Analysis of a Full E-Shaped Antenna

A.C.O. Pedra1, L.C.M. Caruso2, P. Serafini3, A.A.A. Salles4

1

Technology Faculty SENAI Porto Alegre, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil, antonio.pedra@senairs.org.br
Technology Faculty SENAI Porto Alegre, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil, luis.caruso@senairs.org.br
3
Electrical Engineering, UFRGS, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil, paulo.serafini@ufrgs.br.
4
Electrical Engineering, UFRGS, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil, aasalles@ufrgs.br.
2

Abstract Analysis, simulations and measurements of a

single layer wide-band full E-shaped patch antenna using
technique of shorting pins are presented and the antenna area is
reduced. The resonance behavior of the E-antenna is studied and
an antenna design procedure is developed. The antenna
sensitivity is performed considering the parameter variations. An
algorithm based on the FDTD was done by one of the authors.
Index Termsantenna optimization, E-shaped antenna
design, antenna sensitvity, pin application, size optimization.

1.INTRODUCTION
In this work, which complements other paper [1], where
a half E antenna was studied in details, the analysis of the
full E-shaped antenna is now completed by author. Four
antenna patches (Fig.1) were designed and their return losses
(S11 in dB) are simulated and measured. The E-shaped
antenna has been chosen because it is one of the simplest
wide-band antennas with slots.
Fig. 1. Antenna patches used in the work.

bandwidth
increase
improvement.

and

radiation

characteristics

Keeping an E-antenna as reference [8][9], the shorting

pins are used to decrease the antenna dimensions. Also is
suggested a way to specify the antenna and the antenna
sensitivity is performed considering an E-antenna as
reference and all parameters changed individually.
The substrate thickness h is fixed and the dielectric is the
air in all the simulated and measured antennas. A FSH6
Rohde & Schwarz Spectrum Analyzer was used for the
return loss measurements. An algorithm based on the FDTD
(Finite Difference Time Domain) method [10] was done by
one of the authors to the simulations used in this work.
II. WIDE-BAND ANTENNAS
In general, an antenna can be considered as a resonant
device and its input impedance changes substantially with
the frequency. The bandwidth (BW) can be specified in
terms of the return loss or the voltage standing wave ratio
(VSWR).
Typical values for microstrip antenna are VSWR < 2 or
S11 < -10dB. Furthermore, the BW is inversely proportional
to the quality factor (Q) [11][12].
The technique to increase the bandwidth and to decrease
the antenna dimensions generally employs, in combined
ways or not, high dielectric constant substrates,
modifications of the patch shape of the antennas and shorting
pins. The use of high dielectric constant is more usual to
reduce its size, but has some drawbacks such as poor
efficiency due to high loss and surface wave excitation. The
technique of shorting pins is efficient, allowing significant
reduction on the antenna dimensions.
III. DESIGN OF THE E-SHAPED ANTENNA

The applications of wide-band single-layer planar

antenna in many wireless systems, such as in mobile phones
and others wireless network equipments, increased in the last
years. This has attracted new research projects [2-7], where
the goals are normally the antenna volume reduction,

A. Resonances
The geometry of the E-antenna patch used to study the
resonance behaviour is shown in Fig. 2. By observing the
S11 (dB) for the E-antenna, two close resonances can be
observed, fL and fH, respectively the lower and the higher
resonance frequencies. The lower resonance frequency is
mainly due deployment current around of the E slot and the
higher has distribution similar to the TM01 mode on

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rectangular patch without slot, where the width W and its

extended incremental length W determines the resonance.
Fig. 2. Geometry of E-shaped patch antenna.

The lower frequency is also affected by feed position

(Yo) and the substrate thickness (h). Two approximate
equations are obtained using a parametric analysis and
considering the surface current distribution on the patch.
The estimated equations for the two resonant frequencies
are

f L = c /(2 ef (2 Ls + Ws W Yo ))

The maximum error between the estimated and simulated

FDTD values is approximately 2%.
B. Antenna design
Using parametric analysis, in order to study the effects of
the different parameters on the E-shaped antenna with r=1,
the following recommendations are suggested to specify the
antenna: (a) consider the wavelength at the center bandwidth
frequency and use dielectric thickness h=0.08, in order to
avoid increase in the cross polarization and to obtain larger
bandwidth; (b) consider W around 0.4 to obtain a desired
upper resonance frequency; (c) use 1< L/W < 2 to obtain
improved radiation efficiency (e. g., L=1.5W usually is
adequate); (d) employ Ps=1.5Ws and Ws approximately
0.05L to reduce S11; (e) consider Ls around 80% of W and
use, initially, feed position Yo around 15% of W. Three new
antennas in different frequencies were analyzed and the
resulting dimensions are in Table III. The FDTD simulated
results for the return loss S11 are shown in Fig.3.
TABLE III. DIMENSIONS OF THE PATCHES, FEED AND DIELECTRIC
THICKNESS
L
W
Ls
Ps
Ws
Yo
h
Antenna (mm) (mm) (mm) (mm) (mm) (mm) (mm)
1
52
34
27
4.5
3
5
7
2
46
30
23
4
2.5
4.5
6
3
40
26
21
4
2.5
4
5.5

