In the modern era, metamaterials are gaining enormous interest of

researchers due to their peculiar electromagnetic properties. In this

proposed work, a novel square Minkowski fractal-shaped metamaterial
(MTM) array is designed as a superstrate of rectangular patch antenna
with defected ground structure. This proposed MTM superstrate,
placed at optimum height of 15 mm from the designed rectangular
patch antenna, enhances the gain of antenna in wireless transmission
for satellite communications. The simulation results indicate that the
gain of antenna increases from 6.0 to 8.9 dB after loading it with 6 × 3 
× 1 MTM array as a superstrate, which is of significant value for the
whole wireless transmission system. Analytical and design results are
obtained using 3D electromagnetic simulator termed as HFSS version
15.0. The left-handed metamaterial characteristics of the novel square
Minkowski fractal-shaped unit cells are verified using S-parameter
retrieval method in MATLAB R2014a. The exemplary prototype of
proposed fractal metamaterial-loaded patch antenna is fabricated to
confirm the experimental results. It is observed that reasonable
agreement is achieved between the simulated and measured results.