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where the normalized radiation conductance, g r , and reflection coefficient, G , for a given
element are obtained from g r 1⁄4 Z 0 / R rad and G n 1⁄4 ( Z inn 2 Z fl )/( Z inn + Z fl ). R rad is
the radiation resistance of the patch element, Z 0 is the characteristic impedance of the feed line,
Z inn is the input impedance at the n th junction, and Z fl is the feed line impedance. From the
insertion phase of the patch and connecting transmission line, the phase distribution across the
array can be obtained. The relative phase and electrical length at each element of the array can
be calculated from the wavelength in the patch and feed line. The radiation pattern and array
factor can be calculated as the phase and amplitude are known. Instead of using conventional
step methods or tapers, three open-ended l g /4 stubs in each l g /8 portion of the transmission
lines are used in order to match the patches with exciting ports and increase the impedance
bandwidth of the series-fed microstrip patch antenna array. These capacitive stubs linear- ize
and lower the characteristic impedance of the array to a constant value. They are not required to
be 180 8 electrical length since they do not resonant. More pattern control in the E -plane is
possible by controlling the phase of edges using stubs with different lengths. The bandwidth of a
series-fed microstrip patch antenna increases significantly if periodic open-ended l g /4 stubs are
used to ensure a constant Bloch wave characteristic impedance [7]. To design a wide bandwidth
patch antenna array the characteristic impedance of the patches should be equal to the
characteristic impedance of the feed lines [8–10]. Each section of the loaded transmission line
can be modeled as a high-impedance transmission line series with a low- impedance
transmission line. Figure 2 shows a schematic diagram of an eight-element series-fed microstrip
patch antennas including the l g /2 transmission lines to connect these elements and the l g /4
open-ended transmission lines. This array is designed and simulated on the top layer of a
multilayer LTCC substrate with dielectric constant ( 1 r ) of 7.8 and thickness of 121 m M. Figure
3 presents the gain and directivity of series-fed microstrip patch antenna array with maximum of
18 and 25 dB, respectively. S 11 and voltage standing wave ratio (VSWR) of the series-fed
microstrip patch antenna array are shown in Fig. 4. The 3D and 2D radiation patterns of a single
microstrip patch antenna array at the center frequency of 58.57 GHz are presented in Fig. 5. The
radiation patterns remain gener- ally constant and symmetric across the matched impedance
bandwidth. Passive beamforming is a powerful method for location positioning at the millimeter
frequency range. Increasing the directivity with a microstrip patch antenna array at the millimeter
wave frequency band lowers the design complexity and reduces the costs. A Rotman lens is
designed at the center frequency of 60 GHz for radio frequency identification (RFID) applications
in this work. Five beam ports were chosen to allow for a wide range of beam steering with a
small amount of phase error. A scan angle of 30 8 has been selected to cover an azimuthal
angle of 60 8 at a 2 6 dB antenna radiation pattern to support a wide scanning capability. The
antenna beam pattern is chosen to be approximately 15 8 at 2 3 dB to allow a beam overlap. The
array element spacing along the outer contour was chosen to be 0.5 l 0 . Element spacing
determines the microstrip patch antenna row spacing and eventually the desired beamwidth. To
keep the geometry compact, the scan angle w has been selected to be the same as the focal
angle a . To implementation the structure, the same substrate with a dielectric constant ( 1 r ) of
7.8 and thickness of 121 m M as the series-fed microstrip patch array antenna is used. The
LTCC substrate has a loss tangent of 0.001. The low line losses as well as competitive
manufacturing costs are the main advantages of LTCC for RF and microwave applications. After
the initial design objectives were set, the lens geometry was simulated with a finite-difference
time-domain simulator and the results were confirmed with a finite-element method analysis. The
design parameters including geometric dimensions and losses were then optimized using
sidelobe levels, phase errors, and sidewall curvature as cost functions. A 3D view of the
designed lens is shown in Fig. 6. The main parameter for the Rotman lens is its array factor
which presents the beam direction, angle, and level of side lobes. The array factor is shown in
Fig. 7(a) for different beam port excitations which has sidelobes of less than 2 12 dB at a 60 GHz
center frequency. The array factor ana- lyses indicate that medium beam transmission lines and
routed medium array transmission lines with small tapered flare angle are the best choices to
lower the sidelobes level. An important design factor is the accuracy in the beam steering and
the maximum phase error associated with the different beam ports excitation. Phase error can be
determined by comparing electrical lengths along two different paths from a given beam port
through the lens [11–14]. The first path travels along each of the off-axis array ports. As for the
second path, it begins at the same beam port but travels through the array curve center. The
beam to array phase error for all the ports of the proposed scheme are shown in Fig. 7(b); it is
always zero for the center array port as it is the calculation reference point. All beam and array
port locations are optimized to produce minimum phase errors. The maximum beam to array
phase error for all beam ports was found below 0.45 8 , and the average phase error is lower
than 0.25 8 which is a considerable improvement compared with the reported phase error in
