The Design of ISM-Band Radar Antenna for Small

Boat’s Trajectory Tracking

Karlisa Priandana, Benyamin Kusumoputro, Eko Tjipto Rahardjo
Department of Electrical Engineering
Universitas Indonesia
Depok, Indonesia
karlisa.priandana@ui.ac.id, kusumo@ee.ui.ac.id, eko@eng.ui.ac.id

Abstract— This paper discusses about the design of a specific The antenna design in ISM-band has been widely studied
radar antenna at ISM frequency band. The overall radar system due to high utilization of this frequency band for various
will be utilized as a trajectory generator for a developed applications, such as radar [3], biomedical applications [4],
autonomous chaser boat prototype in which the radar antenna wireless monitoring devices [5], WLAN [6], Wi-Fi [7], RFID
was designed to meet this requirement. Fresnel Zone free-space [8], etc. Generally, these applications utilize microstrip or patch
calculation revealed that the radar antenna should be placed at antennas due to its low-cost, lightweight, compact shape and
the lake side with a minimum height of 2.5 m. By considering the easy manufacturing. Patch antenna can be easily integrated to
possible size and distance of the tracked boat, the required radar the device circuits and it supports both linear and circular
antenna vertical beamwidth for sufficient elevation coverage is at
polarization depending on the designed antenna shape. Various
least 26o. Further design process in relation to desired azimuth
tracking resolution revealed that the required horizontal
shapes of patch antennas have been proposed, for example
beamwidth is less than 15o. A 4×8 microstrip array antenna was circular patch antenna [9], triangular patch antenna [7],
designed by simulations to meet these requirements. The rectangular patch antenna [10], quadrilateral and pentagonal
simulation results revealed that the 3dB horizontal beamwidth fractal patch antennas [11], etc. Square/rectangular, circular
was 12.2o and the 3dB vertical beamwidth was 160o. Two 4x8 and triangular shapes are the most widely used shapes for patch
microstrip array antennas were fabricated by utilizing the antennas since these shapes are very simple [12], cost-effective
simulated design, one as transmitting antenna and the other as and can significantly minimize the effect of fabrication error.
receiving antenna. Then, the overall performances were justified
Various antenna designs can be utilized to fulfil the
by experimental antenna measurements. The simulation and
measurement results showed that the designed radar antenna can
predetermined antenna requirements, depending on the purpose
operate at ISM band with sufficient 3dB horizontal beamwidth of of application. In [3], for example, the ISM radar antenna is
less than 15o. designed to have a low sidelobe level to minimize interference
effects in azimuth plane. In [4] and [5], small-size antenna is
Keywords—boat; ISM; microstrip array antenna; patch needed to be implantable to human body. In [6] and [7],
antenna; radar; trajectory tracking broadband antenna is required for good wireless coverage. On
the contrary, in [8] and [10], an antenna is designed as part of a
I. INTRODUCTION point-to-point communication system, so that a narrow pencil-
Antenna is an important and inseparable component for any beam antenna is needed. In this work, it is expected that the
wireless applications, such as radar, mobile phone, RFID, radar target-tracking system have a broad coverage in elevation
WLAN, etc. The performance of these electromagnetic systems and relatively narrow beam in azimuth to provide a sufficient
highly depends on the utilized antenna as the end-point for azimuth angular resolution. Thus, the desired radiation pattern
transmitting and receiving electromagnetic signals to and from of the antenna is wide-beam in vertical plane and sufficiently
another wireless device(s). In a radar system which is utilized narrow-beam in horizontal plane.
to obtain some information about a target, antenna is an This paper is organized as follows. The derivation of the
important component to transmit the radar signal to the target radar antenna requirements is described in the next section.
and then receive the echo signal back from the target. Then, the antenna design and simulation to achieve the
The design requirements of any antenna should be derived requirement, is elaborated in Section 3, followed by the
from the grand scheme of the targeted applications. In this measurement results of the fabricated antennas in Section 4.
work, an antenna is designed to meet the requirements of a The whole work is concluded in Section 5.
Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave (FMCW) radar
II. DERIVATION OF RADAR ANTENNA REQUIREMENTS
system at ISM frequency band [1] which will be utilized as
trajectory generator of a small autonomous chaser boat A. General Target Tracking Method
prototype [2]. ISM frequency band of between 2.3 GHz to 2.5 General method of deriving the trajectory of a target by
GHz is taken by considering the overall antenna size which using radar information is depicted in Fig. 1. Here, unknown
should be small enough for an on-board trajectory generator information of the target which consists of its angular position
system. șT and its Cartesian position in inertial frame xT and yT can be

