Performance analysis of microstrip patch antenna using a four-layered substrate of different materials

Abstract

Substrates of different materials have a significant role in the design of microstrip patch antennas due to their varying chemical, thermal, and physical properties. The authors of this research study proposed an examination into the performance of multi-band microstrip patch antennas mounted on multi-layered dielectric substrates such as FR-4, GaAs, polyethene, and plexiglass The primary goal of this study is to improve the performance of the proposed microstrip patch antenna in terms of return loss, bandwidth, gain, and power density by adding and stacking four different substrates of different material types with an equal dielectric substrate thickness of 1.8 mm, equal patch dimensions of 37 mm × 52 mm, and equal substrate dimensions of 50 mm × 80 mm. The results reveal that adding and stacking substrates of different material kinds improves the performance of the proposed microstrip patch antenna. Moreover, there is a shift in resonance frequencies as well as a shift in beams, operating as a smart antenna. Further study has been undertaken by loading metamaterial-based split-ring resonators on the proposed patch and the ground plane to improve performance. The proposed antenna is extremely useful for electronic communication systems that employ WLAN/Wi-Fi.