(1)

f H = c /(2 ef (W + 1.5W ))

(2)

Fig. 3. Simulated return loss for three E-shaped antennas (center frequency
bandwidth at 3.5GHz, 4GHz and 4.5GHz).

The effective dielectric constant (ef) and extended

incremental length (W) [13] are

ef = 0.5( r + 1) + 0.5( r 1)(1 + 12h / W ) 0.5

(3)

W = 0.412h( A / B ) ,
A = ( ef + 0.3)(0.264 + W / h) and

(4)

B = ( ef 0.258)(0.8 + W / h)
Three antennas were analyzed and the ground plane used
is 0.2 longer than L and W dimensions of each antenna
patch, considering the wavelength at the center bandwidth
frequency. The dimensions of the patches are shown in Table
I. The calculated values of lower and higher resonant
frequencies using equations (1) and (2) and FDTD simulated
results are shown in Table II.
TABLE I. DIMENSIONS OF THE PATCHES, FEED AND DIELECTRIC
THICKNESS

Antenna
I
II
III

L
(mm)
80
70
60

W
(mm)
54
47
40

Ls
(mm)
43
38
32

Ps
(mm)
7
6
5

Ws
(mm)
5
4
3.5

Yo
(mm)
9
7
7

h
(mm)
11
9
8

TABLE II. RESULTS OF THE LOWER AND HIGHER RESONANT FREQUENCIES

BY APPROXIMATE EQUATIONS AND FDTD
FL
FL
FH
FH
(GHz)
(GHz)
(GHz)
(GHz)
Antenna
(FDTD)
(FDTD)
I
1.980
1.975
2.303
2.335
II
2.248
2.280
2.720
2.770
III
2.662
2.720
3.118
3.183

IV. SHORTING PIN

The main effect when using pins is to modify the
impedance of the microstrip antenna. The pins can be
analyzed by modeling them as a transmission lines with
length h and distributed parameters R, G, L and G. The
values of R and 1/G are small and can be neglected. The
series inductance L, or self-inductance of the pins, and the
shunt capacitance C depend on the number of the pins, their
radius a, the separation d between pins, the permittivity and
the permeability of the substrate. L and C are given by
[14]. In general, L and C increase when the thickness h of the
microstrip antenna is increased and, depending on the values
of L and C, the resultant reactance of the shorting pins will
be either inductive or capacitive. The techniques using
shorting pins are described elsewhere [15-18].

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V. SIMULATED AND MEASURED RESULTS FOR FULL E SHAPED ANTENNA WITH PIN

Fig. 5. Full E-shaped antenna with pin and double resonance (0.70 and
2.06 GHz), for Yo=25mm and Yp=27 mm.

A. General aspects of the pin and feed positions

In order to reduce the area of the E antenna, a technique
of shorted pin between the patch and the ground plane will
be applied to the antenna. The wideband operation is due to
interaction between two close resonant frequencies and the
first step is to verify where the upper frequency has larger
reduction in its value for different pin positions.
It is important to remember that lowering the resonant
frequency, without changing antenna dimensions, means
antenna size reduction equivalent. In order to define the
feeding position, theoretical estimations and simulations,
together with experiments are necessary to determine where
the antenna input impedance is matched to its feeding
structure.
B. Full E-shaped antenna with pin
1) Analysis
The use of one pin results in major size reduction
[13][15] and the pin is usually located on the center axis
parallel to the W dimension (Fig. 4). The pin has 1mm in
diameter.
Fig. 4. Patch geometry to pin application.

