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What is a PCB antenna?
The antenna PCB is basically a wireless device for sending and receiving signals. Almost all wireless devices use wireless PCBs.
How to design the PCB antenna?
There are many types of antenna PCBs. Before knowing how to design an antenna PCB, we must know the process of choosing the correct type of antenna. The two most important steps in building any wireless device are the antenna PCB layout and the RF layout. There is a great demand for compact PCB antennas operating in the ISM frequency band. Most devices use the 2.4 GHz band and the 915 GHz band, and we will discuss the entire process based on the 2.4 GHz band.
There are mainly two types of antennas that dominate other types of antennas. They are inverted F antenna repair lines. Since this is a big discussion, we cannot cover everything in one article, so here we will only discuss the Mender series of inverted antennas.
Antenna calculation: Antenna calculation is a very important step. But before the calculation, we have set some parameters correctly.
Substrate selection and operating frequency
Calculate the appropriate length and width of the substrate.
Calculate the length and width of the trace.
Let us consider that the PCB is made of FR4 material and its relative permeability is 4.4.
The height of the substrate can be calculated using the following formula:
hs = substrate height,
F = frequency in GHz,
C = the speed of light in m/s,
Σr = the dielectric constant of the substrate.
The width of the trace can be determined using the following methods:
Σff = effective dielectric constant
Σff=(Σr+ 1/2)+(Σr-1/ 2)(1 /(√1+ 12hs /(wₚ)))(4)
ΔL=physical length
The length of the substrate is given by:
Ls = Lp + 6 hours
The width of the substrate is given by the following formula:
ws = wp + 6 hs (7)
The relationship between the width and depth of the microstrip is determined by the following formula:
d = trace width,
w = substrate width
A = effective area.
Now, we will design a 8285Ghz radio frequency board based on ESP2.4.
Schematic design: To design a schematic, we must first download the hardware design guide for esp8266 from Google. We must follow the design guidelines. First, we must focus on the analog power and digital power of ESP Figure 1.
2.4 GHz antenna PCB layout:
Here, SJ3 and SJ4 choose between tracking antenna and UFL connector. The antenna part is created here so that we can switch between the PCB antenna and the whip antenna. The two inductors L2 and L3 are grounded.
Antenna part:
Step 1 We must place all the necessary connectors and plugs.
After that, we must place the antenna and UFL connector. Then, we must gradually place the switches for the GPIO, the microcontroller, and of course the programming header.
Now we have to route the antenna PCB. But before routing things, we must remember that the impedance of the trace must be 50 ohms. Therefore, you need to calculate the impedance of the trace, and you can use other online tools like Mantaro to do the calculation. We will show you all calculations using Mantaro.
First, we must place all the necessary parameters. In the picture above, you can see that we have entered some values, such as stroke width 70, stroke thickness 1.4, dielectric layer thickness 39.3701 and relative permittivity 4.5. Now, if we click Calculate, we will get the exact 50509, which is almost equal to the value 50 we expect.
Now, since we can obtain the tracking impedance based on the desired value, we can now execute the routine perfectly.
After completing the routing, we got this image. Now, all we have to do is to send this design to the PCB manufacturing company to apply it to our design, and then we have to program and test it.
This is a brief discussion on how to design an antenna PCB.
