Design and fabrication of multiband reconfigurable copper and liquid multiple complementary split-ring resonator based patch antenna

Abstract

The paper presents a multiband frequency reconfigurable microstrip patch antenna structure loaded by copper-based and water liquid-based superstrate resonators. The frequency tunability is achieved by three PIN diodes with the highest tunability of 320 MHz. The enhancement of gain is attained by the concept of superstrates in which the periodic structure implemented by copper-based and liquid-based split-ring resonators is considered for performance analysis. By loading the patch with the three copper-based and liquid-based split-ring resonators (SRR), the presented design achieves the maximum broadside directivities of 7.70 dB and 5.31 dB, and provides the maximum tunable frequency bandwidths of 250 MHz and 140 MHz, respectively. Out of all the configurations the copper-loaded three SRRs provide the peak gain of 9.11 dB. Comparison between simulated (by HFSS tool) and fabricated structures (using low profile material FR-4) is carried out in the frequency range from 6 MHz to 14 GHz for verification. The presented design opens a new way for achieving the different wireless communication applications such as satellite, aeronautical radio navigation, X-band synthetic aperture radar (SAR), etc.