Seminar report

Jadavpur university Electronics and telecommunication engg. dept.

MICROSTRIP PATCH ANTENNA AND ITS APPLICATION

-DEBDEEP SARKAR (000710701045) And MALOY GHOSH (000710701059)

Abstract In this work we have discussed the various aspects of Microstrip Patch Antenna. We have presented the entire discussion in two parts, like we did during the seminar. The first part deals with the fundamentals of microstrip patch antenna, its operating mechanism, design aspect, advantages and disadvantages. In the second part we have highlighted the various principles which can be employed for performance enhancement of microstrip patch antenna. We have highlighted classical design techniques along with some novel techniques employing metamaterials.

PART 1: FUNDAMENTALS
(click on the underlined text to jump to that portion)

1.History 2.Microstrip Antenna Structure 3.Radiation Mechanism 4.Different Components Of Microstrip Patch Antenna 5.Analytic Models 6.Advantages And Disadvantages 7.Application

HISTORY OF MICROSTRIP ANTENNA

The rapid development of microstrip antenna technology began in the late 1970s. By the early 1980s basic microstrip antenna elements and arrays were fairly well established in terms of design and modelling, and workers were turning their attentions to improving antenna performance features (e.g. bandwidth), and to the increased application of the technology. One of these applications involved the use of microstrip antennas for integrated phased array systems, as the printed technology of microstrip antenna seemed perfectly suited to low-cost and highdensity integration with active MIC or MMIC phase shifter and T/R circuitry. The group at the University of Massachusetts (Dan Schaubert, Bob Jackson, Sigfrid Yngvesson) had received an Air Force contract to study this problem, in terms of design tradeoffs for various integrated phased array architectures, as well as theoretical modelling of large printed phased array antennas. The straightforward approach of building an integrated millimetre wave array (or sub-array) using a single GaAs substrate layer had several drawbacks. First, there is generally not enough space on a single layer to hold antenna elements, active phase shifter and amplifier circuitry, bias lines, and RF feed lines. Second, the high permittivity of a semiconductor substrate such as GaAs was a poor choice for antenna bandwidth, since the bandwidth of a microstrip antenna is best for low dielectric constant substrates. And if substrate thickness is increased in an attempt to improve bandwidth, spurious feed radiation increases and surface wave power increases. This latter problem ultimately leads to scan blindness, whereby the antenna is unable to receive or transmit at a particular scan angle. Because of these and other issues, they were looking at the use of a variety of two or more layered substrates. One obvious possibility was to use two back to-back substrates with feed through pins. This would allow plenty of surface area, and had the critical advantage of allowing the use of GaAs (or similar) material for one substrate, with a low dielectric constant for the antenna elements. The main problem with this approach was that the large number of via holes presented fabrication problems in terms of yield and reliability. They had looked at the possibility of using a two sided-substrate with printed slot antennas fed with microstrip lines, but the bidirectionality of the radiating element was unacceptable. At some point in the summer of 1984 they arrived at the idea of combining these two geometries, using a slot or aperture to couple a microstrip feed line to a resonant microstrip patch antenna. After considering the application of small hole coupling theory to the fields of the microstrip line and the microstrip antenna, they designed a prototype element for testing. Their intuitive theory was very simple, but good enough to suggest that maximum coupling would occur when the feed line was centered across the aperture, with the aperture positioned below the center of the patch, and oriented to excite the magnetic field of the patch.

The first aperture coupled microstrip antenna was fabricated and tested by a graduate student, Allen Buck, on August 1, 1984, in the University of Massachusetts Antenna Lab. This antenna used 0.062 Duroid substrates with a circular coupling aperture, and operated at 2 GHz. As is the case with most original antenna developments, the prototype element was designed without any rigorous analysis or CAD - only an intuitive view of how the fields might possibly couple through a small aperture. They were pleasantly surprised to find that this first prototype worked almost perfectly it was impedance matched, and the radiation patterns were good. Most importantly, the required coupling aperture was small enough so that the back radiation from the coupling aperture was much smaller than the forward radiation level.

