See

discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/262011876

Design of a Narrowband 2.45 GHz Unidirectional

Microstrip Antenna with a Reversed ‘Arrow’
Shaped Slot for Fixed RFID Tag a....

Conference Paper · December 2013

DOI: 10.1109/ICAEE.2013.6750352

CITATIONS READS

2 69

3 authors, including:

Md Saad-Bin-Alam Sanjida Moury

University of Ottawa York University
10 PUBLICATIONS 22 CITATIONS 14 PUBLICATIONS 60 CITATIONS

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

All content following this page was uploaded by Md Saad-Bin-Alam on 08 September 2014.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

 Design of a Narrowband 2.45 GHz Unidirectional Microstrip Antenna
with a Reversed ‘Arrow’ Shaped Slot for Fixed RFID Tag and Reader
Md. Saad-Bin-Alam1, Mohammad Sakib Ullah1 and Sanjida Moury1
1
Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, North South University, Dhaka, Bangladesh
2
Faculty of Engineering & Applied Science, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John's, NL, Canada
E-mail: [email protected]

Abstract— In this paper, we have designed a newly shaped

narrowband microstrip antenna operating at nearly 2.45 GHz
based on transmission-line model. We have created a reversed
‘Arrow’ shaped slot at the edge of opposite side of microstrip
line feed to improve return loss and minimize VSWR, which
are required for better impedance matching. After simulating Y

the design, we have got higher return loss (approximately -41

dB) and lower VSWR (approximately 1.02:1) at 2.442 GHz. Z X

The radiation pattern of the antenna is unidirectional, which is

suitable for both fixed RFID tag and reader. The gain of this
antenna is 9.67 dB. The design has been simulated in CST
Microwave Studio 2011.

Keywords- Microstrip; Narrowband; RFID; Return-loss;

VSWR

Figure 1. The initial design of the microstrip antenna

based on transmission-line model

I. INTRODUCTION II. ANTENNA CONFIGURATION AND DESIGN

The necessity of using fixed RFID tag and reader is still
alive today. According to [1], fixed readers are designed to The initial configuration of the microstrip antenna is
streamline processes at the major mandatory read points in a shown in Fig. 1. The microstrip Antenna is designed by two
facility like warehouse dock doors to capture incoming and stages. At first stage, the basic shape of the rectangular
outgoing inventory movement, work in process (WIP) to patch of the antenna is designed by transmission-line model.
track every step of the manufacturing process, parts tracking It is very easy to analyze using the transmission-line model,
to ensure adequate inventory levels and protect against loss which are most accurate for thin substrates [4] [5]. This
and theft, conveyor belt of the manufacturing production patch is designed on a Rogers RT5880 substrate with
line to document the ‘birth’ of a product from the moment dielectric constant of =2.2. The thickness of the substrate
of its creation (required in some industries due to is 0.787mm. As shown in the Fig. 1 the dimensions of the
government regulations, such as pharmaceutical) etc. In the substrate is Ws = 49.384mm and Ls = 42.629mm. The patch
case of designing antenna for RFID systems, most of the has the following parameters for initial design (Table 1). In
times the frequency band is either UHF or microwave band. this paper, the units of all parameters are given in millimeter
In [2], a 865 MHz microstrip patch antenna fed by a (mm).
microstrip line designed on a substrate is considerably
studied and thoroughly analyzed. The final optimized design Table 1
of [2] achieved a total antenna gain of 5.6 dBi and a return Initial Parameters of the Patch
loss or reflection coefficient (S11) of -35 dB at 865 MHz for Ls Ws Lp WP WW
116 mm patch length. In this paper, we choose nearly 2.45
GHz frequency (microwave ISM band) as RFID frequency 42.629 49.384 41.798 49.384 21.08
band because data speed of this band is higher than UHF
bands [3]. The another advantage of choosing microwave
Lg Wg Lf Wf Lin Win
band instead of UHF band for designing a microstrip patch
is it requires less space to design and manufacture the patch 12.06 2.408 3.618875 3.408 8.856625 2.408
antenna. Our main target in this paper is to design a
microstrip antenna operating at nearly 2.45 GHz ISM band
for fixed RFID system with increased impedance matching Here, Lp and Wp are the main length and width of the
performance. patch respectively. Wf and Lf is the width and length of the
main microstrip line feed respectively. An inset feed is be made. After creating the inset feed between the
drawn to set the resonant input resistance, which consists of transmission line feed and the patch, the magnitude of S11 is
dimentions Lin X Win mm2. reached to -28.005 dB. The antenna provides a 10 dB return
loss bandwidth of approximately 17.2 MHz and centralized
at 2.45 GHz (0.7%). After creating the reversed ‘Arrow’
shaped slot at the opposite edge of microstrip line feed, the
magnitude of S11 parameter is significantly changed. The
result is shown in Fig. 3(b). The magnitude of S11 parameter
Y
is reached to -41.284 dB, which indicates that the return loss
is minimum 13 dB higher than the previous. The antenna
Z
X with the slot provides a 10 dB return loss bandwidth of
approximately 17.5 MHz and centralized at 2.442 GHz
(0.72%).

