Compact microstrip monopole antenna with Enhanced Gain using Artificial Magnetic Conductor (AMC)

Abstract

This paper presents the performance of a microstrip monopole antenna with and without an Artificial Magnetic Conductor (AMC). The antenna and AMC structures are designed at 2.45 GHz using Rogers RO3003 and RT5880 respectively. The thickness of the substrate of the antenna is 1.52 mm and the permittivity are 3. For the AMC, the thickness and the permittivity of the substrate are 3.18 mm and 2.2. The designed antenna has a hexagonal shape, and it is grounded by 3x3 AMC array. From the simulated results, it is found that integrating the AMC structure to the printed monopole antenna was significantly improved the gain and directivity of the antenna. With the AMC, the achieved gain is 6.54 dB, which exhibited 3.68 dB of increment. This antenna has high gain, as it has both high radiation efficiency and directivity. Its directivity increased from 3.01 dBi to 7.14 dBi. The measured results are in align with the simulated results. The antenna still operate at the desired frequency. The recorded measured gain is 5.33 dB, with 20.3 dB return loss at 2.4 GHz. Thus, the design of the monopole antenna with the AMC is suitable as a RFID tag, because it can improve the RFID reading distance.