Analysis of Wideband Minkowski Fractal Slot-Loaded Micro-machined Patch Antenna

This research work presents analysis of the effect of micro-machining on the performance parameters of a wideband fractal patch antenna. Finite element method based High Frequency Structure Simulator (HFSS) has been used to design and analyze Micro-machined (MM) patch fractal antenna. An optimized air cavity in FR4 substrate has been created using milling process. The proposed design has shown improvement in reflection coefficient (S
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), gain. and efficiency as compared to conventional antenna design. The proposed MM antenna resonates at 2.63 GHz, 3.75 GHz and 5 GHz and has an impedance bandwidth of 104.8%. Micro-machining at all three resonance frequencies increased the antenna gain by 111.5%, 692.8% and 178% and the efficiency by 8.95%, 10.8% and 12.7%, respectively. The proposed antenna is cost effective, and useful for applications such as: Wi-Fi, WiMax, WLAN, radiolocation, sub-6 GHz 5G Communication, and telemetry. After prototyping the proposed design the antenna has been tested, and a good agreement between simulated and measured results have been found. Novelty-Micro-machining has been used successfully to improve the performance parameters of FR4 substrate based fractal patch antenna by overcoming the losses in substrate.