Multi-Band Metamaterial-Based Microstrip Antenna

for WLAN and WiMAX Applications

Kai Yu, Yingsong Li*, Yanyan Wang
College of Information and Communications Engineering,
Harbin Engineering University, Harbin 150001, China
*liyingsong@ieee.org
Abstract- Two multi-band metamaterial based microstrip bands. The results indicate that the proposed antennas can not
antennas are designed for WLAN and WiMAX applications. only be used for WLAN/WiMAX applications, but also have
Antenna 1 consists of a simple rectangle monopole radiator with omnidirectional radiation patterns.
a 2×3 complementary split ring resonator (CSRR) printed on its II. ANTENNA DESIGN
back ground. By using CSRR technique, two frequency bands
operating at 3.2-3.9 GHz and 5.65-5.8 GHz are achieved. Antenna A. Antenna 1 with 2×3 CSRRs
2 is composed of a rectangle patch with a CSRR slot and a
conventional ground plane, which can provide a triple-band
characteristic covering 2.4-2.48 GHz, 3.3-3.9 GHz and 5.15-5.7
GHz. The operational bands of these two antennas can be used
for WiMAX at 2.5/3.5/5.5 GHz and WLAN at 2.4/5.2/5.8 GHz,
and it has omnidirectional radiation patterns, which can be the
good candidate for WiMAX and WLAN applications.
Keywords—metamaterial antenna; multi-band antenna; split
ring structure (SRS); WiMAX/WLAN applications Fig. 1 Geometry of proposed dual-band metamaterial monopole Antenna 1
The configuration of the proposed dual-band metamaterial
I. INTRODUCTION monopole antenna is depicted in Fig. 1, which is composed of
In recent years, microstrip antennas have got more and a simple rectangle radiation patch, a conventional rectangle
more attentions due to the rapid development of wireless ground plane and a 2×3 CSRR array printed on the back of the
communications and their advantages of low cost, easy of antenna. Here, the 2×3 CSRRs act as a metamaterial structure
fabrication. Moreover, wireless device requires a single to realize the multi-band performance. The antenna is printed
antenna to satisfy the multi-band communication applications. on a FR4 substrate with a thickness of h=1.6 mm and a
Then, multi-band antenna techniques are popular and amazing relative permittivity of İr =4.4. The antenna has a total size of
in the last decades. Many methods have been developed to 20mm×30mm. The optimized parameters obtained from HFSS
obtain a good multi-band performance, including etching slots are L= 30, L1= 27.5, L2= 10, W1= 3, a= 4.5, b= 0.4. c= 0.75,
on the patch [1] and loading shorted pins and walls [2]. The d= 0.4, e= 0.4, h= 1.6 (unit: mm).
emergence of metamaterial technology provides a new choice B. Antenna 2 with a CSRR slot
for the multi-band antenna designs. As we know, the split ring
resonator (SRR) and complementary split ring resonator
(CSRR) are the most used basic metamaterial unit-cells. By
etching these unit-cells on the radiation patch or loading them
on the substrate, ground plane and setting them around the
patch, multi-band characteristics can be realized [3-4].
Meanwhile, as wireless technology rapidly develops,
smartphone, laptop and other personal terminal devices are
being popular in our everyday life. Thus, both the wireless
Fig. 2 Geometry of proposed triple-band metamaterial patch Antenna 2
local area network (WLAN) and worldwide interoperability
for microwave access (WiMAX) are in great demand for our The geometry of the tri-band antenna consists of a
portable terminals, which leads to the design of multi-band rectangular patch that is printed on a substrate with relative
antennas for WLAN and WiMAX [5-6]. permittivity of 2.65 and thickness of 0.9 mm. By etching a
In this paper, we propose two multi-band metamaterial CSRR unit on the patch of this antenna, a triple-band
antennas. With 2×3 CSRRs printed on the back of the characteristic is created. The overall dimension of the antenna
microstrip antenna, a dual-band antenna can be achieved, is 35×35mm2 as shown in Fig. 2 and the optimized parameters
which can operate at two bands at 3.5/5.7 GHz for WiMAX are L= 35, L1= 22, L2= 10, W= 35, W1= 14, a= 11.5, b= 0.6,
3.5GHz and WLAN 5.8 GHz bands. Also, this antenna is c= 1.6, d= 0.6, e= 1.6, s=2.8, h=0.9 (unit: mm).
denoted as antenna 1. The second antenna is carried out by the III. PERFORMANCE OF THE ANTENNAS
means of integrating a CSRR unit-cell into the radiation patch, A. Antenna 1
resulting in a triple-band functions operating at 2.4/3.5/5.3 The return losses of a monopole antenna without the
GHz and 3.5/5.5GHz for covering the WLAN and WiMAX metamaterial loading and our proposed metamaterial Antenna