2) Results for full E-shaped antenna showing smaller

dimensions
The dimensions, parameters and results for three Eshaped antennas of reduced dimension with position pin
Yp=33mm, thickness h=10mm and air dielectric are shown
on Tables V and VI. The area reduction is relative to the
antenna shown in Fig. 4, for which the area is 31.5 cm2.
TABLE V. FULL E-SHAPED ANTENNA DIMENSIONS FOR PIN POSITION
YP=33MM
L
W
Ws
Ps
Ls
Yo
Antenna
(mm)
(mm)
(mm)
(mm)
(mm)
(mm)
A
40
35
5
6
31
12
B
40
40
5
6
34
11
C
50
40
5
6
34
10
TABLE VI. FULL E-SHAPED ANTENNA RESULTS FOR PIN POSITION
YP=33MM
Antenna
BW
BW
Area reduction
(%)
(MHz)
(%)
A
10
260
55
B
13
350
50
C
16
440
37

The lower (FL) and upper (FH) resonant frequencies after

the pin insertion at different positions are shown in Table IV.
The dimensions are: L=70mm, W=45mm, Ls=35mm,
Ps=5mm, Ws=4mm and h=10mm. The resonance
frequencies, e.g., when pin position is Yp=27mm and feeding
position Yo=25mm are shown in Fig. 5. According to Table
IV, two resonant frequencies (FL and FH) appear when a pin
is positioned close to the feeding position, each one with
relative bandwidth of 3%. This is adequate for applications
where two carriers are necessary. To achieve wideband
antenna, it is necessary to modify the feed and pin positions.
As the lower frequency obtained to FL is 1.8 GHz, the pin
position Yp=33 mm is chosen (position with higher antenna
size reduction).

Due to the pin application, antennas A, B and C increase

its lower frequency and lower Ls parameter. The bandwidth
is also decreased because it has lower volume, according to
equations (1) and (2). The simulated bandwidth values,
center frequency and return loss of three antennas are shown
in Fig. 6 (the measured values is only to the antenna C).
Fig. 6. Return loss for the three full E-shaped antenna of reduced size with
the pin position Yp=33mm: BW 260 MHz (antenna A), 350 MHz (antenna
B) and 440 MHz (antenna C).

TABLE IV. LOWER AND UPPER RESONANT FREQUENCIES FOR FULL ESHAPED ANTENNA AFTER PIN APPLICATION
Yo
(mm)
43.5
37.0
32.0
25.0

Yp
(mm)
45.0
39.0
33.0
27.0

FL
(GHz)
0.71
0.72
0.71
0,70

FH
(GHz)
1.81
1.80
1.80
2.06

Yo
(mm)
19.5
13.0
8.0
1.0

Yp
(mm)
21.0
15.0
9.0
3.0

FL
(GHz)
0.66
0.61
0.57
0.54

FH
(GHz)
2.30
2.37
2.96
3.00

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VI. ANTENNA SENSITIVITY WITH PARAMETERS

VARIATION
To perform simulations considering the parameter
variations are important when antennas are developed. The
sensitivity results are used for antenna optimization or to
specify tolerances for fabrication. The one aim of the
sensitivity analysis is to determine how the performance
changes when a parameter is slightly modified. The work
was performed considering an E-antenna as reference and
all parameters changed individually. The parameters
considered to the variations are resistance and reactance
because they are directly associated to the bandwidth of
antenna. After analysis of results for E-antenna (L, W, Ws,
Ps and Ls), it was verified that the parameter more sensitive
is Ls. The Ls parameter variation is presented in this work
and the dimensions of the reference E-shaped antenna
(Fig.2) are: L=70mm, W=45mm, Ls=35mm, Ps=6mm,
Ws=5mm and h=10mm. The feeding distance is Yo=10mm.
The bandwidth is considered when S11< -10dB.The variation
of the input impedance, changing the Ls parameter around
5%, is presented on Fig. 7, obtained at a center frequency of
2.6 GHz.
Fig. 7. Variation of the input impedance for E-shaped antenna when the Ls
parameter varies. The antenna with Ls=35mm is the reference (Z=63 j38
ohms), considered null at the intersection between vertical and horizontal
axes.

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VII. CONCLUSIONS

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The techniques with shorting pin are efficient to improve

the E-shaped antenna performance.
As expected, when the antenna area is reduced the
bandwidth decrease too.
Considering as reference the antenna E (Fig.4), the pin
application on the full E-shaped antenna shows that up to
55% in size reduction is possible.
The suggested equations for the two resonant frequencies
of the E antenna presented in showed minimum error
between the estimated and simulated FDTD values.
After analysis of results from parameters variation for Eantenna (L, W, Ws, Ps and Ls), it was verified that the
parameter more sensitive is Ls.
The E-shaped antenna optimization techniques shown in
this work can be used in different communication and
wireless systems, such as hand-held phones, WLAN (Wi-Fi,
Bluetooth, etc) and WMAN (Wi-Max, etc) networks.

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