The Development of Broadband Microstrip Patch Antenna for Wireless Applications

Abstract

In recent years, the use of unlicensed wireless communication bands has been widely used in different applications such as biomedical, military, and textile/wearable systems. This paper presents the design of the broadband microstrip patch antenna operating in the ISM 2.4 GHz band (2400-2485 MHz). The study includes a threedimensional antenna model, a simulation phase, and a fabrication/measurement phase. The small volume of microstrip antennas has low fabrication costs and easy fabrication, which has accelerated the work in this area. For the low cost of the antenna, FR-4 with a relative dielectric constant of 4.3 and a loss tangent tan 0.02 is preferred as the substrate material. The dielectric material thickness is determined as 1.6mm. The length of the feed line and the dimensions of the rectangular patch were found by mathematical calculations with the transmission line model. In the ISM band, antennas with low return loss and high bandwidth are required. The most important disadvantage of the patch antennas is their narrow bandwidth, which should be increased optimally. There are slots on the antenna, which is an especially simple method in order to improve the bandwidth parameters of the antenna. In the paper, four different designs are presented, the results are compared, and the proposed antenna has a rational bandwidth of 42.2% (979 MHz bandwidth), 24.529 dB return loss, and 2.68 dBi directivity gain at -10 dB at the resonance frequency of 2.316 GHz. The changes made in the antenna design have improved the resultant bandwidth compared to the conventional microstrip patch antenna. The proposed antenna is suitable for use in ISM band applications.