Implementation of Microstrip Patch Antenna for Wi-Fi Applications

Abstract

In recent years, the inventions in communication systems require the design of low cost, minimal weight, compact and low profile antennas which are capable of main-taining high performance. This research covers the study of basics and fundamentals of the microstrip patch antenna. The aim of this work is to design the microstrip patch antenna for Wi-Fi applications which operates at 2.4 GHz. The simulation of the proposed antenna was done with the aid of the computer simulation technology (CST) microwave studio student version 2017. The substrate used for the proposed antenna is the flame resistant four (FR-4) with a dielectric constant of 4.4 and a loss tangent of 0.025. The proposed MSA is fed by the coaxial probe. The proposed antenna may find applications in wireless local area network (Wi-Fi) and Bluetooth technology. And the work is the design of a Hexagonal shaped microstrip patch antenna which is presented for the wireless communication applications such as Wi-Fi in S-band. The designed microstrip patch antenna consists of a hexagonal patch which is found to be resonant at the frequency of 2.397 GHz with the return loss of -31.2118 dB having satisfactory radiation properties. The proposed antenna is the compact design of 28.2842mm 48.2842mm area on the FR4-epoxy substrate with dielectric constant of 4.4 and thickness of 1.6. The designed antenna has the realized gain of 3.42 dB at the resonant frequency of 2.397 GHz. After simulating with the CST software, the patch antenna was fabricated using the MITS milling machine on the FR-4 substrate in the YTU’s communication lab. The fabricated antenna was measured by the Vector Network Analyzer. Then, the simulation and measurement results were compared. The designed antenna structure is planar, simple and compact since it can be easily embedded for Wi-Fi applications, cellular phones and wireless communications for low manufacturing cost.