Design and Simulation of a 1×2 Rectangular Microstrip Patch Antenna Array with Feeding Network

This research paper describes the design and analysis of a microstrip patch antenna (MPA) and 1 ×2 array configuration operating at 2.4 GHz using computer simulation technology (CST). These antennas are widely used in wireless communication systems due to their low profile, lightweight, and ease of fabrication. FR4 (lossy) substrate is used as a dielectric material with dielectric constant of 4.3 and loss tangent of 0.025. At first single element MPA is designed with the dimension of 40×43 mm<sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup> and the results are evaluated using the CST simulation software. To improve the antenna performance, a 1×2 MPA is proposed. The size of the array is 120×110 mm<sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup>. For the impedance matching between the antenna and the transmission line ‘/4 quarter-wave transformer is used. Due to the use of quarter wave transformer for the impedance matching, array antenna provides better return loss -27 dB than the single element MPA which is -24 dB. The 3-dB beamwidth of the MPA is 117 deg. and 52 deg. for the array antenna. The simulation parameters of the single element and array antenna are evaluated in terms of return loss, input impedance, gain, and radiation patterns.