(BACK TO PART 1 CONTENT)

STRUCTURE OF MICROSTRIP PATCH ANTENNA

Microstrip patch antenna has four structural components. They are 1. Ground plane 2. Dielectric substrate 3. Metal patch 4. Feed line The top view and side view are shown below:

TOP VIEW LEGENDS: Ground plane Dielectric substrate Metal patch Feed line

SIDE VIEW

Thus the microstrip patch antenna is a metal deposition on a dielectric material mounted on a electrical ground plane. A feed-line is used to feed the input power to the radiating element i.e. patch.

(BACK TO PART 1 CONTENT)

RADIATION MECHANISM
The radiation mechanism of a microstrip patch can be understood by observing the electric field distribution on the patch element.

Fringe electric field

The electric field lines just below the patch are completely perpendicular to the patch surface and also completely enclosed by the dielectric substrate. But near the edges the electric field starts to bend and there exists some fringe electric field which not completely enclosed by the substrate rather some part of it exposed to free space. These fringe fields can be modelled assuming the presence of slots near the edges of the patch which causes the electric field to get out in free space. Thus these slots act as radiators and the radiation principle is same as slot antenna.

(BACK TO PART 1 CONTENT)

DIFFERNT COMPONENTS
There are four components as already mentioned. Of these four three is to the designers to choose. These three components are 1. Patch geometry 2. Dielectric material 3. Different feeding techniques. 1. PATCH GEOMETRY: The geometry of the patch can be of many types for example square, rectangle, circle, dipole etc. The parameters to choose from these geometries are a. Ease of Fabrication: this determines the cost of the device b. Ease of Analysis: Different shapes lead to analysis in different coordinate systems leading to several levels of numerical complexity c. Space occupation: This factor determines the packing density of the designs. On these parameters microstrip dipole antenna stands out because of its lowest space occupation and it also lays the foundation of microstrip dipole array which is extensively used in many applicatons. 2. DIELECTRIC MATERIAL: The dielectric substance can have relative permittivity of the range . But lower means lower dielectric loss, higher power radiated to the space hence better power gain and efficiency which are important performance metric of any antenna. Whereas higher value of means higher loss and hence lower efficiency but due to higher capacitance electric field lines are tightly coupled to the substrate, hence extremely useful for MIC (Microwave Integrated circuit) operations where interdevice coupling is a important metric. But when we use any microstrip antenna it cannot be done without integrating with some other integrated circuits, hence we need to reach a trade of between antenna performance and the inter device coupling property and use that optimised value. A value is normally used. 3. THE FEED LINE: There are many available feeding techniques each having their own advantages and disadvantages. They are discussed briefly below. a. Microstrip Feed-line: It is a metallic patch on the dielectric substrate but of very thin width. It is very easy to fabricate but has certain disadvantages. However thin they may be in size ,they will be acting as radiator themselves, and hence would cause spurious radiation and also would decrease the gain and efficiency of the system.

b. Coaxial feed-line: The outer conductor of the coax cable is connected to the ground plane and the inner conductor is fed through to the radiating patch. At microwave frequencies the coax cables are almost lossless and hence efficiency increases but this type of feeding gets extremely hard when the height of the substrate is large because then the feeding of the inner conductor gets tough. c. Aperture feeding: This is a very important feeding scheme where we have two separate antennas, both microstrip antenna, one acting as a feeding element and the other as radiating element. They are connected via the ground plane and coupled via a hole in the ground plane. Thus it decouples the feeding and radiating circuits and hence allow us to independently optimise them both which is extremely important in microstrip antenna. The electrical properties can be controlled by controlling the hole. d. Proximity coupling: The patch is energised by some other source kept in proximity of the patch. Of these 4 methods aperture coupling is the most widely used feeding technique. (BACK TO PART 1 CONTENT)