Figure 2. The microstrip antenna with a reversed ‘Arrow’

shaped slot
At second stage, a reversed ‘Arrow’ shaped slot is
introduced at the edge of opposite side of line feed. The
head of the ‘Arrow’ is very thin but not sharp, and width of
the lower bar is comparatively thick. The full design of the
antenna is shown in Fig. 2. This slot is designed to improve
the return loss and minimize voltage standing wave ratio
(VSWR). The slot has the following parameters (Table 2).
Table 2 (a)
Parameters of the Reversed ‘Arrow’ Shaped Slot
a b c d e f
3 13.738 0.5 2.2865 5.0249 4.64325

III. SIMULATION RESULTS OF ANTENNA PERFORMANCE

The simulation results of both two stages of the design

provide a clear understanding of effectiveness of the slot to
improve the return loss and lower the VSWR. The results
are divided into three parts with part A illustrating the
variation of the S11 parameters of both design stages based
on adding the slot, followed by part B, a presentation of the
co-polar patterns on the x-y and x-z axis of both two
(b)
designs, in this part the 3D radiation patterns and gains of
the both designs are also included, and at last in part C both Figure 3. S11 parameters of the antennas without slot and
the graphs of voltage standing wave ratio (VSWR) of two with slot
designs with and without the slot is provided to show the
improved performance of the antenna.
B. Radiation Pattern and gain
A. Variation of S11 parameters
The simulated radiation patterns of designed antennas
The design of the microstrip antenna based on are presented for the x-y and the x-z planes. It is very clear
transmission-line model has S11 parameter shown in fig. from Fig. 4.1.(a), 4.1.(b), 4.2.(a) and 4.2.(b) that the both
antenna architectures exhibit unidirectional patterns at the
3(a). In order to attain the desired resonant frequency at 2.45
desired frequencies. This allows us to consider the antennas
GHz a number of changes at the microstrip line feed have to
to be feasible in unidirectional use in fixed RFID reader and
 (a)

1.(a) 2.(a)

(b)
Figure 5. 3D radiation pattern of the antenna (a) without
slot and (b) with slot
1.(b) 2.(b)
Figure 4. Co-Polarization pattern of the antenna based on
1) x-y plane: 1.(a) pattern of antenna without slot 1.(b)
pattern of antenna with slot and 2) x-z plane: 2.(a) pattern of
antenna without slot 2.(b) pattern of antenna with slot

tag. The 3D results are shown in Fig. 5. Each of the results

has two portions. The left portion of each result shows the
3D radiation pattern with different colors. Each color
indicates the level of gain. The area colored by red has the
highest gain value. The right side of each result indicates the
gain value of each colors. From these portions of both
results, it is clear that gains of both antenna designs have (a)
reached up to 9 dB.

C. Voltage Standing Wave Ratio

Fig. 6 displays the simulation results of the antenna

VSWR with and without the reversed ‘Arrow’ shaped slot.
The simulations were carried out keeping in mind the
reference level of VSWR = 2. The graph shows that the
antenna without the slot works on the VSWR =1.083 mark
at 2.45GHz. After simulating the design with making the
slot, it is shown that VSWR becomes lower than previous (b)
result. The antenna with the slot works on the VSWR
=1.017 mark at 2.442 GHz, which indicates the transmission
efficiency of the antenna with the proposed slot is very high. Figure 6. (a)VSWR of the antenna without slot and
(b)VSWR of the antenna with slot
 IV. CONCLUSION In future, our target will be set the operating frequency
The main objective of this paper is designing a exactly at 2.45 GHz without lower the antenna performance.
microstrip antenna for fixed and face to face RFID We will also perform a hardware level experiment to desire
application with better impedance-matching performance. the practical measurement of this simulated result.
The proposed microstrip antenna with reversed ‘Arrow’
shaped slot has shown remarkable performance. The newly
REFERENCES
designed slot on the patch at the opposite side of the feed
line is responsible for improving the antenna transmission [1] White paper: RFID reader options for better RFID solution
efficiency by increasing the return loss and decreasing the design, Motorola, Inc.
voltage standing wave ratio. The main drawbacks of the [2] R.A.R. Ibrahim, M.C.E. Yagoub, and R.W.Y. Habash,
proposed design are the bandwidth is too small, and its “Microstrip patch antenna for RFID applications”, Electrical
and Computer Engineering, 2009. CCECE '09. Canadian
center frequency is not exactly at 2.45 GHz. Because of its
Conference on., pp. 940 - 943, May 2009.
unidirectional radiaton pattern, the antenna will not be used [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio-frequency_identification
for those RFID tags and readers whose direction is not [4] H. Schaubert, D. M. Pozar, and A. Adrian, “Effect of
fixed. And an RFID reader cannot read so many tags at a Microstrip Antenna Substrate Thickness and Permittivity:
time. But in the case of fixed positioned RFID reader and Comparison of Theories and Experiment”, IEEE Trans.
tags, the performance of this antenna will be great for its Antennas Propagat., Vol. AP-37, No. 6, pp. 677–682, June
high transmission efficiency characteristics. The whole 1989.
work has been done by electromagnetic simulation software [5] C. A. Balanis, (2005), Antenna theory: Analysis and Design,
CST Microwave Studio 2011. 3rd edition, Wiley & Sons Inc.

View publication stats