feed [21]. A vertical slot is implemented to get
antenna radiate at lower frequency and proper impedance matching.
To enhance the antenna performance researcher presented a single band microstrip patch antenna with
two slots in radiation terminal. The antenna was proposed for WLAN application mainly. In respected
work a simple rectangular patch antenna was designed at carrier frequency of 2.4 GHz and analyzed
using transmission line model [22]. Further to improve the performance of microstrip patch antenna two
slots are inserted on patch parallel to radiation terminal. Due to change in slot width means increasing
slot width increases return loss also and changing slot length mainly affects the resonant frequency.
IV. COMPARISON MATERIAL USED, BANDWIDTH AND SIZE OF FEW OF ANTENNAS WHICH USES
SLOTTING
Table-I Comparative study of different slot loaded microstrip patch antennas
Ref.
No.

Configuration of Antenna

R1

Compact Dual-Band Microstrip

Antenna for IEEE 802.11a WLAN
Application
Design and Experiment on
Differentially-Driven Microstrip
Antennas
A Broad-Band Rectangular Patch
Antenna With a Pair of Wide Slits
Frequency Reconfigurable U-Slot
Microstrip Patch Antenna
Analysis and Design of BroadBand Single-Layer Rectangular USlot Microstrip Patch Antennas
Compact Broadband Slotted
Rectangular Microstrip Antenna
Slotted Rectangular Microstrip
Antenna for Bandwidth
Enhancement
Compact and Small Planar
Monopole Antenna with
Symmetrical L- and U-Shaped
Slots for WLAN/WiMAX
Applications
A Novel Compact Dual Frequency
Microstrip Antenna
Multi-Slotted Microstrip Patch
Antenna for Wireless
Communication

R2

R5
R8
R9

R10
R11

R15

R18
R19

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Geometry

Band
width

Two Single Slot with Improved

Rectangular Ground
Slot
H Slot on Rectangular 81.5MHZ
Patch
(4.1 %)
Rectangular Slits

Size
0.220 X 0.146 0

0.530 X 0.301 0

408MHz
(24%)
750MHz

0.770 X 0.570

10-40%

0.80960 X 0.4880

220MHz

0.360 X 0.240

86MHz
(4.6 %)

0.2330 X 0.15520

L and U Shaped Slots

on Rectangular Patch

300MHz

0.1250 X 0.09380

Rectangular Slits

Improved

0.230 X 0.17200

Rectangular Multi
Slots

27.62%

0.5490 X 0.3680

U Slot on Rectangular
Patch
U Slot on Rectangular
Patch
Half U Slot along with
Rectangular Slot
Right Angled Slots
with Modified U Slot

0.35620 X 0.57540

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International Journal of Advance Foundation and Research in Computer (IJAFRC)

Volume 2, Issue 8, August - 2015. ISSN 2348 4853
V. CONCLUSION
In this paper brief review of slot loaded microstrip patch antenna have been presented. Inserting a
proper shape slot enhances gain, bandwidth and reduces the size of microstrip patch antennas. It also
helps to obtain the multi-band performance with considerable gain and bandwidth. It also provides good
impedance matching at lower frequencies. Antenna designers can easily develop the portable antennas
for different portable devices using slotting technique to accommodate the need of present RF and
mobile communication devices. Slotting technique has been adopted to design high performance
antennas for many applications. This technique is also extend to design compact high bandwidth, high
gain antennas with the suitable metamaterial structure for high gain and high directive antennas.
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International Journal of Advance Foundation and Research in Computer (IJAFRC)

Volume 2, Issue 8, August - 2015. ISSN 2348 4853

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