Gain and Bandwidth Enhancement of Microstrip Antenna Array using Double Square Split Ring Resonator FSS as a Superstrate for WiMax/WiFi/WLAN Applications

Abstract

Microstrip patch antennas are very popular in wireless communication because of its low profile, lightweight, low production cost. However, the gain and bandwidth of the microstrip patch antenna are very less. The main objective of this paper is to enhance the gain of the microstrip antenna by using frequency selective surfaces as a superstrate. In this paper, a microstrip array antenna with 2 elements is proposed. To increase the bandwidth, a partial ground plane method is used. Also the comparison of two FSS layers with different shapes i.e. Square loop and Double Square Split Ring is performed. By using a partial ground plane, the bandwidth has been increased by 87%. The gain of microstrip patch antenna array is calculated to be 4.43 dB by using square loop FSS whereas by using Double Square SRR, it is found to be 7.61 dB. The proposed antenna outperformed the square loop FSS and with a bandwidth of 1.74 GHz which can be used in number of wireless applications such as WiMax, WiFi, etc.