Dual-Band Patch Antenna Design for Integrated Sensing and Communications

This research presents a novel dual-band antenna designed to serve two distinct purposes: communication and surface sensing. More specifically, the antenna operates at 2.4 GHz for communication and at 5.8 GHz for surface sensing applications, including surface spill sensing. A key innovation lies in the ability of the antenna to perform electromagnetic surface sensing at 5.8 GHz with minimal impact on the 2.4 GHz communication band. This dual-purpose functionality offers the potential for efficient integration of communication and sensing in a single device. The proposed antenna is a dual-band patch antenna featuring two slots in the patch, designed to operate at centre frequencies of 2.4 GHz and 5.8 GHz, as confirmed in the simulations. After fabrication, measurements revealed the higher frequency band to be 6.3 GHz, as this frequency shift likely occurred due to practical fabrication tolerances. Moreover, simulation results indicate that the dual functionality of the antenna is most effective when the size of the sample or material under test (MUT) matches the size of the patch, and the frequency shift in the upper band increases with material thickness when the dielectric constant remains constant. To validate these findings, Rogers 5880 PCB material with thicknesses of 0.5 mm and 1.6 mm were used as test materials. Experimental results align with simulations, demonstrating that the frequency shift in the upper band increases with the MUT thickness, while the 2.4 G Hz band remains largely unaffected.