ANALYSIS METHODS
There are many methods to analyse micro-strip antenna. The most widely used are 1. transmission line model, 2. Cavity model 3. Full wave model. All these three models often leads to strenuous mathematics which are beyond the scope of the seminar. Hence we rather discuss them comparatively. The transmission line model is the easiest of the three. It gives a good insight but is less accurate. And modelling of coupling in this model is very hard. Cavity model is a bit more accurate but it is more complex. Coupling modelling is not that easy here. The full wave model, in general, is most accurate, very versatile, can analyse single element, finite and infinite arrays, stacked elements, arbitrary sized elements, coupling etc. But it requires most complex models and also gives least insight of the three. (BACK TO PART 1 CONTENT)

ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES

The several advantages of the microstrip patch antenna are listed below: 1. It is just a metallic deposition on a dielectric substrate. Hence it has low weight and low volume 2. By modern VLSI technology it can be fabricated at low cost and with high packing density 3. It is mechanically very robust when mounted on rigid surface. 4. It has versatility in terms of polarisation. By intelligent choices of feeding techniques it can support both linearly and circularly polarised waves. 5. It can easily be integrated with other MIC devices. 6. Its planar configuration makes it conformable to most device surface. The disadvantages of the patch antenna are listed below: 1. 2. 3. 4. Its bandwidth is very less Its gain and power efficiency values are not great Spurious radiation occurs from different junctions and feeds It introduces surface wave with further reduces the power efficiency and also introduces unwanted coupling 5. Power handling capacity of such a system is not much due to its small size There are techniques to improve on these disadvantages. Those are discussed in the part 2 of the report.

(BACK TO PART 1 CONTENT)

APPLICATION
Microstrip antennas are mostly used as receiving antenna of satellite communication. Satellite transmitting antennas are separated from the earth plane by a large distance of variable medium. Hence at the receiving end, the polarisation cannot be predicted. Hence to ensure proper reception of incoming wave circularly polarised antenna is a must. MPA s adaptability in terms of both circular and linear polarisation makes it a prime candidate. Also considering the constraints of weight and volume in any high end mobile devices its low weight and size makes it a automatic choices. By modern techniques its other limitations are also overcome. These are the reason of extensive usage of Microstrip antenna in modern day.

CONCLUSIONS:
Part 1 of the seminar was dedicated to the fundamentals of microstrip patch antenna. The structure, the radiation mechanism, choices of different components have been discussed in this part. Its several advantages and disadvantages have been investigated. Also a specific example is taken up to stress its utility in present day. Several modern techniques to improve the performance metrics will be discussed in part 2 of the report.

PART-II: STATE OF THE ART RESEARCH ON MICROSTRIP PATCH ANTENNA

A. Introduction:
The previous section of this report has already presented the basic radiation mechanism, merits and demerits of Microstrip Patch Antenna, which can be called MPA in abbreviated form. In this second part, the focus will be on methodology which can be employed to enhance the performance of MPAs. We are going to stress on classical microwave engineering techniques and unorthodox new methods employing metamaterials for making MPA systems more efficient.

B. Review of Classical Methodology for Impedance Bandwidth Enhancement of MPA:

As we know, any antenna is characterized by some typical performance metrics like: gain, bandwidth (BW), radiation power efficiency, beamwidth, polarization, front-toback ratio etc. In case of MPA one major drawback is its low impedance bandwidth (although its pattern bandwidth is high). For a single element MPA designed on thin substrate and operating at the fundamental lowest mode, the typical BW is few percents. People may argue that why should at all we try to increase the impedance bandwidth? The answer is quite obvious. We know that MPA has huge application in modern day wireless mobile communication due to its low cost, compactness and conformability with VLSI based MMIC design. But todays requirement is supporting huge information bit-rate (3G applications), which needs use of UWB patch antennas. Also there is necessity of tunable antennas having multiband characteristics. This immediately puts pressure on the microwave engineers to design more bandwidth efficient MPAs. There are lots of techniques which can be employed for increasing the BW. We will highlight only a few of them. The total quality factor of an MPA is dependent on the quality factors due to space wave losses, conduction and ohmic losses, dielectric losses and surface waves. The fractional BW of any MPA depends on the total quality factor. After some basic mathematical steps and physical assumptions, it can be shown that [1] there is a simplified mathematical relationship between bandwidth and effective permittivity of the substrate used for MPA as:

