Metasurface Reflector (MSR) Loading for High Performance Small Microstrip Antenna Design

Abstract

A meander stripline feed multiband microstrip antenna loaded with metasurface reflector (MSR) structure has been designed, analyzed and constructed that offers the wireless communication services for UHF/microwave RFID and WLAN/WiMAX applications. The proposed MSR assimilated antenna comprises planar straight forward design of circular shaped radiator with horizontal slots on it and 2D metasurface formed by the periodic square metallic element that resembles the behavior of metamaterials. A custom made high dielectric bio-plastic substrate (ε r = 15) is used for fabricating the prototype of the MSR embedded planar monopole antenna. The details of the design progress through numerical simulations and experimental results are presented and discussed accordingly. The measured impedance bandwidth, radiation patterns and gain of the proposed MSR integrated antenna are compared with the obtained results from numerical simulation, and a good compliance can be observed between them. The investigation shows that utilization of MSR structure has significantly broadened the -10dB impedance bandwidth than the conventional patch antenna: from 540 to 632 MHz (17%), 467 to 606 MHz (29%) and 758 MHz to 1062 MHz (40%) for three distinct operating bands centered at 0.9, 3.5 and 5.5 GHz. Additionally, due to the assimilation of MSR, the overall realized gains have been upgraded to a higher value of 3.62 dBi, 6.09 dBi and 8.6 dBi for lower, middle and upper frequency band respectively. The measured radiation patterns, impedance bandwidths (S11<-10 dB) and gains from the MSR loaded antenna prototype exhibit reasonable characteristics that can satisfy the requirements of UHF/microwave (5.8 GHz) RFID, WiMAX (3.5/5.5 GHz) and WLAN (5.2/5.8 GHz) applications.

High performance microstrip monopole antenna with loaded metamaterial wire medium superstrate

“…Using the above formulas, the dimensions of the rectangular radiator are initially calculated as a starting point before optimizing the patch geometry. The diameter of the proposed circular patch is then extended to cover the whole area of the rectangular radiator . For optimizing the dimensions in accordance with the calculated one, CST microwave studio software is used to perform many iterative simulations based on 3D full‐wave time domain solver in order to obtain the optimum dimensions that achieve the desired performance.…”

“…The diameter of the proposed circular patch is then extended to cover the whole area of the rectangular radiator. 2 For optimizing the dimensions in accordance with the calculated one, CST microwave studio software is used to perform many iterative simulations based on 3D full-wave time domain solver in order to obtain the optimum dimensions that achieve the desired performance. During the design process, the dimensions were tuned to achieve the best impedance matching over the operating band and the best gain simultaneously.…”

“…The conventional microstrip antennas have a limited gain, and narrower bandwidth. To overcome these shortcomings, many promising techniques were presented in literature to improve the microstrip antennas performance …”

“…To overcome these shortcomings, many promising techniques were presented in literature to improve the microstrip antennas performance. [2][3][4] The most common technique to achieve high gain out of the microstrip antenna is to utilize multiple radiating elements as an array. However, in order to obtain the required phase response, the feeding network of the array becomes more complicated.…”

Millimeter‐wave microstrip patch antenna using vertically coupled split ring metaplate for gain enhancement

“…However, these antennas are large in size and complex design is required to solve the problem of coupling between elements or ports of an antenna. The use of metamaterial is a promising technology for performance enhancement, miniaturization, and easy fabrication of antennas . Metamaterial's permeability ( μ ) and dielectric constant ( ε r ) parameters are set to negative values at the same frequency.…”