Analyzing the performance of a microstrip patch antenna with metamaterial cover by varying the distance and dielectric constant in between

Abstract

A metamaterial slab applied as cover in front of a patch antenna focuses the radiations from patch, reduces the beam-width, thus enhancing the Gain and Directivity. Usually the slab is placed at quarter wave distance from the patch; this paper focuses on investigating the effects of varying this distance. Also, if a dielectric is placed in between metamaterial cover and patch antenna, the effects of changing the value of dielectric constant are presented in this paper. The metamaterial under consideration is a modification of Pendry’s SRR structure, its unit cell is formed by connecting metallic traces of two-edge-coupled split ring resonators to form the infinity symbol on one side of the substrate and an array of conducting wires on the other. The unit cells were arranged to form an array and an investigation of S-parameters was done to check the negative index property. A conventional patch antenna generally shows 3 dB beam-width of ~80° and 5–6 dB gain, whereas the antenna presented in this paper with the metamaterial cover shows improved 3 dB beam-width of ~53° with gain more than 9 dB.

Keywords:

• patch antenna
• metamaterial cover
• reduced beam-width
• enhanced gain
• improved directivity

Acknowledgements

The authors are thankful to ECE Department Faculty of Engineering and Technology, Gurukul Kangri University, Hardwar for extending their laboratory to use Ansys HFSS.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.