BW

reff

(1)

Here reff is the effective dielectric constant of the MPA structure which can be expressed as:

12h 2 (2) (1 ) 2 2 W Here h and W are the height of substrate and patch width respectively; r is the
eff r

r 1 r 1

actual dielectric constant of the substrate. Equations 1 and 2 provide us two logically obvious means of increasing BW. As the first technique, we can consider increasing substrate height, since from equation (2) we get that as h increases, effective permittivity decreases. Hence we have increase in bandwidth. But this method has some inherent drawbacks because: (i) Thicker substrate will support surface waves, which will deteriorate the radiation patterns as well as reduce the radiation efficiency. (ii) Serious issues with the standard coaxial feeding technique of the antenna will arise. (iii) Additionally, depending upon the feeding direction, higher order modes of resonance will be generated, and this will introduce further distortions in the pattern and impedance characteristics. The second technique to increase bandwidth is decreasing the relative permittivity. But we know that there are a number of trade-offs regarding the choice of dielectric media as the substrate of MPA, so this method is not so advisable. But if we choose the dielectric substrate of the antenna based on the constraints, which arise due to fabrication of MPAs in particular MMICs (Microwave Monolithic Integrated Circuits), we can play with the effective dielectric permittivity by designing an adjustable air gap between the substrate and the ground plane []. For such applications the antenna structure is made of two layers, including the substrate of thickness h and an air region of thickness D. The effective permittivity is evidently reduced, tending toward the free space value as the air thickness increases. The third method regarding bandwidth enhancement is use of suitable impedance matching networks over a wide bandwidth. Here we can make use of reactive loading networks like tunable stubs. As we know, the MPA structure can be modelled as a parallel resonant circuit with suitable L (inductance) and C (capacitance) values depending on the choice of substrate material and the geometrical configuration. Reactive loading allows us to change these parameters and allows the antenna to couple its input power to the free space efficiently. Since L and C values are changing, we can simultaneously tune the resonant frequency and the reflection coefficient (S11) using the reactive loading method. Now from the knowledge of transmission line theory we know that single stubs have limited tuning range practically. That is why we resort to double stub tuning. The two stubs are kept on opposite edges of the patch, in line with the coaxial feed point. The

patch is then tuned in an iterative manner by systematic trimming of either of the stubs. It is observed from experimental study, that thin stubs allow very sensitive tuning over a limited range, while wide stubs increase the range, but with less sensitivity. This kind of arrangement is shown in the figure. But these destructive iterative trimming of stubs is not used now a days. Currently research is going on use of RF MEMS (MicroElectro-Mechanical Switches) for designing reconfigurable antenna using impedance matching techniques []. The central idea of this method is to place different loads in the vicinity of the MPA structure. Now MEMS switches will be used to connect a variety of load configurations to the main antenna circuit. The selection of switches can be done using electrical controls (applying piezoelectric properties). Also there is scope for intelligent programmable switching control. Although bandwidth might not be increased drastically, we can design multiband antennas in this way. The fourth technique that we are going to illustrate uses the mutual coupling between various MPAs. We again emphasize that MPAs can be modelled as parallel LC resonators, and the very basic knowledge of circuit theory tells us that interaction between several such tank circuits can lead to multi-band operation. If the values of geometrical design parameters are so chosen that the resonant frequencies of the interacting antennas are placed quite near each other, then it can yield a wideband configuration. Now the question is how should we invoke the coupling between MPAs? A very straightforward means can be to use antennas side by side just as in the Figure.

This figure shows the E-plane coupling between two MPAs placed at a relative distance s. But this type of arrangement would practically use up lots of space. So we go for stacking of MPAs.

The next figure shows a typical stacked circular antenna constructed using two discs etched on different boards. The lower disc is fed by a coaxial connector through the ground plane. For such antennas, studies have shown the presence of two resonances. The variable in our hand is the diameter of both the patches. It is usually observed experimentally that the lower resonant frequency is relatively steady over a range of different diameters for the upper conductor, whereas the second resonance is highly dependent on those diameters [].