other works [15, 16]. To further reduce the costs of fabrication, l /4 radial stubs, instead of via
hole through the substrate, are used to terminate the dummy ports of the proposed lens. This
also reduces the costs of testing by eliminating the need for costly connectors for each dummy
port during the test phase. Figure 8(a) shows the top view of the proposed lens and Fig. 8(b)
shows the array factor of the proposed Rotman lens with radial stubs for terminating the dummy
ports. A comparison to the via-hole termination design (shown in Fig. 6) with the center beam
port excited. The array factors of the lens for the center beam port show that the main lobes are
unaffected while the main sidelobe levels increased almost by 0.5 dB. In addition to the cost
reduction, the l /4 radial stub reduces the area overhead. The stubs are connected in series with
50 V tapers. The geometry calculation of the radial stub is illustrated below in Fig. 9. The width,
W , of the stub is set to be 50 V to match with the taper of the lens shown in Fig. 9. The length, R
, is chosen to be l /4, which makes an open circuit stub act as a short circuit. The angle, f , is
limited to a range: f , f , 170 8 ; these limitations support practical geometries. The minimum
angle, f min , is limited to where the chord across the arc is less than W and can be calculated
from: f min 1⁄4 2 × arcsin(0.5 W / R ). The f is chosen to be 70 8 to meet the design requirement
while reducing sidelobe levels. One approach to reduce the costs of an RFID reader or wireless
communication systems is to employ micro electro mech- anical systems (MEMS) technology
utilizing low-cost materials and to omit any analog or digital circuitry devices. A microwave
beamformer, such as a Rotman lens, offers a path delay mechanism to form the desired
beamforming without any extra analog or digital circuitry. The lens can be combined with a highly
directional series-fed antenna array utilizing the same technology and substrate to ease the
pack- aging complexity and reduce the fabrication costs. These two components provide an
inexpensive and compact solution to implement a 60 GHz transceiver. Figure 10 shows the
geometry of the proposed lens connected to a series-fed microstrip patch antenna arrays.
Figures 11 and 12 present the gain, directivity, return loss, and voltage standing wave ratio of the
proposed lens connected to the arrays of antenna. In a uni- formly excited planer antenna array
with equal space of l /2, the directivity and gain are highly depended on the element spacing and
the number of elements. Far-field 3D and 2D radiation patterns of a Rotman lens combined with
five microstrip patch antenna arrays at a center frequency of 58.57 GHz for an excited center
beam port are presented in Fig. 13. The wafer area costs could further be reduced by fabricating
the Rotman lens and antenna back to back on different sides of a multilayer LTCC substrate.
This approach enhances the compactness of the whole package considerably as most of the
area is consumed by the antenna especially if the number of patches is increased in the arrays;
however, the fabrication cost increases due to many via holes through the substrate. From Fig.
10, for an array of eight microstrip patch antennas, the back-to-back design approach would cut
the wafer size in half. The transition between layers can be done either electric- ally using vias or
magnetically coupled slots. The power loss between layers is critical because it can reduce the
efficiency of the entire system. To minimize this effect, via holes in a coaxial structure are
realized to follow the fabrication process rules of the multilayer LTCC substrate. Figure 14 shows
the insertion loss and the return loss of a via hole using two 121 m M layers of the LTCC
substrate at the center frequency of 60 GHz. A new design technique to realize an efficient
microstrip Rotman lens combined with a wide bandwidth patch antenna array for 60 GHz
applications is presented in this work to support location positioning and increase the
communication range through beam steering. The progressive phase delay is realized
independent of the length of transmission lines to reduce the design complexity while improving
the phase error. A wideband microstrip patch antenna array is developed with high gain,
directivity, and bandwidth using l /4 microstrip transmission lines. Four radial stubs are used as
virtual grounds to terminate the dummy ports instead of via holes in the Rotman lens to reduce
the costs of fabrication and testing. The authors would like to thank the research and financial
supports received from Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of
Canada and CMC Microsystems. Ali Attaran received the B.A.Sc. and M.A.Sc. degrees in
Electrical Engineering in 2005 and 2008 and also his Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering at
the University of Windsor, Windsor, ON, Canada in 2015. RFID, Radar, Analog, Digital, RF and
Microwave- Integrated Circuit Design, and MEMS are his research interests. He is currently
working as a Research Assistant in Research Center for Integrated Microsystems (RCIM)
laboratory. Rashid Rashidzadeh received the B.S.E.E. degree from Sharif University of
Technology, Tehran, Iran, in 1989 and the M.A.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering
from the University of Windsor, Windsor, ON, Canada in 2003 and 2007, respectively. From 1990
to 2000 he worked in industry where he was involved with the design and test of analog and RF
circuits for telecommunication systems. He is currently with the Electrical and Computer
Engineering Department at the University of Windsor. His research focuses on design and test of
analog/RF cores in mixed-signal system-on-chip environments.

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