Design and Development of Enhanced Bandwidth Multi Frequency Slotted Antenna for 4g LTE, Wi-Max, WLAN and S/C/X Band Applications

Abstract

In recent years, the uses of wireless communication systems have increased rapidly. With the development of wireless communication system, it is preferable to consolidate as many standards such as 4G LTE (long term evolution), WiMAX (worldwide interoperability for microwave access), WLAN (wireless area network) and S/C/X-band standards into a single wireless device. Hence microstrip slot antenna, which is operational at microwave frequencies, is an appropriate choice for implementing such systems. It is simple in construction, have low profile structure and low fabrication cost. It is also capable of supporting multiple frequency bands (dual, triple and multiband) with enhanced bandwidth and compact in size which can be accommodated with other devices. Microstrip antenna is effective in achieving the desired radiation pattern, reasonable gain and enhanced impedance bandwidth. This report present a new approach for the design of a multiband microstrip patch antenna which is designed by using FR-4 substrate, relative permittivity of εr =4.4, a thickness of 1.6 mm and a loss tangent of 0.02 .The proposed antenna is composed of rectangular slot, a pair of E-shape stubs, an inverted T-shape stub and staircase feed line to excite the antenna. By using these structures, the antenna generates four different frequency bands. The multiband slot antenna is designed and simulated using microwave studio CST version 17 software. To verify the simulated results, the antenna is fabricated and tested. The experimental results shows that the antenna resonates at 2.24 GHz, 4.2 GHz, 5.25GHz and 9.3 GHz with impedance bandwidth of 640 MHz (2.17-2.82 GHz) covering WiMAX (802.16e), Space to Earth communications, 4G-LTE, IEEE 802.11b/ g WLAN systems defined for C-band applications. Also the proposed antenna exhibits bandwidth of 280 MHz (4.1-4.38GHz) for Aeronautical and Radio navigation applications, 80 MHz (4.2 to 4.28 GHz) for uncoordinated indoor systems, 1060 MHz (5.04–6.1 GHz) for the IEEE 802.11a WLAN system defined for S-band applications and 2380 MHz (7.9-10.28 GHz) defined for X-band applications. The antenna shows the bidirectional at one resonating frequency and directional radiation pattern at three other operating frequencies. The simulated and measurement results are found to agree well with each other.