There are various applications of such stacked patch configuration in practical circuits. One of such application shows the cross section of a typical RADAR module using stacked patch antenna.

It is worth mentioning that, the concept of adjustable air-gap tuning also applies to stacked patches, performing a tunable arrangement with two stacked discs. In this case, the upper air gap has the effect of altering the resonant frequency of the upper resonance, while the lower air gap has more complicated impacts. The air gap does not affect the radiation fields significantly.

C. Use of Electromagnetic Band-gap Metamaterials for Suppression of Surface Waves in MPA design:
All the classical design methods which we mentioned before neglected one important point that there were no methods employed for surface wave suppression. The surface waves are indeed the main hidden culprits, responsible for limiting antenna gain, increasing the back-lobe and increasing the mutual coupling between MPA. The last problem particularly becomes serious in MPA array design. Modern day researchers decided to use metamaterials (MTMs) to combat the surface wave issue. Metamaterials are classically defined by Caloz et al as artificial periodic effectively homogeneous electromagnetic structures that have unusual properties not readily available in nature. The idea of MTM first originated in the classic paper by Victor Veselago, way back in 1968, followed by works of Pendry and Ziolkowski. Although their unorthodox theoretical properties fascinated people, the application of those features in solving engineering problems was not possible till 2001, when 3D volumetric MTMs were first fabricated in labs. Later on we got planar designs too.

Generally in microwave regime MTMs are of two types: one is the permittivitypermeability based MTMs, namely ENG, MNG and DNG MTMs. Then we have the Electromagnetic band-gap structures (EBG). The next part of our discussion deals with the physics of using EBG MTMs to suppress surface waves. EBG metamaterials are basically engineered surfaces formed using typical microwave engineering components. The simplest example of a textured electromagnetic surface is a metal slab with quarter-wavelength deep corrugations, as shown in Figure. This is often described as a soft or hard surface depending on the polarization and direction of propagation. It can be understood by considering the corrugations as quarter-wavelength transmission lines, in which the short circuit at the bottom of each groove is transformed into an open circuit at the top surface. This provides a high-impedance boundary condition for electric fields polarized perpendicular to the grooves and low impedance for parallel electric fields. Soft and hard surfaces are used in various applications, such as manipulating the radiation patterns of horn antennas or controlling the edge diffraction of reflectors. Twodimensional structures have also been built, such as shorted rectangular waveguide arrays or the inverse structures, often known as pin-bed arrays. These textured surfaces are typically one-quarter-wavelength thick in order to achieve a highimpedance boundary condition.

But the above mentioned structures are not so compact so they cannot be used in MPA regime. Recently, compact structures have been developed that can also alter the electromagnetic boundary condition of a metal surface but which are much less than one-quarter-wavelength thick. They are typically built as sub-wavelength

mushroom-shaped metal protrusions, as shown in Figure, or overlapping thumbtacklike structures. One of such kind of structure is shown below:

The size-wise efficiency of such structures arises because they are sub-wavelength in nature. Now the first question is why should we call such periodic engineered surfaces as electromagnetic band-gap ones? This point will be highlighted first. For that reason, let us first briefly state some points regarding surface waves. Ordinary metals are slightly inductive, due to the skin effect, so they support transverse magnetic (TM) surface waves. At optical frequencies these are often called surface plasmons. At microwave frequencies, they are simply the ordinary surface currents, very weakly bound to the surface. A diagram of a TM surface wave is shown for the sake of convenience. The wave-amplitude decays exponentially away from a surface with decay constant . It is also common practice to characterise any surface by its surface impedance Zs.

While bare metals do not support TE surface waves, dielectric-coated metals can support TE waves above a cut-off frequency that depends on the thickness and dielectric constant of the layer.

Now the figure below is shown to illustrate the formation of effective L and C for an engineered mushroom type geometry. The figure shows the side view of the mushroom type EBG surface.

