Compact Wideband Tapered Slot Antenna Using Fan-Shaped and Stepped Structures for Chipless Radio-Frequency-Identification Sensor Tag Applications.

In this paper, two kinds of miniaturization methods for designing a compact wideband tapered slot antenna (TSA) using either fan-shaped structures only or fan-shaped and stepped structures were proposed. First, a miniaturization method appending the fan-shaped structures, such as quarter circular slots (QCSs), half circular slots (HCSs), and half circular patches (HCPs), to the sides of the ground conductor for the TSA was investigated. The effects of appending the QCSs, HCSs, and HCPs sequentially on the input reflection coefficient and gain characteristics of the TSA were compared. The compact wideband TSA using the first miniaturization method showed the simulated frequency band for a voltage standing wave ratio (VSWR) less than 2 of 2.530-13.379 GHz (136.4%) with gain in the band ranging 3.1-6.9 dBi. Impedance bandwidth was increased by 29.7% and antenna size was reduced by 39.1%, compared to the conventional TSA. Second, the fan-shaped structures combined with the stepped structures (SSs) were added to the sides of the ground conductor to further miniaturize the TSA. The fan-shaped structures based on the HCSs and HCPs were appended to the ground conductor with the QCSs and SSs. The compact wideband TSA using the second miniaturization method had the simulated frequency band for a VSWR less than 2 of 2.313-13.805 GHz (142.6%) with gain in the band ranging 3.0-8.1 dBi. Impedance bandwidth was increased by 37.8% and antenna size was reduced by 45.9%, compared to the conventional TSA. Therefore, the increase in impedance bandwidth and the size reduction effect of the compact wideband TSA using the second miniaturization method were better compared to those using the first method. In addition, sidelobe levels at high frequencies decreased while gain at high frequencies increased. A prototype of the compact wideband TSA using the second miniaturization method was fabricated on an RF-35 substrate to validate the simulation results. The measured frequency band for a VSWR less than 2 was 2.320-13.745 GHz (142.2%) with measured gain ranging 3.1-7.9 dBi.

High-Sensitivity Slot-Loaded Microstrip Patch Antenna for Sensing Microliter-Volume Liquid Chemicals with High Relative Permittivity and High Loss Tangent.

This paper proposes a microwave sensor based on a high-sensitivity slot-loaded rectangular microstrip patch antenna (MPA) for measuring microliter-volume liquid chemicals with high relative permittivity and high loss tangent. A rectangular single-ring complementary split ring resonator (SR-CSRR) slot with a bottom-edge center split (BCS) was inserted along the upper radiating edge of the patch to enhance the relative permittivity sensitivity of the MPA. The first resonant frequency of the proposed SR-CSRR-BCS slot-loaded MPA showed the highest sensitivity compared to the resonant frequencies of the MPAs with other commonly used slots for varying the relative permittivity of the planar substrate type material under test from 1 to 10 when placed above the patch. After designing the scaled SR-CSRR-BCS slot-loaded MPA with the unloaded first resonant frequency at 2.5 GHz, a hollow acrylic cylindrical liquid container with an inner volume of approximately 18.6 µL was placed at the top-edge center of the SR-CSRR-BCS slot to achieve maximum sensitivity. A quarter-wavelength transformer was applied between the patch and the feed line of the MPA to improve the impedance mismatch that occurs when liquid chemicals with a high loss tangent are placed in the container. Water, methanol, and ethanol were carefully selected for test liquids to cover a broad range of relative permittivity and high loss tangents. The proposed SR-CSRR-BCS slot-loaded MPA was designed and fabricated on a 0.76 mm-thick RF-35 substrate, and a reference RS-loaded MPA was designed and fabricated for comparison. The shift in the first resonant frequency of the input reflection coefficient characteristic was used for the sensitivity comparison, and the container was filled with 15 µL of the liquids at 25 °C. The measured sensitivity (%) of the proposed SR-CSRR-BCS slot-loaded MPA for water was 0.45%, which was higher than other antenna-based microwave sensors in the literature.

Humidity-Sensing Chipless RFID Tag with Enhanced Sensitivity Using an Interdigital Capacitor Structure.

An eight-bit chipless radio frequency identification tag providing humidity sensing and identification information is proposed. A compact, enhanced-sensitivity resonator based on an interdigital capacitor (IDC) structure is designed for humidity sensing, whereas seven electric-field-coupled inductor capacitor (ELC) resonators are used for identification information. These eight resonators are placed in a two-by-four array arrangement. A step-by-step investigation for the effect of varying the number of elements and array configuration on the resonant frequency and radar cross-section (RCS) magnitude of the IDC resonator is conducted. The RCS value of the resonant peak frequency for the IDC resonator increases as the number of array elements placed nearby increases due to the mutual coupling among the elements, and the increase in the RCS value becomes larger as the number of arrays increases in the vertical direction. Polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) is coated on the IDC-based resonator at a thickness of 0.02 mm. A non-reflective temperature and humidity chamber is fabricated using Styrofoam, and the relative humidity (RH) is varied from 50% to 80% in 10% intervals at 25 °C in order to measure a bistatic RCS of the proposed tag. The humidity sensing performance of the IDC resonator in the proposed tag is measured by the shift in the resonant peak frequency and the RCS value, and is compared with a single ELC resonator. Experiment results show that when RH increased from 50% to 80%, the sensitivities of both the resonant peak frequency and the RCS value of the IDC resonator were better than those of the ELC resonator. The variation in the RCS value is much larger compared to the resonant peak frequency for both IDC and ELC resonators. In addition, the resonant peak frequency and RCS value of the PVA-coated IDC-based resonator change, whereas those of the other seven resonators without a PVA coating do not change.

