ARROW CROSS SHAPE SLOTTED FRACTAL ANTENNA WITH ENHANCED BANDWIDTH FOR WI-FI/WIMAX/WLAN APPLICATIONS
Rani Rudrama Kodali, Polepalli Siddaiah, M. N. Giriprasad
Abstract
A fractal antenna with enhanced bandwidth (BW) from 2.62 GHz to 5.2 GHz is presented for Wi-Fi applications. The antenna is designed to achieve a wider BW, and it consists of a rectangular shape patch attached to a half circular disc. The antenna is fed by microstrip feed model. The ground plane of the antenna is maintained partial with a slot at centre. Double head arrow cross shaped slots are etched on the radiating element to form the proposed fractal antenna. While the centre slot is made to look like + symbol, the surrounding four fractal slots are made to look like symbol. FR4 substrate with dielectric constant 4.4 with thickness 1.6 mm is used to design the antenna. The overall size of the antenna is maintained compact with dimensions 44 mm 40 mm. The dimensions of the fractal slots are varied, and the operating band is tuned. The proposed antenna covers from 2.62 GHz to 5.2 GHz with BW 2.58 GHz. The step-by-step implementation of the fractal antenna and comparative analysis are presented with the help of reflection coefficient curves. While the proposed antenna covers wideband, it showed peak resonance at dual operating frequencies at 3.2 GHz and 4.8 GHz. The designed antennamaintained gain of 2.96 dBi and 3.47 dBi at 3.2 GHz and 4.8 GHz frequencies, respectively. The proposed antenna performance is presented with the help of reflection coefficient, VSWR, gain, field distributions, and radiation pattern curves. The simulated and measured analysis comparison showed good agreement making the designed antenna a good candidate for wideband Wi-Fi applications.