978-602-50431-1-6/17/$31.00 ©2017 IEEE 96 2017 15th Intl. Conf. QiR: Intl. Symp. Elec. and Com. Eng
obtained by using radar information, ș and d, and radar 2. using two radars with two different frequencies so that the
position by using the following equations: reflected wave as a function of frequency can be
diminished,
ߠ் ൌ ߠ (1)
3. illogical target trajectory approach: using an additional
‫ ்ݔ‬ൌ ‫ݔ‬ோ ൅ ݀ …‘•ሺߠ் ሻ (2) signal processing to decide whether the target is forming an
‫ ்ݕ‬ൌ ‫ݕ‬ோ ൅ ݀ •‹ሺߠ் ሻ (3) illogical trajectory based on the previous information,
4. off-axis tracking approach: detecting the target in azimuth
where ș is the heading of the rotating radar antenna measured angle only and disregarding the measured elevation angle.
by a compass sensor, xR and yR is the radar Cartesian position
in inertial frame measured by a GPS sensor, and d is the For the case of autonomous boat prototype [2], the off-axis
relative radar-target distance. approach is taken since the main interest is only the 3 degree-
of-freedom (DOF) boat movement in the horizontal plane, thus,
the necessary information is only the azimuth angle. Therefore,
to be able to detect the target efficiently, it is preferable to have
a broad coverage in elevation. In other words, it is desired to
design an antenna with wide vertical beamwidth.
B. Derivation of Radar Antenna Requirements from The
Trajectory Generator Scheme
The height of the radar antenna contributes to the multipath
effect from the water surface. As the antenna position gets
higher, the reflected wave power gets lower, which means less
multipath effect. The shortest antenna height is generally
calculated by using Fresnel Zone formula. Considering that the
detection range of the target boat is between 10 to 100 m from
the lakeside and the target boat height is between 0.2 to 0.5 m,
Fig. 1. Radar-target position and the radar information Fresnel Zone calculation is illustrated in Fig. 3. In the figure, x
is the radar antenna height, y is the target boat height, Į is half
The process to obtain the target information from a FMCW of the radar antenna elevation beamwidth, and F1 is the radius
radar is depicted in Fig. 2. The radar-target relative distance, d, of first Fresnel Zone that should be free from any obstacle
is extracted from the beat signal of the FMCW radar sensor by including water surface. For a good measurement, the radar
using Fourier transformation. At the same time, the angular antenna should be higher than F1 as calculated using the
position of the target, ș, is obtained by synchronizing the target following equation:
detection with the rotating antenna, in other words, by taking
the measured antenna heading angle during which the target is ͳ ͳ ܿ
detected. This method is also known as the track-while-scan ‫ܨ‬ଵ ൌ ξߣ‫ ܦ‬ൌ ඨ ‫ܦ‬ (4)
ʹ ʹ ݂
method, which reflects that the angular resolution of the target
tracking depends not only on the resolution of the antenna where D is the antenna-target distance, Ȝ is the radar signal
rotator, but also on the radar antenna azimuth beamwidth. wavelength, c is the wave propagation constant 3×108 m/s, and
Therefore, to guarantee a good azimuth resolution, an antenna f is the radar frequency. Using the ISM frequency band of 2.4
with sufficiently narrow horizontal beamwidth is required. GHz and taking the maximum detection range of 100 m, the
first Fresnel Zone in (4) is equal to F1 = 1.77 m. Taking Į and
target boat height into consideration, the radar antenna height
from the water surface is set to be x = 2.5 m.

Fig. 2. Extraction of FMCW radar information

The main challenge of detecting a target’s angular position

in the case of surface vessels such as boats, ships, and other
marine vessels, is the low elevation angle. The angular target
detection may be disturbed by the multipath effects from the Fig. 3. Illustration of the radar Fresnel Zone calculation
water surface reflections and may cause multiple false alarms.
Several approaches to mitigate this problem are [13]: The required vertical beamwidth of radar antenna can be
derived from the minimum Į value as follows:
1. using an antenna with very narrow beamwidth,

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 B. Simulation Results
‫ݔ‬െ‫ݕ‬
ߙ ൌ –ƒ ିଵ
ቀ ቁǤ (5) The S-parameter simulation result of the designed antenna
݀ is depicted in Fig. 5. The figure shows that the working
frequency range of the antenna is between 2.4 GHz to 2.53
where Į is half of the radar antenna elevation beamwidth, x is GHz. This means that the designed antenna can work in the
the radar antenna height, y is the target boat height, and d is the ISM band with operating bandwidth of 130 MHz, which fulfils
antenna-target distance. The minimum value of Į is obtained the general requirement of FMCW radar system.
by using x = 2.5 m, ymin = 0.2 m, and dmax = 100 m, so that Įmin
‫ ڌ‬13o. Thus, the minimum elevation beamwidth of radar
antenna is 26o.
The required horizontal beamwidth of radar antenna is
related to the desired resolution of target boat angular position.
However, a one direction track-while-scan method that can be
either a clockwise scanning or a counter-clockwise scanning
enables a more precise angular detection which also depends
on the resolutions of antenna rotator and compass sensor.
Nevertheless, a narrower antenna beamwidth in the horizontal
plane is preferable to guarantee an accurate angular detection.
Therefore, in this application, the maximum horizontal
beamwidth of the radar antenna is set to be 15o.
III. ANTENNA DESIGN AND SIMULATION RESULTS
A. Antenna Design Fig. 4. The designed 4×8 microstrip array antenna

