International Journal of Advances in Engineering & Technology, Jan 2012. ©IJAET ISSN: 2231-1963 377 Vol. 2, Issue 1, pp. 377-384 PARAMETRIC STUDY OF A NOVEL STACKED PATCH ANTENNA V. Rajya Lakshmi 1 , M. Sravani 2 , G.S.N.Raju 3 1 Department of Electronics and Communications Engineering, Anil Neerukonda Institute of Technology and Sciences, Visakhapatnam 2&3 Department of Electronics and Communications Engineering, Andhra University College of Engineering (A), Visakhapatnam ABSTRACT An inverted stacked microstrip patch antenna with single-fed at 1.30 GHz for GPS applications is designed at L band using electromagnetic simulator WIPL-D. The radiation patterns of microstrip antennas depend upon parameters like width, length, resonant frequency and dielectric constant. In view of this, by varying the height of the air gap, feed position and dielectric constant of the patch, corresponding radiation pattern, near field and return loss are observed. KEYWORDS: Stacked microstrip patch antenna, Return loss, Radiation pattern, WIPL-D I. INTRODUCTION Microstrip antennas often called patch antennas [1-5] are widely used in the microwave frequency region [6-7]. The advantages of the microstrip antennas are small size, low profile, and lightweight, conformable to planar and non planar surfaces. It demands a very little volume of the structure when mounting. They are simple and cheap to manufacture using modern printed circuit technology. There are many configurations that can be used to feed microstrip antennas. The four most popular are microstrip line, coaxial probe, aperture coupling and proximity coupling [8]. A wide range of substrate materials is available, clad with copper, aluminum or gold. Low cladding thickness simplify fabrication of the antenna to required tolerances, whereas thicker clads ease soldering [9]. For high power applications of microstrip antennas, a thick cladding is desirable. The large range of substrates are available, viz., PTFE, Polystyrene, Polyphenylene, Ceramic, etc., permits considerable flexibility in the choice of a substrate for particular applications [10]. In this paper, an inverted stacked microstrip patch antenna is designed with microstrip line feed using WIPL-D at frequency 1.30 GHz for GPS applications.GPS is global positioning system based on satellite technology [11-19]. In microstrip line type of feed technique, a conducting strip is connected directly to the edge of the microstrip patch. The conducting strip is smaller in width as compared to the patch and this kind of feed arrangement has the advantage that the feed can be etched on the same substrate to provide a planar structure. Hence this is an easy feeding scheme, as it provides ease of fabrication and simplicity in modeling. In order to simplify analysis and performance prediction, the patch is generally square, rectangular, circular, triangular, and elliptical or some other common shape. The effect of various parameters such as relative permittivity ( r ), the distance of feed position from center, and height of the air gap (h) on the performance of the antenna has been studied.