Fractal Antenna Elements Research Articles

Circularly polarized 2 × 2 fractal antenna array for space borne tracking applications

A corporate feed sequentially rotated 2 × 2 circularly polarized fractal antenna array is investigated in this work. Four number of compact circular fractal antenna elements are positioned symmetrically across the geometry. The antenna elements in the subarray are incorporated with 1st order Koch fractal cuts and rotated with respect to its neighbor and the phase change thus generated becomes offset with the phase change in the excitation in the corporate feed. A 2nd order Minkowski fractal curve is implemented on the ground plane to optimize the radiation performance of the array. The proposed fractal antenna array (FAA) is powered with a coaxial feed, with its pin connected to the asymmetric line configuration placed on the top surface. The dimensional confinement of the array is limited to 0.904λ0 × 0.876λ0 × 0.012λ0 (fr = 2.27 GHz) and the overall layout of the geometry is built on a FR4 substrate having a dielectric constant of 4.4. The circularly polarized radiation characteristics of the elements are developed as a result of fractal cuts along the vertical and horizontal sides. A maximum gain response of 5.4 dBic is observed in the impedance band ranging from 2 GHz to 2.5 GHz. The measured results of the proposed array are found to be in good agreement. In quantitative comparison with a few existing arrays with respect to its diverse performance the proposed CP FAA is found to be suitable for space-borne applications operating in the S-band.

Fractal antennas and arrays: a review and recent developments

AbstractIn mathematical definition, a fractal is a self-similar subset of Euclidean space whose fractal dimension strictly exceeds its topological dimension which in turn involves a recursive generating methodology that results in contours with infinitely intricate fine structures. Fractal geometry has been used to model complex natural objects such as clouds coastlines, etc., that has space-filling properties. In the past years, several groups of scientists around the globe tried to implement the structure of fractal geometry for applications in the field of electromagnetism, which led to the development of new innovative antenna configurations called “fractal antennas” which is primarily focused in fractal antenna elements, and fractal antenna arrays. It has been demonstrated that by exploiting the recursive nature of fractals, several marvellous kinds of properties can be observed in antennas and arrays. The primary focus of this article is to provide a compressed overview of the developments in fractal-shaped antennas as well as arrays over the last few decades where the most prominent contributions mostly from IEEE journals have been highlighted. The open intention of this review work is to show an encouraging path to antenna researchers for its advancement using fractal geometries.

Design and Simulation of Linear Array Antenna Using Koch Dipole Fractal Antenna Elements for Communication Systems Applications

Design and Simulation of Linear Array Antenna Using Koch Dipole Fractal Antenna Elements for Communication Systems Applications

An overview of fractal antenna engineering research

Recent efforts by several researchers around the world to combine fractal geometry with electromagnetic theory have led to a plethora of new and innovative antenna designs. In this report, we provide a comprehensive overview of recent developments in the rapidly growing field of fractal antenna engineering. Fractal antenna engineering research has been primarily focused in two areas: the first deals with the analysis and design of fractal antenna elements, and the second concerns the application of fractal concepts to the design of antenna arrays. Fractals have no characteristic size, and are generally composed of many copies of themselves at different scales. These unique properties of fractals have been exploited in order to develop a new class of antenna-element designs that are multi-band and/or compact in size. On the other hand, fractal arrays are a subset of thinned arrays, and have been shown to possess several highly desirable properties, including multi-band performance, low sidelobe levels, and the ability to develop rapid beamforming algorithms based on the recursive nature of fractals. Fractal elements and arrays are also ideal candidates for use in reconfigurable systems. Finally, we provide a brief summary of recent work in the related area of fractal frequency-selective surfaces.

Fractal volume antennas

The fractal volume antenna concept is introduced in order to increase the degree of design freedom associated with fractal antenna elements and hence improve their input matching characteristics. Practical examples are given involving the Sierpinski triangular gasket monopole and a novel Sierpinski carpet gasket microstrip antenna. The scope for further optimisation and some manufacturing aspects are noted.