Design of an enhanced dual-band microstrip patch antenna with defected ground structures for WLAN and WiMax

This research presents an innovative dual-band microstrip patch antenna design enhanced with defected ground structures (DGS) and barium strontium titanate (BST) thin film, tailored for wireless local area network (WLAN) and WiMax applications. The first design phase involved the development of an microstrip patch antenna (MPA) using an flame retardant (FR4) substrate with a permittivity (εr1) of 4.3 and a thickness of 1.524 mm, enhanced with DGS. This configuration achieved a single-band resonance at 4.1 GHz, with a bandwidth of 0.82 GHz and a return loss (S11) of -32 dB. The second phase involved the integration of a BST thin film, with a high permittivity(εr2) of 250 and a thickoness of 0.1 mm, into the DGS-enhanced microstrip patch antenna (MPA). This mdification led to a transformation in the antenna's performance, enabling dual-band operation at resonance frequencies of 2.8 GHz and 5.8 GHz. Further, there was a corresponding substantial increase in bandwidth to 1.34 GHz and 1.25 GHz, respectively, an improvement in S11 values to -16.3 dB and -21.4 dB. Moreover, and antenna’s size of 14×10×1.524 mm3 . The study underscores the critical role of innovative material use and design optimization in advancing antenna technology, offering significant enhancements in bandwidth, and miniaturization, for wireless communication systems.