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Comparative Analysis of FR4 and RT-duroid

Materials Antenna for Wireless Application

Article · April 2016

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M. K. Bhanarkar Ganesh Balbhim Waghmare

Shivaji University, Kolhapur Shivaji University, Kolhapur
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 International Journal Series in Engineering Science (IJSES), ISSN: 2455-3328
Vol. 2, No. 2, 2016, 1-10 http://ijseries.com/

Comparative Analysis of FR4 and RT-duroid Materials Antenna for Wireless

Application
a
G B Waghmare, b A J Nadaf c P M Korake and * M K Bhanarkar
a,b,c,
* Communications Research Laboratory
Department of Electronics, Shivaji University, Kolhapur, India
Corresponding author, Professor, E-mail: m.k.bhanarkar@ieee.org; mkb_eln@unishivaji.ac.in
a
Ph.D., Student, E-mail: elnganesh@gmail.com
b
Ph.D. Student, E-mail: onlineashpakv@rediffmail.com
c
Ph.D. Student, E-mail: korake.prakash@gmail.com

ABSTRACT: The study of the effect of dielectric material is carried out in this paper. FR4 with 4.4
and RT-duroid with 2.2 as a dielectric permittivity are considered for the comparative study. The Y-
shaped antenna is designed and simulated with IE3D method of moment software. A fundamental
parameter like return loss, VSWR, gain, radiation pattern, radiation efficiency is analyzed. Y-shaped
patch antenna based on FR4 and RT-duroid as materials have been optimized good characteristics at
2.25 GHz and 2.4 GHz respectively.

KEYWORDS: Efficiency; dielectrics; antenna; wireless application

1. INTRODUCTION

The dielectric materials play important role in antenna manufacturing process. In

antenna especially in integrated antenna, the dielectric constant varies between 2.2 to 12.
The thick substrate with low dielectric constant gives good performance and provides
better efficiency, larger bandwidth, but large antenna element. While thin substrate with
higher dielectric constant provides smaller element size however because of their greater
losses they are less efficient and have relative smaller bandwidth [1]. It has been analyzed
in [3] that performance of antenna improves when the value of dielectric constant reduces.
Triangular shaped patch antenna for ISM frequency band on the FR4 substrate is designed
in [4] which shows excellent broadband performance.
In [5] the RT-duroid based X-band frequency 10 GHz and Ku- band frequency 13GHz
antenna is designed which improves the performance of the antenna, and it has become a
necessity for many applications in recent wireless communications, such as Radar,
Microwave and space communication. Microstrip patch antenna for ISM band is
fabricated and tested in [6] on FR4 with 4.4 dielectric constant, which is applicable for

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 International Journal Series in Engineering Science (IJSES), ISSN: 2455-3328
Vol. 2, No. 2, 2016, 11-20 http://ijseries.com/

Radar and also suitable for portable equipment.

2. ANTENNA DESIGN

The Y-shaped patch antenna is chosen for the validation of dielectric material
performance. By keeping size and height of the dielectric material constant the results are
analyzed. The proposed design of novel Y-shaped patch antenna shown in Figure1.
Length and width of dielectric material are 100x100mm, with a thickness of 1.6. The Y
shape antenna size not same at every patch actually this antenna is made of off reducing
the antenna and branches size at every iteration. The microstrip attaches to the antenna is
taken as 6 mm in width and 50 mm in length. Another two antenna branches are made by
reducing the strip in its half size that is 3 mm in length and 25 mm in width. Further, the
same reducing criteria apply for remaining four branches with 1.5 mm width and 12.5 mm
in length final design in shown in Figure 2.

Figure 1 Proposed Y shape antenna Figure 2 Simulated Y shape antenna

3. RESULTS

Return loss shown in Figure 3 and 4 shows that the antenna is resonating in between 2
GHz and 3 GHz. Figure 3 shows the return loss of -32dB at 2.25 GHz for FR4 dielectric
material comparatively Figure 4 shows return loss of -22.5 dB at 2.4 GHz. In fact both the
results shows good return loss values however RT-duroid provide return loss at 2.4 GHz

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 International Journal Series in Engineering Science (IJSES), ISSN: 2455-3328
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which applicable for ISM band.

Figure 3 Return loss for FR4 Figure 4 Return loss for RT-duroid

VSWR is quite similar whereas in both the cases, which conclude the values less than 2
as per discussed in [2] the values for FR4 and RT-duroid are 1.196 and 1.369 also less than
2. Antenna gets back less voltage towards the source and receive the maximum.

Figure 5 VSWR for FR4 Figure 6 VSWR for RT-duroid

The impedance of port must match to antenna impedance called port matching
characteristics or Z parameter, and the value in this case of the antenna is 50 ohm. In
Figure 7 and 8, the impedance result displays near about 50-ohm impedance at respective
frequencies.

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 International Journal Series in Engineering Science (IJSES), ISSN: 2455-3328
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Figure 7 Z parameter for FR4 Figure 8 Z parameter for RT-duroid

Smith chart display antenna matching characteristics, for both of the dielectric material
the impedance matched well and also put real values at 2.25 GHz and at 2.4 GHz.

