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Procedia Technology 4 (2012) 87 – 91

C3IT 2012
Design of Compact Printed Antenna for WiMAX & WLAN
Applications
Barun Mazumdara, Ujjal Chakrabortyb, Aritra bhowmikc, S.K.Chowdhuryd
a
ECE Department, Aryabhatta Institute of Engg& Management Durgapur, West Bengal, India. Email:barun_bm@rediffmail.com
b
ECE Department, National Institute of Technology, Durgapur. West Bengal, India. Email: ujjal_dgp@yahoo.co.in
c
ECE Department, B.C.Roy Engineering College, Durgapur. West Bengal, India. Email: bhowmik_aritra@rediffmail.com
d
ECE Department, JIS College of Engineering, Phase-III, Block-A5, Kalyani, Nadia, West Bengal, India. Email:
santoshkumarchowdhury@gmail.com

Abstract

A single feed compact rectangular microstrip antenna for dual band application is presented in this paper. Two L slots
are introduced at the right edge of the patch to reduce the resonant frequency. For the proposed antenna two resonant
frequencies are obtained at 3.68 GHz and 5.74 GHz with bandwidth of 15.58 MHz, return loss –16.15 dB and
bandwidth of 80.32 MHz, return loss -15.05 dB respectively. The antenna size has been reduced by 62 % when
compared to a conventional microstrip patch. The characteristics of the designed structure are investigated by using
MoM based electromagnetic solver, IE3D. An extensive analysis of the return loss, radiation pattern, gain and
efficiency of the proposed antenna is presented. The simple configuration and low profile nature of the proposed
antenna leads to easy fabrication and make it suitable for the applications in Wireless communication system. Mainly
it is developed to operate in the WiMAX & WLAN application.

© 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of C3IT.
Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.
Keywords: Dual band, compact, slot, patch.

1. Introduction

Microstrip antennas are very attractive because of their low profile, low weight, conformal to the surface
of objects and easy production. A large number of microstrip patches to be used in wireless applications
have been developed [1–3]. Design of WLAN antennas also got popularity with the advancement of
microstrip antennas [4-7]. Wireless local area network (WLAN) requires three bands of frequencies:
2.4GHz (2400-2484MHz), 5.2GHz (5150-5350MHz) and 5.8GHz (5725-5825MHz).WiMax (Worldwide
Interoperability for Microwave access) has three allocated frequency bands. The low band (2.5-2.69
GHz), the middle band (3.2-3.8 GHz) and the upper band (5.2-5.8 GHz).The size of the antenna is
effectively reduced by cutting slot in proper position on the microstrip patch. It has a gain of 2.25 dBi at
3.68 GHz, 4.87 dBi at 5.74GHz presents a size reduction of about 62% when compared to a conventional

2212-0173 © 2012 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.
doi:10.1016/j.protcy.2012.05.011
88 Barun Mazumdar et al. / Procedia Technology 4 (2012) 87 – 91

microstrip patch. The simulation has been carried out by IE3D software which uses the MOM method.
Due to the Small size, low cost and low weight this antenna is a good candidate for the application of
wireless communication systems, mobile phones, digital cameras & laptops.

2. Antenna Configuration :

The configuration of the Conventional antenna is shown in Figure 1(a). The antenna is a 15mm x 12 mm
rectangular patch. The dielectric material selected for this design with İr=4.4 and substrate height =1.5875
mm.

Fig 1. (a) Antenna 1 configuration; (b) Antenna 2 configuration

Figure 1. (b) shows the configuration of antenna 2 designed with similar substrate. Two unequal L slots
(l1, l2) each are created and the location of coaxial probe- feed (radius=0.5 mm) are shown in this figure.

The optimal parameter values of the L slots are listed in Table 1.

Table1:

Parameters
m n o p l1 q r s t l2
Values
(mm) .3 4 1.3 4.35 5.65 2.85 2.5 .3 .3 3.15

3. Simulated Results & Analysis

Simulated (using IE3D [8]) results of return loss of the Conventional & proposed antenna are shown in
Figure 2. A significant improvement of frequency reduction is achieved in with respect to a conventional
microstrip antenna.
 Barun Mazumdar et al. / Procedia Technology 4 (2012) 87 – 91 89

0
0

-5

-5
-10

Return loss in dB
Return loss in dB

-15

-10
-20

-25

-15
-30

-35
4 5 6 7 8 3.3 3.6 3.9 4.2 4.5 4.8 5.1 5.4 5.7 6.0

Frequency in GHz Frequency in GHz

Fig2. (a)Return loss of the Conventional antenna (b) Return loss of the proposed antenna

3.1 Simulated radiation pattern

The simulated E –H plane radiation patterns for antenna 2 are shown in Figure 3-5.

Fig 3. (a) E plane Radiation Pattern of the antenna 2 for 3.68 GHz (b) H plane Radiation Pattern of the antenna 2 for 3.68 GHz
90 Barun Mazumdar et al. / Procedia Technology 4 (2012) 87 – 91

Fig 4. (a) E plane Radiation Pattern of the antenna 2 for 4.56 GHz (b) H plane Radiation Pattern of the antenna 2 for 4.56 GHz

Fig 5. (a) E plane Radiation Pattern of the antenna 2 for 5.74 GHz (b) H plane Radiation Pattern of the antenna 2 for 5.74 GHz

5 80
Antenna efficiency
Radiating efficiency
70

0
60
Efficiency in Percentage

50
-5
Gain in dBi

40

-10 30

20

-15
10

0
-20
3.5 4.0 4.5 5.0 5.5 6.0 3.3 3.6 3.9 4.2 4.5 4.8 5.1 5.4 5.7 6.0

Frequecy in GHz Frequeny in Ghz

Fig 6: Gain versus frequency plot for the antenna 2. Fig 7: Antenna efficiency versus frequency plot for the antenna 2.

Figure 6 shows the Gain versus frequency plot for the antenna 2.It is observed that maximum gain is
about 4.87dBi for 5.74 GHz.
 Barun Mazumdar et al. / Procedia Technology 4 (2012) 87 – 91 91

Efficiency of the antenna 2 with the variation of frequency is shown in figure 7. It is found that antenna
efficiency is about 40% for 3.68 GHz, 66% for 4.56GHz & 64% for 5.74 GHz.

Simulated results of the antenna are shown in the table 2.

Antenna Resonant Return 10 dB 3dB Beam Absolute

structure frequency Loss (dB) Bandwidth width (°) gain
(GHz) (MHz) (dBi)

For h plane: 145.28

1 5.77 -25.87 117.69 For e plane: 100.44 3.86
For h plane: 164.46
2 3.68 –16.15 15.58 For e plane: 105.25 2.25
For h plane: 158.65
4.56 -10.45 17.68 For e plane: 102.55 4.69
For h plane: 154.20
5.74 - 15.05 80.32 For e plane: 98.07 4.87

4. Conclusion

A single feed single layer two L slots microstrip antenna has been proposed in this paper. It is shown that
the proposed antenna can operate in two frequency bands. The slots reduced the size of the antenna by 62
% and increase the bandwidth up to 80.32 MHz with a return loss of -16.15 dB ,absolute gain about 4.87
dBi and 3 dB beamwidth of 164.46 deg. Efficiency of antenna has been achieved 40 % for the lower band
and 64% for the higher band of operation. An optimization between size reduction and bandwidth
enhancement is maintained in this work.

References

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