Authorized licensed use limited to: PES University Bengaluru. Downloaded on January 21,2021 at 08:20:53 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
1 are shown in Fig. 3. From fig. 3, we can observe that the
original monopole antenna has only one operating band at 3.5
GHz, and our proposed antenna 1 can provide two frequency
bands at 3.2 to 3.9 GHz for WiMAX and from 5.75 to 5.85
GHz for WLAN. Thus, we can say that the 3.5 GHz band is
produced by the radiation patch, while the second resonance
band is gotten by the loading CSRR units.
Fig. 3 Return losses of original antenna and proposed metamaterial antenna 1
(a) (b)
Fig. 4 Radiation patterns: (a) XOY plane, (b) XOZ plane.
The radiation patterns of the proposed metamaterial
monopole antenna 1 at 3.5 GHz and 5.8 GHz are shown in Fig.
4. It can be seen that the radiation patterns of antenna 1 are
nearly omnidirectional in XOZ plane and a figure-of-eight
radiation patterns in XOY plane, indicating that the antenna 1
is very suitable for wireless communication applications.
B. Antenna 2
Fig. 5 Return loss of original antenna and proposed metamaterial Antenna 2
The return losses of the proposed metamaterial Antenna 2
are shown in Figure. 5. It can be found that the original
antenna has a band at 3.5 GHz. By etching the CSRR unit-cell
on the patch, the Antenna 2 can give three operating bands at
2.35-2.48 GHz for 2.4 GHz WLAN, 3.3-4.2 GHz for 3.5 GHz
WiMAX and 5.15-5.65 GHz for 5.2 GHz WLAN and 5.5 GHz
WiMAX.
Authorized licensed use limited to: PES University Bengaluru. Downloaded on January 21,2021 at 08:20:53 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
(a) (b)
Fig. 6 Radiation patterns: (a) XOY plane, (b) XOZ plane.
The radiation patterns of the proposed metamaterial patch
antenna 2 at 2.45 GHz, 3.5 GHz and 5.25 GHz are shown in
Fig. 6. From the results, we can find that the radiation patterns
are nearly omnidirectional in XOZ plane and a “8”-like
radiation patterns in XOY plane, which indicate that the
antenna 2 is a good candidate to meet the requirement of
multi-band wireless transmission applications.
IV. CONCLUSIONS
In this paper, two multi-band metamaterial antennas have
been designed. By integrating a 2×3 CSRR metamaterial
structure on the back of a monopole antenna, the metamaterial
Antenna 1 can give two bands at 3.5 GHz for WiMAX and 5.8
GHz for WLAN applications. By etching a CSRR unit on the
radiation patch, the metamaterial Antenna 2 can provide three
operating bands operating at 2.35-2.48 GHz, 3.3-4.2 GHz and
5.15-5.65 GHz, which can be used for 2.4 GHz WLAN,
3.5GHz WiMAX and 5.2GHz WLAN/5.5 GHz WiMAX.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This paper is funded by the International Exchange
Program of Harbin Engineering University for Innovation-
oriented Talents Cultivation. This work was also partially
supported by the National Key Research and Development
Program of China-Government Corporation Special Program
(2016YFE0111100), the Science and Technology innovative
Talents Foundation of Harbin (2016RAXXJ044), Projects for
the Selected Returned Overseas Chinese Scholars of
Heilongjiang Province and MOHRSS of China, and the
Foundational Research Funds for the Central Universities
(HEUCFD1433, HEUCF160815).
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