AbstractA multiband half‐mode substrate integrated waveguide (HMSIW) slotted antenna is developed for ISM/WiMAX/WLAN applications. HMSIW technique has been utilized to acquire antenna compactness. Two inverted L‐shaped slots of half wavelength are embedded onto a HMSIW rectangular cavity for attaining a hybrid mode (i.e., Half‐mode of Half‐mode of ), which induces a lower resonance at 2.4 GHz. An inverted L‐shaped slot is influenced to radiate hybrid mode at 2.4 GHz, while the innermost inverted L‐shaped slot radiates modified mode at 3.30 GHz. A multiband is obtained by amalgamation of hybrid mode (at 2.4 GHz), modified mode (at 3.30 GHz) and modified mode (at 5.38 GHz). The radiating modes are elucidated by using mode theory methodology for ascertaining the resonance characteristics of the prototype antenna. The antenna parameters have been optimized by artificial neural network technique using MATLAB. The antenna geometry possesses a shrinkage size of 30 × 16 × 1.6 mm3, which has been designed on FR‐4 substrate. To vindicate the simulated consequence, the fabricated prototype has been tested. It contributes the fractional bandwidth of 6.4% (2.09−2.23 GHz) in the hybrid mode at 2.18 GHz, 9.03% (2.89−3.17 GHz) in the half cavity mode at 3.10 GHz and 9.96% (5.11−5.65 GHz) in the half cavity mode at 5.42 GHz, respectively, which is beneficial for ISM, WiMAX and WLAN band wireless applications.