Design And Performance of a Wideband Microstrip Patch Antenna with CSRR Enhancement to Enhanced Performance on Sub-6 GHz Band Applications

Abstract

The growing need of compact and efficient antennas in sub-6 GHz wireless systems like 5G, WLAN, WiMAX and Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) has outlined a key weakness of the traditional Microstrip Patch Antennas (MPAs), which has drawbacks such as narrow bandwidth, low gain, and high return loss. To overcome these problems, this research presents a Complementary Split Ring Resonator (CSRR)-enhanced MPA, with the aim to enhance impedance bandwidth and radiation efficiency with compact geometry. The radiating patch model was initially modeled through standard equations to obtain the baseline MPA and a CSRR was subsequently incorporated into it. The simulations were done using CST MWS over the 1-7 GHz frequency range. The obtained results indicate that the proposed CSRR-based antenna had a bandwidth of 3.3 GHz, a peak gain of 2.5 dB, and minimum return loss of -26.5 dB, whereas the benchmark model in the literature considered had 1.9 GHz bandwidth, 0.4 dB gain, and -22 dB return loss. These are 74%, 525%, and 20% improvements, respectively. The improved performance shows the applicability of the proposed antenna to multi-standard wireless systems in the sub-6 GHz frequency range, especially in a situation where long-range communication is highly needed, as in, SCADA, Internet of Things (IoT), and next-generation broadband networks.