Design of low-cost microstrip patch antennas with robust optimization

This paper presents a robust optimization method to design patch antennas that consider uncertainties from the substrate electromagnetic properties and the manufacturing equipment. The robust optimization method is proposed to design an antenna that uses FR-4 as a substrate, addressing the uncertainties originated from the lack of standardization of this material properties and errors in the manufacturing process of the antenna. By addressing these uncertainties, robust design can result in a low-cost antenna with good performance that is less sensitive to deviations in the defined project variables. The optimization scheme used in this paper is based on NSGA-II, and the robustness of its solutions is quantified with the standard deviation of samples from the performance parameters in the uncertainty set from the design parameters. Two prototypes of patch antennas, one with linear and the other with circular polarization are designed, built, and measured.