2018 3rd International Conference on Microwave and Photonics (ICMAP 2018), 9-11 February, 2018

A Compact Integrated Antenna-Mixer Using

Microstrip Circular Patch at 2.4 GHz
Arun Kumar
Circuits & Systems Division
Society for Applied Microwave Electronics Engineering & Research (SAMEER)
Kolkata, India-700091
arun@mmw.sameer.gov.in

Abstract- This paper proposes design of a compact integrated
antenna-mixer using a microstrip circular patch resonator at 2.4
GHz. The antenna in the structure is a circular microstrip patch
antenna. In the mixer design, the field configurations of TM11
resonant mode of the microstrip circular patch resonator are
utilized to achieve good RF-to-IF and LO-to-IF isolation without
using an IF filter. The mixer uses Schottky barrier diode for
mixing purpose and exhibits minimum isotropic conversion loss
of 10.73 dB and greater than 17 dB of LO-to-IF and RF-to-IF
isolations for 3 dB RF bandwidth of 100 MHz. The integrated
antenna-mixer can be used in low power, low cost short range
microwave communications and sensor design.
Index Terms— Integrated antenna-mixer, microstrip circular
patch resonator, Schottky barrier diode.
mixer has been optimized for good conversion loss as well as
for good rejection of higher order mixing products.
II. PRINCIPLE AND DESIGN
The design of the integrated antenna-mixer is divided into
two parts.
A. Circular Patch Resonator
First of all, resonant modes of a circular patch resonator
having diameter of 34.5 mm and substrate with height, h =
1.59 mm, dielectric constant, εr = 4.4 and tanδ = 0.023 are
determined [6]. The electric field configurations of first two
lowest order modes are depicted in Fig. 1.

I. INTRODUCTION
In modern days, due to an increased demand in number of
short range low power microwave sensors, there is a need to
develop low cost compact sensors of super-heterodyne type. In
traditional super-heterodyne system, mixers are followed by
antennas. Antenna integrated with mixer with quasi-optical
concepts have been used at millimeter-wave frequencies and
beyond [1]. Due to simplicity of the circuit and greater
flexibility of design, this technology can be used also at lower
microwave frequencies where cost effectiveness is often
preferred over the overall performance. In past, several such
quasi-optical mixers are designed at higher microwave and
millimeter-wave frequencies [2-4]. Although, the integrated
antenna-mixer has been designed at higher frequencies but for
lower microwave frequencies, such technology is not reported.
In this paper, design of a mixer integrated with a circular
patch is described at 2.4 GHz. The antenna of the system
works in TM11 mode for operation. The nodes and antinodes
of the field configuration of TM11 are utilized in design of the
mixer[5]. Locations of the RF, LO and IF ports and diode
position have been chosen such that the structure provides
good LO-to-IF and RF-to-IF isolations. The configuration of
integrated antenna-mixer system presented here has a several
advantages. Integrating the antenna directly with the mixer
circuit makes a compact front-end and minimizes the cable
loss between the antenna and mixer. Also, the circuit does not
need an IF low pass filter. The structure is implemented on the
readily available and low cost FR4 substrate. The design of the
(a) (b)
Fig. 1. Magnitude of electric field distributions for different resonant modes
of microstrip circular patch: (a) TM11 mode (fo = 2.40GHz), (b) TM21 mode
(fo = 4.01GHz)
The antenna part of the integrated antenna-mixer system is
based on circular microstrip patch resonator working in TM11
mode having resonant frequency of 2.40 GHz.
B. Integrated Antenna-Mixer
The integrated antenna-mixer configuration is shown in Fig.
2(a). The field configurations of the TM11 mode of the circular
patch resonator are used in the mixer design. Diameter of the
circular patch is, d = 34.5 mm. Locations of LO feed and
diode are chosen towards the circumference of the circular
patch and diagonally opposite where electric field strengths
are maximum. The LO power is capacitively coupled and the
location of the feed point is optimized using with insect feed
having taper length, f = 8 mm for better matching with 50 Ω
source impedance. Diode is connected across the patch and the
ground plane at a distance, p = 13 mm from the centre and
radially opposite to the LO port. The Schottky diode used for
mixing purpose is Avago HSMS-2820 (CT = 1.0 pF, Rs = 6.0
Ω). Location of IF port is chosen at the centre of the circular
patch where the electric field strength is minimum due to LO
excitation.

