A reconfigurable flexible fractal‐based monopole antenna for portable applications

Abstract

SummaryDesign of a fractal printed circuit antenna structure for portable applications is presented in this paper. The proposed antenna consisted of a modified Hilbert patch printed on a flexible polyamide substrate. The antenna is surrounded with a defected electromagnetic bandgap (EBG) open loop. A parametric study based a numerical analysis is invoked to refine the proposed antenna performance. The proposed antenna is fabricated on polymer substrate with dimensions of 50 × 60 × 0.3 mm3. The proposed antenna performance is tested experimentally and compared to the simulated results from a commercial software package based on Computer Simulation Technology Microwave Studio (CST MW). The experimental results are found to agree well with simulated results. It is found that the proposed antenna design suites the applications of the frequency bands of UHF and ISM portable systems. The antenna shows two bandwidths from 0.8 to 1 GHz and from 2.3 to 2.6 GHz with average gain of around 3.1 and 7 dBi, respectively. The antenna performances are conducted based on analytical and numerical simulations. The fabricated prototype performances are measured experimentally to show excellent agreement with the simulated results. Finally, it is found that the proposed antenna frequency resonance and bandwidth are insignificantly affected when mounted in close to the human body; therefore, it would be excellent candidate to be in use with biomedical applications.