Investigating a Broadband Microstrip Patch Antenna that Demonstrates Enhanced Bandwidth for 5G-Based Applications

This paper presents a dual-fed approach to the design of a wide bandwidth microstrip patch antenna (MPA) of patch dimensions (l × w = 42 mm × 37 mm) and substrate dimensions (l × w × h = 100 mm × 100 mm × 3.14 mm); featuring two symmetrically inverted U-slots of dimensions (l × w × h = 25.62 mm × 15.5 mm × 2 mm) and two coaxial probes (7 mm each) adjacent to each slot. The substrate material utilized is Rogers-RT/duroid-5880, exhibits a dielectric constant of 2.2, makes it extremely efficient in reducing lossy nature of generated output parameters. The antenna demonstrates broad -10 dB impedance bandwidth ≈ 44% from 2.55 GHz - 3.85 GHz centered at a frequency of 3 GHz within the S band (2-4 GHz) region. A radiation intensity of 12 dB is observed alongside impeccable efficiency of 99.98%. Comparative analysis against various configurations underscores a significant enhancement in bandwidth at a specific resonant frequency, facilitated by numerical assessment of patch dimensions. Notably, the resonant frequency aligns exactly with the antenna's center frequency of 3 GHz, displaying a voltage standing wave ratio (VSWR) value nearing unity (≈1), indicative of favorable impedance matching conducive to enhanced wideband performance. Fairly symmetrical radiation patterns and a gain approaching 6 dB at the designated frequency further characterize the antenna's performance. This design holds promise for diverse applications including wireless local area network (WLAN), Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) and 5G-based applications, like internet-of-things (IoT) and satellite communications as affirmed by the congruence between simulation and measurement results, which were obtained using a vector network analyzer (VNA) after procuring the desired hardware model using chemical etching procedure. Simulations are executed using High Frequency Structure Simulator (HFSS) simulation tool that utilizes finite element method (FEM) technique to undergo its mesh operations.