Sierpinski carpet fractal monopole antenna for ultra-wideband applications

Microstrip antenna is broadly used in the modern communication system due to its significant features such as light weight, inexpensive, low profile, and ease of integration with radio frequency devices. The fractal shape is applied in antenna geometry to obtain the ultra-wideband antennas. In this paper, the sierpinski carpet fractal monopole antenna (SCFMA) is developed for base case, first iteration and second iteration to obtain the wideband based on its space filling and self-similar characteristics. The dimension of the monopole patch size is optimized to minimize the overall dimension of the fractal antenna. Moreover, the optimized planar structure is proposed using the microstrip line feed. The monopole antenna is mounted on the FR4 substrate with the thickness of 1.6 mm with loss tangent of 0.02 and relative permittivity of 4.4. The performance of this SCFMA is analyzed in terms of area, bandwidth, return loss, voltage standing wave ratio, radiation pattern and gain. The proposed fractal antenna achieves three different bandwidth ranges such as 2.6-4.0 GHz, 2.5-4.3 GHz and 2.4-4.4 GHz for base case, first and second iteration respectively. The proposed SCFMA is compared with existing fractal antennas to prove the efficiency of the SCFMA design. The area of the SCFMA is 25×20 mm², which is less when compared to the existing fractal antennas.

Koch Snowflake Fractal Antenna Design in the Deep Space Bands for a Constellation of Cubesat Explorers

This paper presents the design and simulation of a Koch curve fractal antenna, developed according to the second iteration of the Koch snowflake fractal for S-band, C-band, X-band and Ku-band. The simulated antenna shows good performance for the operating frequencies and desirable gain, bandwidth and VSWR parameters. Being a compact antenna, it has a size, geometry and characteristics that go in accord with the CubeSat’s structure standards. The antenna was fabricated on a 1.5 mm thick FR-4 substrate. The VSWR achieved values are lower than 1.4 for the frequencies used (2.1 GHz to 2.4 GHz and 7.4 GHz to 8.9 GHz) with a simulated omnidirectional radiation pattern. A maximum gain of 6.8 dBi was achieved. As this antenna works optimally in the S, C and X bands, it is adequate for deep space applications, especially in low-power consumption systems. This approach would be ideal for constellations of Cubesat explorers.

Design of a 1×2 CPW Fractal Antenna Array on Plexiglas Substrate with Defected Ground Plane for Telecommunication Applications

In this paper, a fractal antenna array for telecommunication applications is presented. The proposed antenna array is realized on a Plexiglas substrate, has 1×2 radiating elements, and dimensions of 170mm×105mm. The antenna array is composed of two Koch Snowflake patches and is fed by a Coplanar Waveguide (CPW) transmission line. Radiating elements and the ground plane are printed on the top side of the substrate. Defected Ground Structure (DGS) technique is employed to enhance the bandwidth and improve the impedance matching. The proposed antenna array operates at two frequency bands, 1.08-1.32GHz covering the GPS band and 1.7-3.7GHz covering the GSM 1800/1900, UTMS, Bluetooth, LTE, and WiMAX bands. In addition, the antenna has a good performance with efficiency and peak gain of 82% and 6.3dB respectively. These characteristics allow the antenna to be an attractive candidate for telecommunication systems. Design and analysis of different structures were carried out with Ansys HFSS.