Simulation and Design of Wide-Band Patch Antennas for Wireless Technology
Mimi Aminah, Nurfaridah Saman, and Hany AbdEl-Raouf
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
College of Engineering
International Islamic University Malaysia
53100 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
ABSTRACT
This paper presents the design of a dual band
microstrip antenna for wireless communication.
This antenna has a bandwidth of 24% with center
frequency 5.57 GHz. The antenna is designed as
a patch with two slots. The outer dimensions of
the patch are designed so that the antenna
resonates at the upper resonant frequency. The
dimensions of the slots are designed to control
the lower resonant frequency and the bandwidth.
The paper presents how to choose the
dimensions of the patch and the slots to control
the resonant frequencies and the bandwidth of
the antenna. A design and simulation of a patch
antenna based on this geometry for WiMax
technology is also presented.
1. INTRODUCTION
The design of antennas for WiMax technology
requires antennas that operates at more than just
one frequency whilst maintaining a small size.
Although patch antennas suffer from narrow
bandwidths [1], parasitic patches have been used
to increase bandwidths of patch antennas [2,3].
In [4], E-shaped patch antenna using two slots is
introduced to design an antenna resonating at
two resonant frequencies.
In [5], the design of patch antennas with
switchable slots have been presented for
different wireless communication applications,
e.g., dual band, circular polarized antennas for
the UHF band. Another design for a wideband,
multiple frequency microstrip patch antenna
based on multi-slots hole-coupled in a substrate
has been presented in [6].
In this paper we present how to synthesis an E-
shaped patch antenna for frequency bands
suitable for the Wimax technology. This study
shows also the effect of different parameters in
this antenna structure.
2. ANTENNA DESIGN
In this section we design a dual band antenna for
the two frequency bands of (4.95 GHz– 5.15
GHz) and (5.7 GHz – 6.0 GHz) which have
_____________________________________________________
Proc. ‘EuCAP 2006’, Nice, France
6–10 November 2006 (ESA SP-626, October 2006)
center frequencies 5.05 GHz and 5.85 GHz
respectively. Figure 1 shows the shape of the
dual band patch antenna. The height of the patch
is h= 4.596 mm above the substrate. The first
resonance (higher frequency) will be obtained
due to the current flow between the two edges in
the middle part of the antenna with a path length
W, as the single band conventional patch antenna.
In order to achieve a resonance in the lower
frequency band (4.95 GHz– 5.15 GHz), two slots
are introduced in the patch as shown in Fig. 1.
The slots are used to allow another path for the
current flow. The currents from the edge of the
patch would flow around the slots through a path,
which is longer than the length W of the first
path. This path should cause additional
resonance at a lower frequency. In the following
we will synthesis a patch antenna to get the
required dual band behavior by varying the
dimensions of the patch and the slots.
To design the patch antenna that would resonate
in the two required bands, we will start by an
initial design and then we will modify the
dimensions of the patch and the slots based on
the above theory until we get the dimensions that
give us the required frequency response. As an
initial design we simulated a patch antenna with
the following dimensions: h=4.596mm,
W=25.5mm, L=43mm, Ps=6mm, Ls=17mm,
Ws=2mm and L1=L2=13.5mm. The antenna is
fed at (Xf, Yf)=(21.5,3.2173). We simulated this
antenna using the commercial IE3d Zeland
software and the return loss is shown in Fig.2.
The antenna is seen to resonate at 4.3 GHz (-16.7
dB) and 5.1 GHz (-16.5 dB). Both the resonating
frequencies are shifted left, from the intended
5.05 GHz and 5.85 GHz. In order to shift the
upper resonant frequency from 5.1 GHz towards
5.85 GHz we need to reduce the width W of the
antenna and in order to shift the lower resonant
frequency from 4.3 GHz up to 5.25 GHz we need
to reduce the lengths of the slots. We did many
trails in changing the outer dimensions of the
patch and the dimensions of the slots. As a result
of these trails, we reduced the width of the
antenna from 25.5mm to 21.4mm and the slot
length Ls from 17mm to 16.1mm, while the feed
position remains at the same location. Increasing
the slot length is done to reduce the path current
taken from the feed to the outer boundaries of the
patch, thus increasing the resonant frequency.
The new dimensions of the antenna for this
design are: h=4.596mm, W=21.4mm, L=38.3mm,
Ps=2.6mm, Ls=16.1mm, Ws=2mm and
L1=L2=14.6mm. The antenna is fed at (Xf,
Yf)=(20,3.2173). The return loss of the antenna
is shown in Fig. 3. The antenna is seen to
resonate at 5.05 GHz and 5.85 GHz with return
loss of -20.2 dB and -26.2 dB respectively which
is our objective in this design. It is seen that the
5.05 GHz corresponds to a current flow in a path
length equals that around the slot as we
explained earlier. The gain of the antenna is
shown in Fig. 4 The peak antenna gain is
approximately 10 dBi for both of the resonating
frequencies. This shows that the antenna will be
able to provide the same characteristics at each
of the two resonant frequencies.
In the following, we will follow the above
procedure to design a patch antenna which can
be used for WiMax technology. This antenna
should be resonating in the two frequency bands
(3.2 GHz – 3.4 GHz) and (3.6 GHz – 3.8 GHz).
We used a height h=7.19 mm for the patch above
the ground plane. The dimensions of the patches
and the results of the lower resonant frequency
(Flow) and the upper resonant frequency (Fup) are
given in Table 1, for the different. The feeding
position at (27.98 mm , 5.03 mm) for all cases
except the first case is (25.16 mm , 5.03 mm).
The return loss of the last case is shown in Fig.5,
which shows that this antenna resonates in the
two frequency bands (3.2 GHz – 3.4 GHz) and
(3.6 GHz – 3.8 GHz).