Miniaturized Wideband Loop Antenna Using a Multiple Half-Circular-Ring-Based Loop Structure and Horizontal Slits for Terrestrial DTV and UHD TV Applications.

A miniaturized wideband loop antenna for terrestrial digital television (DTV) and ultra-high definition (UHD) TV applications is proposed. The original wideband loop antenna consists of a square loop, two circular sectors to connect the loop with central feed points, and a 75 ohm coplanar waveguide (CPW) feed line inserted in the lower circular sector. The straight side of the square loop is replaced with a multiple half-circular-ring-based loop structure. Horizontal slits are appended to the two circular sectors in order to further reduce the antenna size. A tapered CPW feed line is also employed in order to improve impedance matching. The experiment results show that the proposed miniaturized loop antenna operates in the 460.7-806.2 MHz frequency band for a voltage standing wave ratio less than two, which fully covers the DTV and UHD TV bands (470-771 MHz). The proposed miniaturized wideband loop antenna has a length reduction of 21.43%, compared to the original loop antenna.

Design of a High-Sensitivity Microstrip Patch Sensor Antenna Loaded with a Defected Ground Structure Based on a Complementary Split Ring Resonator.

A comparative study to determine the most highly sensitive resonant frequency among the first four resonant frequencies of a conventional patch antenna and defected ground structure (DGS)-loaded patch antennas using commonly used DGS geometries in the literature, such as a rectangular slit, single-ring complementary split ring resonators (CSRRs) with different split positions, and double-ring CSRRs (DR-CSRRs) with different locations below the patch, for relative permittivity measurement of planar materials was conducted. The sensitivity performance for placing the DGS on two different locations, a center and a radiating edge of the patch, was also compared. Finally, the effect of scaling down the patch size of the DGS-loaded patch antenna was investigated in order to enhance the sensitivities of the higher order resonant frequencies. It was found that the second resonant frequency of the DR-CSRR DGS-loaded patch antenna aligned on a radiating edge with a half scaled-down patch size shows the highest sensitivity when varying the relative permittivity of the material under test from 1 to 10. In order to validate the simulated performance of the proposed antenna, the conventional and the proposed patch antennas were fabricated on 0.76-mm-thick RF-35 substrate, and they were used to measure their sensitivity when several standard dielectric substrate samples with dielectric constants ranging from 2.17 to 10.2 were loaded. The measured sensitivity of the second resonant frequency for the proposed DGS-loaded patch antenna was 4.91 to 7.72 times higher than the first resonant frequency of the conventional patch antenna, and the measured performance is also slightly better compared to the patch antenna loaded with a meander-line slot on the patch.

Meander-Line Slot-Loaded High-Sensitivity Microstrip Patch Sensor Antenna for Relative Permittivity Measurement.

A high-sensitivity microstrip patch sensor antenna (MPSA) loaded with a meander-line slot (MLS) is proposed for the measurement of relative permittivity. The proposed MPSA was designed by etching the MLS along the radiating edge of the patch antenna, and it enhanced the relative permittivity sensitivity with an additional effect of miniaturization in the patch size by increasing the slot length. The sensitivity of the proposed MPSA was compared with that of a conventional rectangular patch antenna and a rectangular slit (RS)-loaded MPSA, by measuring the shift in the resonant frequency of the input reflection coefficient. Three MPSAs were designed and fabricated on a 0.76 mm-thick RF-35 substrate to resonate at 2.5 GHz under unloaded conditions. Sensitivity comparison was performed by using five different standard dielectric samples with dielectric constants ranging from 2.17 to 10.2. The experiment results showed that the sensitivity of the proposed MPSA is 6.84 times higher for a low relative permittivity of 2.17, and 4.57 times higher for a high relative permittivity of 10.2, when compared with the conventional MPSA. In addition, the extracted relative permittivity values of the five materials under tests showed good agreement with the reference data.

High-Sensitivity Microwave Sensor Based on An Interdigital-Capacitor-Shaped Defected Ground Structure for Permittivity Characterization.

This study proposes a high-sensitivity microwave sensor based on an interdigital-capacitor-shaped defected ground structure (IDCS-DGS) in a microstrip transmission line for the dielectric characterization of planar materials. The proposed IDCS-DGS was designed by modifying the straight ridge structure of an H-shaped aperture. The proposed sensor was compared with conventional sensors based on a double-ring complementary split ring resonator (CSRR), a single-ring CSRR, and a rotated single-ring CSRR. All the sensors were designed and fabricated on 0.76-mm-thick RF-35 substrate and operated at 1.5 GHz under unloaded conditions. Five different standard dielectric samples with dielectric constants ranging from 2.17 to 10.2 were tested for the sensitivity comparison. The sensitivity of the proposed sensor was measured by the shift in the resonant frequency of the transmission coefficient, and compared with conventional sensors. The experiment results show that the sensitivity of the proposed sensor was two times higher for a low permittivity of 2.17 and it was 1.42 times higher for a high permittivity of 10.2 when compared with the double-ring CSRR-based sensor.