Implementation of Metamaterial Loading to Miniaturized UWB Dipole Antenna for WLAN and WiMAX Applications with Tunability Characteristics

Abstract

This paper presents a double-printed circular slot inscribed, hexagonal shape miniaturized dipole antenna featuring the ultra-wideband (UWB) characteristics with the implementation of linearly tapered feedline. The miniaturized UWB dipole antenna is designed for wireless applications wireless local area network (WLAN) and WiMAX by introducing a proposed metamaterial unit cell. Further, in comparison with the conventional UWB dipole antenna, miniaturization is achieved up to 35.89% and 16.67% with respective active patch area and antenna volume, respectively. The electrical dimension of the proposed antenna is 0.299 λ ×  0.4385 λ × 0.0159 λ, of course, at lower frequency of 2.99 GHz. The use of metamaterial rectangular split-ring resonator and slotted ground structure witnessed the band achievements for wireless standards WLAN and WiMAX. The proposed structure is fabricated on FR4 substrate and tested. Impedance bandwidth of proposed antenna is obtained about 7.26% (2.39–2.57 GHz), 25.23% (2.91–3.75 GHz), and 16.92% (4.87–5.77 GHz) under simulation and 11.49% (2.38–2.67 GHz), 24.48% (2.94–3.76 GHz), and 15.99% (4.95–5.81 GHz) in measurement for WLAN (2.4–2.5, 5.150–5.250, and 5.725–5.825 GHz) and WiMAX (3.3–3.8 GHz) bands, respectively. Tunability between the wireless standards is demonstrated with the help of PIN diodes. The proposed design achieved high average gain of 3.31 and 2.06 dBi for simulation and measurement, respectively. The peak average radiation efficiency of 82.9% is observed during measurement mode. Experimental results are in good agreement with those obtained in the simulation of the proposed antenna.

KEYWORDS:

• Dipole antenna
• Fractal geometry
• Metamaterial
• Miniaturization
• Split-ring resonator (SSR)
• Tunability
• Ultrawideband (UWB)
• WiMAX
• WLAN

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to acknowledge and thank Prof S K Koul, Centre for Applied Research in Electronics (CARE), Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), New Delhi, India for his continuous support and providing measurement facilities regarding completion of the research work.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ritesh Kumar Saraswat

Ritesh Kumar Saraswat has completed his BTech (Electronics & Telecommunication) from RGPV University, Bhopal, MP (India) and MTech (Electronics & communication) from Rajasthan Vidyapeeth, Udaipur, Rajasthan, India in year 2002 and 2007, respectively. He joined Department of Electrical & Communication Engineering, MLV Textile & Engineering College, Bhilwara, Rajasthan, India as an assistant professor in year 2007. His areas of research are RF & microwave engineering, microwave antenna design and wireless communications. Corresponding author. E-mail: [email protected]

Mithilesh Kumar

Mithilesh Kumar received his BE (Electronics & Communication) from the Govt. Engineering College, Kota, University of Rajasthan, MTech (Communication & Radar Engineering) and PhD (RF Communication Engineering) from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, India in year 1992, 1999, and 2011, respectively. His research interests include analysis of planar microstrip patch antennas and active & passive microwave circuits. E-mail: [email protected]