A microstrip array antenna is designed in CST Microwave

Studio to fulfil the radar antenna requirement using the
frequency and substrate-related design specifications as
depicted in Table 1. The dimensions of the single antenna
element, are calculated for ISM frequency band [6], as shown
in Table 2.

TABLE I. ANTENNA DESIGN SPECIFICATIONS

Parameter Value
Frequency 2.4 GHz
Substrate FR-4
Dielectric constant 4.3
Substrate height 1.6 mm
Fig. 5. The S-Parameter simulation result
Loss tangent 0.01

TABLE II. SINGLE PATCH ANTENNA DIMENSIONS The simulated 3D antenna radiation pattern in 2.4 GHz and
its plot in the horizontal plane are shown in Fig. 6 and Fig. 7,
Antenna Parameter Dimension (mm) respectively. The two figures show that in the frequency of 2.4
Single element width, W 38.3934 GHz, the 3dB vertical beamwidth is 160o and the 3dB
Single element length, L 29.8989 horizontal beamwidth is 12.2o. These results fulfilled the
Feedline width, Wf 2.89 desired radar antenna requirements, i.e. minimum vertical
Inset feed length, yo 8.2 beamwidth of 26o and maximum horizontal beamwidth of 15o.
Inset feed separation length, ¨y 0.5

For the requirements of minimum elevation beamwidth of

26o and maximum horizontal beamwidth of 15o, the number of
vertical and horizontal antenna elements is chosen to be 4 and
8, respectively. The inter-element distance of the antenna is set
to be Ȝ/2. Uniform feeding technique is then applied by
dividing the 50Ÿ feed line into two 100Ÿ lines and using the
quarter wave transformer with 70Ÿ impedance to match the
100ȍ and 50ȍ lines. The figure of the designed antenna is
shown in Fig. 4.

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 occur due to the fabrication error such as the slight difference
on the dimensions of antenna element, the unideal antenna
connector or the unideal wiring of the antenna.
Antenna radiation pattern measurement was conducted
outdoor where the distance between the fabricated ISM radar
antenna and the reference antenna is 4.9 m. This distance is
taken by considering the far-field distance requirement which
is calculated using the Fraunhofer formula as in the following
equation:

ʹ‫ܦ‬ଶ
݀௙ ൌ ǡ (6)
ߣ

Fig. 6. The 3D radiation pattern simulation result where df is the minimum far-field distance, D is the antenna
maximum dimension and Ȝ is the wavelength. Substituting D =
0.5 m and Ȝ = 0.125 m, the obtained df in (6) is 4 meters.

Fig. 7. The radiation pattern simulation result in horizontal plane

IV. MEASUREMENT RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Fig. 9. The S-parameter measurement result
Two 4×8 microstrip array antennas have been fabricated
following the simulated design parameters, one for the The radiation pattern measurement result in horizontal
transmitting antenna and the other for the receiving antenna, as plane is depicted in Fig. 10. The figure shows that the 3dB
shown in Fig. 8. The two antennas were fabricated using FR-4 horizontal beamwidth of the first antenna is 11o, whereas that
lossy substrate as previously defined in Table 1. Each antenna of the second antenna is 13o. The average 3dB horizontal
has two main feeds which are connected to a 1-to-2 ISM-band beamwidth for the two antennas is 12o, slightly differs from the
power splitter to guarantee its uniform feeding. simulated horizontal beamwidth of 12.2o.
The small discrepancies between the simulated and
measured radiation pattern may occur due to several
measurement limitations, such as:
1. the condition of outdoor measurement that may deviate
from the desired ideal free-space area,
2. the low resolution of the rotating table,
3. the possible interference from other ISM band devices,
and/or
4. human error.
Nevertheless, both the simulation and measurement results
Fig. 8. The fabricated 4×8 microstrip array antennas have shown that the designed radar antenna can operate at the
ISM band with sufficient horizontal beamwidth of less than
The S-parameter measurement result for the antenna is 15o. This result is the main interest of this research since the
shown in Fig. 9. It can be seen that the working frequency is antenna azimuth performance will directly affect the tracking
2.338 GHz to 2.425 GHz, which still fulfils the desired resolution of the radar system.
frequency requirement at the ISM band. The discrepancies
between this result and the simulation result in Fig. 5 may

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