Design of Compact Modified Arrow-Shaped Microstrip Patch Antenna for WiMAX / WLAN Application

Abstract

The design of compact modified arrow-shaped microstrip patch antenna for WiMAX /WLAN application is proposed and investigated in this article. The proposed design consists of the modified arrow-shaped radiating element with a rectangular open slot along the lower side edge, two triangular open slots along both sidewalls of it. The radiating element is simple, compact and planer in size. The ground structure is shaped as funnel-like structure with two modified trapezoidal open slots to achieve multiband operation with enhanced bandwidth. This antenna is designed using Rogers RT/duroid 5870 substrate within the volume of 33 × 32 × 1.57 mm³. The antenna radiates in 2.48 GHz – 2.70 GHz, 3.36 GHz – 3.55 GHz bands, suitable for worldwide interoperability for microwave access WiMAX (2.5/ 3.5 GHz) bands and also in 5.70 GHz – 5.86 GHz band suitable for wireless local area network WLAN (5.8 GHz) band. The antenna’s peak gain is achieved as 5.1 dBi at 5.8 GHz, with greater than 3 dBi achieved at other (2.5 / 3.5 GHz) centre frequencies. Radiation efficiency is obtained as 99.4% at 2.55 GHz with greater than 96.1% at all other resonant frequencies. The bi-directional, stable radiation pattern is obtained. The effect of rectangular open slot on modified radiating element and the effect of funnel-like ground plane is discussed in detail. This research article aims to simultaneously combine WLAN and WiMAX standards operating using a single antenna. A prototype is fabricated and tested to validate the simulated results.