Patch antenna wifi diy
#PATCH ANTENNA WIFI DIY SOFTWARE#
If your antenna was already passively impedance matched to 50 Ohms, you may need to compensate this matching if any vias appear in the trace.įind the software that can fit the antenna you needĪs you make the antenna progressively larger, it becomes possible to design slits in the antenna if you want to control linear polarization. Each via will increase the impedance of the trace, depending on the diameter.
#PATCH ANTENNA WIFI DIY PATCH#
One should note that you should avoid the use of vias when working with an on-board patch antenna on traces that carry your RF signal.
This helps capture fringe fields from the radiator. The edge of the ground plane should also extend out beyond the radiator by a distance that is equal to ~3 to 5 times the thickness of the substrate. When placing a copper antenna on a PCB, the size of the radiator should be equal to have the wavelength (sized in the conductor) associated with the signal frequency you wish to use for wireless communication. For ease of fabrication, hobbyists usually design these antennas to be quite large and bulky as this makes these antennas easier to work with by hand, and the antenna is really receiving in a higher order band. Note that these antennas may not be impedance matched, they may receive in multiple bands, and they may not be optimized for your particular substrate. Many hobbyists have taken the time to prepare guides on designing patch antennas on simple PCBs, and you can easily adapt the geometry they use in your antenna. If you don’t have experience sizing a patch antenna and you don’t have access to microwave simulation software, you can still find the information you need to place a patch antenna on the internet. The distribution will be flat at this point, so the impedance seen by signals will not vary across the cross-section of the conductor in the connector line. In order to match the impedance of the antenna, you’ll need to connect your feed line at the point where the impedance distribution is a maximum. If you examine the electromagnetic field distribution in the patch, you’ll find that the impedance of the patch actually varies of across the patch. A square or rectangular radiator is placed above a ground plane, and the two are separated on different layers. A patch antenna has a very simple geometry. You need to be able to define a custom shape for your ground plane and the shape of your conductor that will act as your receiver/transmitter. Placing a patch antenna directly on your PCB is quite easy when you use the right design software. The external nature of these antennas makes it easy to add shielding to the main board so that you can protect other sensitive circuits from EMI. The receiver electronics required for separating signals into different data streams are not packaged on these antennas, so you will need to incorporate this functionality directly on your board. These are a real plug-and-play type of solution, making it easy to add wireless capabilities to your next device. The geometry is usually optimized to provide desirable gain in each band, and they are typically impedance matched at 50 Ohms with a passive matching network.
These antennas also come in the dual-band or multi-band variety, usually operating in the WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth, WLAN, and/or Zigbee bands. This means you will need to design your packaging to accommodate the size of the antenna and the long cable. The connection cable is usually several inches long and is directly soldered on the antenna board, so you can’t swap it out for a shorter cable. The downside is that you will need to make room in your packaging for the antenna. This makes it very convenient to incorporate a patch antenna into your device. These antennas are placed directly on an FR4 substrate and connect to your mainboard using a small feeder cable. These antennas are inexpensive and are available from a number of distributors. If you look for these antennas on the internet, you’ll quickly find an antenna that looks similar to a bow-tie. If you’re really feeling creative, you can add a microstrip patch antenna to your board, giving you wireless capabilities that are directly integrated on your PCB.Įxternal patch antennas come pre-packaged on their own PCBs, making it quite easy to incorporate these components in an electronic system. These inexpensive components are readily available and are easy to incorporate into your PCB. If you’re looking to add GPS, WiFi, or other communication capabilities to your next electronic device, you might consider adding a patch antenna to your PCB. Thankfully, there are some simple solutions that you can use to add wireless communication to your next PCB. Once I started diving into designing wireless systems, I realized that incorporating these capabilities is only as complex as you make it. On the surface, devices with wireless capabilities seem like they would be pretty complicated.