Design Strategy for a Tunable Antenna on a Partially Magnetized Ferrite LTCC Substrate

Typical microwave simulators cannot accurately predict the behavior of an antenna on a partially magnetized substrate as they assume the substrate to be in fully saturate state. In this work, a new simulation strategy aided by theoretical analysis, is presented to model a tunable patch antenna on a partially magnetized ferrite substrate through a combination of magnetostatic and microwave simulators. An antenna prototype is fabricated in Ferrite LTCC medium to verify the partially magnetized state simulations. The measured results are in close agreement with the simulations, contrary to the case where the substrate is assumed to be in saturation. The prototype designed for 13 GHz exhibits a tuning range of 10 % making it highly suitable for tunable and reconfigurable wireless applications.