High gain microstrip antenna design for broadband wireless applications

Abstract

This article presents a new broadband microstrip antenna for personal communications systems (PCS) applications. Using multilayer substrate structure with aperture-coupled feed, a rectangular microstrip patch antenna operating at 1.9-GHz band is designed and experimentally validated. This antenna configuration uses a quarter-wave transformer to enhance the matching between the feed transmission line and the antenna patch. To demonstrate the design procedure, a first experimental broadband microstrip antenna prototype is designed and implemented. To analyse its performance, measurements are carried out and good performances are achieved. However, this prototype has a low front-to-back ratio. To overcome this drawback, an optimization process is proposed, and a second prototype is designed and successfully realized. To examine the effect of the optimization, experimental investigations are carried out on the second prototype. Very good agreement is obtained between numerical and measured results. Experimental results indicate that the proposed antenna achieves a bandwidth of 21%, a gain of 9.5 dB, and a front-to-back ratio of 20 dB, which are very sufficient for broadband wireless applications. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE 13, 511–517, 2003.