Improving the performance of a patch antenna array by using photonic bandgap structures at X-band

Abstract

A proposed three-layered patch antenna array combined with Uniplanar Compact Photonic Bandgap structures (UC-PBG) is presented to avoid non-desired radiations from the feeding structure and to mitigate the surface propagation modes, increasing the radiation efficiency, and reducing the parasitic lobes. The array is fed by electromagnetic proximity, implemented by a stripline network below the radiators. The array is designed to operate at of 10 GHz and is surrounded by UC-PBG structures. This configuration also helps to increase the bandwidth by keeping the electric field and the surface current stable around the radiators, reducing the variations of the impedance on a wider bandwidth. Also, the UC-PBG structures attenuate the surface propagation modes, lowering the parasitic lobes by almost 7 dB and reaching measured radiation efficiency higher than 80%. The patch array gets an operational bandwidth of 2.5 GHz, with a measured gain of 24 dB. The fractional bandwidth is 25%.

KEYWORDS:

• Patch array
• photonic bandgap
• antenna efficiency
• surface propagation mode
• three-layered antenna

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Instituto Politécnico Nacional: [grant number SIP-IPN 20200330].

Notes on contributors

Gabriel Ángel Jiménez-Guzmán

Gabriel Ángel Jiménez-Guzmán obtained his Bachelor Degree in Electronics from Ecatepec Technologic Institute in 2011, the MSc and PhD degrees in 2013 and 2019, respectively in Electrical Engineering from the National Polytechnique Institute. His research interests are focused in passive microwave circuits, metamaterials and antenna design.

José Alfredo Tirado-Mendez

José Alfredo Tirado-Méndez received the BS degree in electronics and digital systems from Metropolitan Autonomous University (UAM)-Azcapotzalco, Mexico City, in 1999, and the MSc and PhD degrees in telecommunications from the CINVESTAV-IPN, Mexico, in 2001 and 2008, respectively. In 2002, he joined the Telecommunications Section, CINVESTAV, as a Researcher. In 2005, he joined the Electronics Department, UAM-Azcapotzalco. In 2011, he joined the National Polytechnique Institute as Full-Professor. His research interests are electromagnetic compatibility and nonlinearities as well as RF and microwave circuit design, antennas and microstrip filters. He has published more than 50 JCR papers and more than 20 proceedings papers. Dr. Tirado-Méndez received the Arturo Rosenblueth Award in 2009 for the Best PhD Engineering Thesis in CINVESTAV. He has level I in the SNI of Mexico.

Arturo Rangel-Merino

Arturo Rangel-Merinoa has received the Bachelor Degree in Telecommunications and Electronics Engineering in 1981 from the School of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering (ESIME) of the National Polytechnic Institute of Mexico (IPN), the Master in Science degree in Automatic Control by the Center for Research and Advanced Studies of IPN in 2001 and the PhD degree in Telecommunications and Electronics by the Section of Graduate Studies and Research (SEPI) of the National Polytechnique Institute in 2013. Since 2005, he is a member of EMC research group ESIME Zacatenco of the Polytechnic of Mexico and participates in the projects of the Electromagnetic Compatibility Laboratory (LabCEM) of ESIME Zac. He has directed four Bachelor Thesis and, currently, he is professor at ESIME Zacatenco. He is awarded with Candidate Level in the SNI, México.

Luis Alberto Vasquez-Toledo

Luis Alberto Vasquez-Toledo obtained the BS degree in Electronics and Communications engineering in 2008, and the MSc and PhD degrees in electrical engineering from CINVESTAV-IPN, Mexico. Currently, he is professor at UAM-Iztapalapa, Mexico. His research interests include, but not limited to, performance evaluation, teletraffic analysis, resource management of wireless mobile communications networks and data transmission in cellular networks and wireless electromagnetic sensors.

Ricardo Marcelin-Jimenez

Ricardo Marcelin-Jimenez graduated in 1987 as Electronics engineer from UAM-Iztapalapa. In 1992 he obtained the degree of Master of Science with a specialty in computing, from CINVESTAV-IPN. In 2004 he obtained a doctorate in science (computing) from the UNAM. As a teacher, he has been closely linked to the Bachelor of Electronics Engineering and Bachelor of Computer Science programs, as well as the postgraduate program in Information Sciences and Technologies, of which he was founder and also coordinator. In his research and development activity, he works on the application of distributed algorithms in solving some problems in telecommunications networks (WSN and P2P) and in the construction of massive data storage systems.