978-1-5386-0933-0/18/$31.00 ©2018 IEEE

 2018 3rd International Conference on Microwave and Photonics (ICMAP 2018), 9-11 February, 2018

25 35
20 30
25

Loss (dB)

Loss (dB)
15 20
10 15
10
5 5
2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 -10 -5 0 5 10
RF Frequency (GHz) LO Power (dBm)

(a) (b) (a) (b)

Fig. 2. (a) Integrated antenna-mixer structure, (b) Experimental test setup. Fig. 3. Measured Isotropic cconversion loss: (a) as a function of RF frequency
at LO power = 10 dBm, (b) as a function of LO power at IF frequency = 20
MHz.
III. RESULTS 40
35

The experimental setup shown as in Fig. 2(b) is used for
measuring the RF performance of the antenna-mixer circuit
Distance between transmitting and the receiving antennas, R is
30 mm so that the antennae are in far field region with respect
to each other. LO signal having frequency of 2.38 GHz with
power of 10 dBm is fed to the LO port and RF signal having
power of -10 dBm with its frequency swept from 2.2 GHz to
2.6 GHz is fed to the RF port. The output power at
intermediate frequency at the IF port was measured using a
spectrum analyzer. Instead of conversion loss which is used to
characterize a mixer, isotropic conversion loss Liso parameter
is used to define the efficiency of the integrated antenna-mixer
circuit [7]. Liso is defined as the ratio between the IF power
outpur and the incident isotropic power at RF. The isotropic
power at the antenna plane is calculated as :
2
§ λ · (1)
Piso = PT GT ¨ ¸
© 4π R ¹
where, R is the distance between transmitting antenna and
integrated antenna-mixer (depicted in Fig. 2(b)); λ is the free-
space wavelength; PT is the power fed to the transmitting
circular microstrip patch antenna and GT is the gain of the
transmitting antenna. First, GT of circular microstrip patch
which is used to transmit RF power was measured and a value
of 2.1 dBi at 2.4 GHz was obtained. The measured isotropic
conversion loss versus RF frequency with an LO power of 10
dBm is presented in Fig. 3(a). Minimum measured isotropic
conversion loss of 10.73 dB with 3 dB RF bandwidth of 100
MHz is achieved. The increase of Liso as the RF frequency
deviates from 2.4 GHz is due to the poor radiation
characteristic of the antennas and diode impedance mismatch.
Fig. 3(b) shows the measured isotropic conversion loss as a
function of the LO power for an IF of 20 MHz. The
conversion loss is less than 11 dB from 7 to 10 dBm of LO
power. The rejection of the LO and RF signals at IF port is
measured and shown in Fig. 4. RF-to-IF isolation is measured
as the ratio of incident isotropic power at RF (defined by (1))
to the power at RF frequency leaked from the IF port. LO-to-
IF isolation greater than 17 dB and RF-to-IF isolation greater
than 27 dB are achieved without having an IF low pass filter
that is generally used in conventional mixers to reject the LO
and RF signals at IF port. The fabricated structure of the
integrated antenna-mixer is shown in Fig. 5.
Isolation (dB)
30
25 RF-to-IF
LO-to-IF
20
15
10
2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6
RF Frequency (GHz)
Fig. 4. Measured LO-to-IF and RF-to-IF isolation at IF frequency = 20MHz .
(a) (b)
Fig. 5. Fabricated antenna-mixer structure: (a) Top side, (b) Bottom side
IV. CONCLUSION
A planar integrated antenna-mixer using circular patch has
been presented. The structure achieves good RF-to-IF and LO-
to-IF isolations through the use of TM11 field configuration of
the circular patch without having an IF low pass filter. The
configuration is simple and compact and it can be used for low
power, low cost short range communication and sensor design
at lower microwave frequencies.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The author acknowledges assistance and support of
SAMEER, Kolkata for circuit fabrication and measurement
and ETCE department of Jadavpur University, Kolkata for
technical support.
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