When the period of lattice formation is very small compared to the wavelength of interest, we may analyze the material as an effective medium, with its surface impedance defined by effective lumped-element circuit parameters that are determined by the geometry of the surface texture. A wave impinging on the material causes electric fields to span the narrow gaps between the neighbouring metal patches, and this can be described as an effective sheet capacitance C. As currents oscillate between the neighbouring patches, the conducting paths through the vias and the ground plane provide a sheet inductance L. These form a parallel resonant circuit that dictates the electromagnetic behaviour of the material, as shown in the figure. Its surface impedance is given by the expression:
Zs jL 1 2 LC

(3)

This expression suggests that the mushroom-type surface lay-out provides a bandstop nature on the surface. The resonant frequency is given by the well known expression:

1 LC

(4)

Clearly, when the operating frequency is below the resonant frequency, the surface offers inductive impedance, behaving as ordinary metals and supporting TM waves. Above this resonant frequency, the surface has capacitive impedance and it supports TE waves. But at the resonant frequency the surface has high value of impedance; hence propagation of surface waves is inhibited. The band-gap for such surface can be determined by considering its surface impedance versus frequency plot. Another important property of such surfaces is the fact that they provide a reflection phase of 0 degree at some frequencies, if properly designed. This is in significant contrast with the classical PECs (Perfect Electric Conductors) where the reflection phase is always 180 degree. Hence such EBG surfaces are often called as PMCs (Perfect Magnetic Conductors), and are used for directivity enhancement purposes, but that is out of the scope of this discussion. Now let us address the second basic question, that how to use these EBG surfaces for enhancing radiation efficiency of MPAs? The idea is to properly design the EBG structure so that the resonant frequency of the MPA falls inside the band-gap of the EBG structure; hence the surface waves that could propagate along the substrate will be forced to leave the substrate as leaky waves. The following design in inspired by this methodology, where we have a centrally placed coax-probe-fed MPA surrounded by suitable EBG structures. The idea of multiple stacking can also be implemented here for improving space-efficiency.

The second point is to reduce mutual coupling between MPAs by preventing surface waves. Mutual Coupling reduction by 10-20 dB using EBG structures in between has been reported. This mutual coupling prevention design is potentially useful for a variety of array applications.

Finally we should mention that, from a designers point -of-view static design like as we mentioned before may not be suitable. But we have methods to tackle that issue. A tunable impedance surface consists of a high-impedance surface in which adjacent cells have been connected by varactor diodes, which have voltage-tunable capacitance. The grounded and biased plates are arranged in a checkerboard pattern as shown in the figure. Half of the vias are grounded, but the other half are attached to a voltage control network on the back of the surface.

D. Future Directions Use of DNG metamaterials with negative permittivity and negative permeability characteristics:
In this section we are going to introduce a new class of metamaterials (MTMs) which exhibit negative permittivity and permeability characteristics over a suitable frequency range. For defining such MTMs, we need to investigate about the properties which govern the electromagnetic response of any media in presence of any electromagnetic field. We describe these properties by defining the macroscopic parameters permittivity and permeability of these materials. Let us construct the co-ordinate system (Fig.1) to get four major categories of materials: i) A medium with both permittivity and permeability greater than zero ( will be designated a double positive (DPS) medium. Example: Most naturally occurring media (e.g., dielectrics) fall under this designation.

ii) A medium with permittivity less than zero and permeability greater than zero ( will be designated an epsilon-negative (ENG) medium. Example: In certain frequency regimes many plasmas exhibit this characteristic. Noble metals (e.g., silver, gold) behave in this manner in the infrared (IR) and visible frequency domains. iii) A medium with the permittivity greater than zero and permeability less than zero ( will be designated a mu-negative (MNG) medium. Example: In certain frequency regimes some gyrotropic materials, ferrites exhibit this characteristic. iv) A medium with both permittivity and permeability less than zero ( will be designated a DNG medium. To date, this class of materials has only been demonstrated with artificial constructs. It must be noted that artificial materials have been constructed that also have DPS, ENG, and MNG properties. The above discussion can be summarized by the following diagram:

