Gathering the advantages of low profile, high gain, high efficiency, and wideband operation in a planar antenna is a challenging objective for the antenna designer. Low profile wideband antennas are usually characterized by low gain. An antenna of wideband impedance matching usually suffers continuous variations of the gain over such a wideband due to the variation of the radiation mechanisms and surface current distributions over the frequency band of impedance matching. Therefore, the motivation of the present work is to provide both impedance matching and stabilized high gain by the aid of wideband artificial magnetic conductor (AMC) with a design of the unit cell that is suitable to the antenna structure and the desired frequency band. The present work, proposes the utilization of low-size wideband AMS surface (AMCS) to be placed behind a wideband omnidirectional antenna to enhance the gain over the frequency band of operation. In this way, the radiating structure combines high gain and wideband operation in the same design. A wideband planar monopole printed antenna is designed to operate as omnidirectional antenna with perfect impedance matching and radiation efficiency over the frequency band 3.6-7.2GHz when placed in free space. The gain of the free-standing antenna varies from 2dBi to 4.5dBi over the frequency band. A wideband AMCS is designed to enhance the antenna gain over frequency band of operation. The designed AMCS is composed of only 3×3 unit cells and overall dimensions of 10×10cm. This surface is placed parallel to the planar antenna at a distance 1.7cm behind it. The enhanced gain of the radiating structure of the AMCS-backed antenna reaches 8.5dBi without affecting the bandwidth over which the input impedance is matched to the feeding line. The radiation efficiency of the AMCS-backed antenna is maintained above 98% over the frequency band of operation (3.7-7.2GHz). The wideband antenna and the AMCS are fabricated for practical evaluation of the overall AMCS-backed antenna performance including the measurements of impedance matching, gain and radiation efficiency. The measurements and simulation results are in good consent.
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