Front-Side Microstrip Line Feeding a Raised Antenna Patch

In the improved design concept, the low-permittivity thick-spacer and direct connection features, taken together, result in a good impedance match with suppression of unwanted cross-coupling and scattering. By eliminating the feed circuitry from behind the ground plane and eliminating all holes through the ground plane, this design concept eliminates the leakage-suppression problem and, hence, the drawbacks of the leakage- suppression techniques. Moreover, because there is no feed circuitry behind the ground plane, the overall antenna package is much thinner than it would otherwise be. Other advantages of this design concept include the following:

• Any desired additional electronic circuits can be placed behind the ground plane with little or no risk of electromagnetic interference because these circuits are inherently shielded by the ground plane. If it is necessary to make an electrical connection through the ground plane, a coaxial connector can be optimized to maintain shielding.
• Because the microstrip line and the antenna are printed on different dielectric substrates, the aforementioned limitation on available area no longer applies.
• Also, because the microstrip line and the antenna are printed on different substrates, the substrate for the transmission can be thin and of high relative permittivity (typically between 2 and 10), as needed for a low-leakage transmission line, while the antenna patch can be printed on a thick, low relative permittivity substrate to maximize bandwidth and suppress surface waves.

This work was done by Richard Hodges and Daniel Hoppe of Caltech for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. For further information, access the Technical Support Package (TSP) free on-line at www.techbriefs.com/tsp under the Electronics/Computers category. In accordance with Public Law 96-517, the contractor has elected to retain title to this invention. Inquiries concerning rights for its commercial use should be addressed to:

Innovative Technology Assets Management
JPL
Mail Stop 202-233
4800 Oak Grove Drive
Pasadena, CA 91109-8099
(818) 354-2240
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Refer to NPO-30605, volume and number of this NASA Tech Briefs issue, and the page number.

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