We have done some simulation study by applying a DNG metamaterial slab as substrate below a standard microstrip patch antenna using FDTD (Finite Difference Time Domain) method. The idea of using DNG media as substrate arises from the

fact that its negative permittivity and permeability characteristics can change the reactive parameters of the MPA structure, enabling it to radiate over a wider frequency range. The DNG media is modelled using a novel hybrid FDTD scheme, which deals with the Drude model for complex permittivity behaviour using ztransform technique and Lorentz model for complex permeability behaviour use ADE (Auxiliary Differential Equation) method []. Such time-domain scheme is necessary because they are more accurate compared to frequency domain software like HFSS (High Frequency Structure Simulator). The detailed parameter listing is shown below: Parameter (FDTD+MPA) x y z Mesh-size t L W h_sub eps_sub Value 0.389 mm 0.400 mm 0.265 mm 60-by-110-by-14 0.441 ps 16 mm 12.45 mm 0.795 mm 2.2 (Teflon)

Parameter (DNG) Lubkowski et al]

[from

work

of

Value

Electric plasma frequency Electric Damping Frequency Magnetic radial resonant frequency Magnetic damping frequency High frequency limit of permittivity Low frequency limit of permeability

1.463 GHz 30.69 GHz 9.67 GHz 1.24 GHz 1.62 1.26

High frequency limit of permeability

1.12

The first curve is without the use of DNG media, the second one is after using DNG. Initial studies reveal that use of such DNG media below a 6.4 GHz patch antenna provides: i) Increase in the resonant frequency; ii) Huge improvement in -10 dB bandwidth; But proper characterization and choice of DNG media and practical design aspects are yet to be explored. After rigorous studies, the final results will be reported elsewhere.

E. Conclusions:
This discussion had the main theme of reviewing the MPA performance enhancement research techniques, along with throwing light on use of MTM paradigm in this domain. It is quite sure that we will get newer effective methods for improving MPA characteristics using MTMs through simulation and practical fabrications. References: 1] Antenna Theory: Analysis and Design, Constantine A. Balanis, John Wiley & Sons. Inc. [2] Sarkar D, Sahu S, Ghatak R, Mishra R K, Poddar D R, FDTD Analysis of Coupled Microstrip Lines Separated by a DNG Slab, Loughborough Antenna and Propagation Conference (IEEE), UK, 2010. [3] Lee, R. Q. and Lee K. F., Experimental study of two -layer electromagnetically coupled rectangular patch antenna, IEEE Trans. on Antennas and Propagation., Vol. AP-38, No.8, pp. 12981302, Aug.1990. [4] Chung K. L. and Mohan A. S., A Broadband Singly-Fed Electromagnetically Coupled Patch Antenna for Circular Polarization, Proc WARS02, Workshop on the Application of Radio Science, Sydney, Australia, Feb. 2002. [5] D. Sievenpiper, Forward and backward leaky wave radiation with large effective aperture from an electronically tunable textured surface, IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagation, vol. 53, pp. 236 247, Jan. 2005. [6] S. Tretyakov and C. Simovski, Dynamic model of articial reactive impedance surfaces, J. Electromagnetic Waves Appl., vol. 17, pp. 131 145, 2003. [7] A Survey of Microstrip Patch Antennas, S.H., David and Robertson I.D., Microwave Journals, Issue-9, 1996. [8] F. Yang, C.-S. Kim, and Y. Rahmat-Samii, Step-like structure and EBG structure to improve the performance of patch antennas on high dielectric substrate, 2001 IEEE AP-S Dig., vol. 2, pp. 482485, July 2001. [9] F. Yang and Y. Rahmat-Samii, A low prole circularly polarized curl antenna over electromagnetic band-gap (EBG) surface, Microwave Opt. Technol. Lett., vol. 31, no.3, pp. 165168, 2001. [10] G. Eleftheriades, A. Iyer, and P. Kremer, Planar negative refractive index media using periodically loaded L-C transmission lines, IEEE Trans. Microwave Theory Tech., vol. 50, pp. 2702 2712, Dec. 2002.