Figure 9 Smith chart for FR4 Figure 10 Smith chart for RT-duroid

In transmitting antenna the gain specifies how well the antenna converts input power
into radio waves as a function of direction, however at the receiving terminal gain
describes how well the antenna converts radio waves from a specific direction into
electrical power. When no direction is specified the gain is understood to refer to the peak
value of the gain. The maximum gain of the antenna at 0 dB is shown in Figure 11 and 12

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 International Journal Series in Engineering Science (IJSES), ISSN: 2455-3328
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for FR4 and RT- duroid respectively.

Figure 11 Elevation pattern gain for FR4

Figure 12 Elevation pattern gain for RT-duroid

A plot of the gain as a function of direction is called radiation pattern. Radiation pattern
for FR4 and RT-duroid material shows bidirectional radiation pattern in Figure 13 and 14.

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 International Journal Series in Engineering Science (IJSES), ISSN: 2455-3328
Vol. 2, No. 2, 2016, 11-20 http://ijseries.com/

Figure 13 Radiation pattern for FR4 Figure 14 Radiation pattern for RT-duroid

The antennas gain generally define as the ratio of power produce by the antenna from a
far field source on the antennas beam axis to the power produced by the hypothetical
lossless isotropic antenna. The ratio of total field gain Vs. the frequency of antenna in
Figure 15 and 16, have the good positive gain at 2.25 GHz and at 2.4 GHz for FR4 and
RT-duroid.

Figure 15 Radiation pattern for FR4

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 International Journal Series in Engineering Science (IJSES), ISSN: 2455-3328
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Figure 16 Radiation pattern for RT-duroid

Directivity is the power radiated by an antenna in a particular direction as a function of

space co-ordinates, or it is defined as power radiated in a particular direction to the power
radiated by an isotropic antenna.

Figure 17 Directivity of FR4

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 International Journal Series in Engineering Science (IJSES), ISSN: 2455-3328
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Figure 18 Directivity of RT-duroid

The maximum directivity is achieved by RT-duroid material as compared to FR4

material. Directivity for FR4 at 8 GHz will give 6.5 dBi while for RT-duroid it gives 7.5
dBi in [2]. Antenna efficiency is the ratio of total power radiated by an antenna to the net
power accepted by the antenna. It is expressed in percentage and sometimes in dB also.

Figure 19 Efficiency of FR4

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 International Journal Series in Engineering Science (IJSES), ISSN: 2455-3328
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Figure 20 Efficiency of RT-duroid

For high efficient antenna most of the power presented at the input radiated away and
for low efficient antenna, most of the power absorbed as losses within antenna or reflected
towards source due to impedance mismatch. The antenna efficiency for FR4 material
specifies 59% efficiency while RT-duroid has 74% efficiency.

Table 1 FR4 and RT-duroid for Y-shaped antenna at second iteration

Dielectric Resonance Return loss Impedance Gain Directivity Efficiency
Material Frequency GHz dB ohm dBi dB %
FR4 2.25 -32 55 4.4 5.4 59
RT-duroid 2.4 -22 52 4.1 4.2 74

An efficiency for FR4 in the present paper is 59 which is greater as comparedd to RF4
efficiency mentioned in [2], also the RT-duroid efficiency is little lower than efficiency
mentioned in [2].

4. CONCLUSION

The comparative study on FR4 and RT-duroid dielectric material for patch antenna
provides good results. Antenna performs well for FR4 in terms of maximum return loss,
good impedance matching, higher gain, directivity, and efficiency. FR4 based fractal
antenna further used for WI-FI, WLAN, Bluetooth and other wireless applications. On the

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 International Journal Series in Engineering Science (IJSES), ISSN: 2455-3328
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other hand, RT-duroid has frequency shift at 2.4 GHz as a result of changing dielectric
constant. Over all RT-duroid material uses in higher frequency applications because of its
higher efficiency, even though FR4 antenna results in the better electrical parameter. The
results show the antenna resonates at 2.4 ISM band so that we can use it for biomedical
applications.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Authors are thankful to administration Shivaji University, Kolhapur, India to provide a

facility for this research.

REFERENCES

1. C A Balanis (2005), Antenna theory analysis and design', A John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Publication. Third
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2. Anzar Khan and Rajesh Nema (2012), 'Analysis of five different dielectric substrates on microstrip patch
antenna', International journal of computer applications, Vol. 55, No.18. Page no. 6-12.
3. Sohaib Abbas Zaidi and M R Tripathy (2014), 'Design and simulation-based study of microstrip E-
shaped patch antenna using different substrate materials', Advance in electronic and electric engineering,
Vol. 4, No. 6. Page no. 611-616.
4. Sharma L N, Das S and Gogoi A K (2005), 'ISM band triangular patch antenna on FR4 substrate with U
pattern slots', INDICON, Annual IEEE, 11-13, Page no. 184-187.
5. Neenansha Jain, Rajesh Nema, Anubhuti Khare and Puran Gour (2011), 'Dual band E-shape micro
strip patch antenna on RT-duroid 5880 substrate for pervasive wireless communication', International
journal of computer science and information technologies, Vol. 2 (3), Page no.1075-1081.
6. Waghmare G B and Bhanarkar M K (2014), 'Microstrip patch antenna for ISM band applications',
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ISSN: 2321-8169, Page no. 1919-1921.

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