Table 1: Dimensions in mm of the patch for different trails and the

resonant frequencies for each case in GHz.
W L L1 L3 Ws1 Ws2 Ls1 Ls2 Flow(GHz) (S11) Fup(GHz) (S11)
35.35 50.32 15.82 15.82 2.87 2.87 25.16 25.16 3.12(-9.6dB) 3.85(-15.8dB)
32.31 55.97 17.88 20.21 2.87 2.0 21.77 20.66 3.37(-23.7dB) 3.88(33.6dB)
32.31 57.71 17.88 21.95 2.87 2.0 21.77 20.66 3.36(-25.2dB) 3.86(-29.7dB)
33.28 60.87 17.88 21.95 2.87 2.03 21.77 20.66 3.3(-17.1dB) 3.8(-27.9dB)
33.28 60.87 19.6 21.96 2.87 2.03 21.77 20.66 3.28(-27.12dB) 3.74(-30.78dB)

4. CONCLUSION [3] D. M. Pozar ,“Microstrip antenna

A single element dual-band patch antenna for the
WiMax application has been proposed.
The antenna is air filled between the ground
plane and the radiating patch. The antenna
operates in the (4950 – 5150) MHz and (5650 –
6000) MHz bands, which lies in the 5 GHz
U-NII bands specified for the WiMax operation.
The antenna has a bandwidth of approximately
24 %. The peak gain of the antenna for both of
the bands is approximately 10 dBi.
5. REFERENCES
[1] C. A. Balanis, Antenna Theory,
Analysis and Design, Third Edition,
John Wiley and Sons
[2] G. Kumar and K. C. Gupta,”Directly
coupled multiple resonator wide-band
microstrip antenna”, IEEE Trans.
Antennas Propagat., vol. AP-33, pp.
599-593, June 1985
coupled to a microstrip line”, Electron.
Lett., vol. 21, no.2, pp. 49-50, Jan 1985
[4] F.Yang, et al.,”Wide-band E-shaped
patch antennas for wireless
communications”, IEEE Trans.
Antennas Propagat., vol. 49, No.7, pp.
1094-1100, July 2001
[5] F.Yang and Y.Rahmat-Samii, “Patch
Antennas with Switchable Slots (PASS)
in Wireless Communications: Concepts,
Designs, and Applications,” IEEE
Antennas and Propagation Magazine,
Vol. 47, No.2, pp. 13-29, April 2005.
[6] D.Neog, et al., “Design of Wideband
Microstrip Antenna and the Use of
Artificial Neural Networks in Parameter
Calculation,” IEEE Antennas and
Propagation Magazine, Vol. 47, No.3,
pp. 60-65, June 2005.
 Figure 1. The Dual-Band Antenna

Figure 3. S11 of the dual band patch antenna of

Fig.1 with dimensions:
h=4.596mm, W=21.4mm, L=38.3mm,
L2=5.2mm, Ls1=Ls2=16.1mm,
Ws1=Ws2=2mm, and (Xf, Yf)=(20,3.2173).

Figure 2. S11 of the dual band patch antenna of

Fig.1 with dimensions:
h=4.596mm, W=25.5mm, L=43mm, Ps=6mm,
Ls1=Ls2=17mm, Ws1=Ws2=2mm,
and (Xf, Yf)=(21.5,3.2173).

Figure4. Gain in the two planes XZ
(φ=0O) and YZ (φ=90O) of the dual band
patch antenna of Fig.3 .
Figure 5. S11 of the dual band patch
antenna of Fig.1 with dimensions:
h=7.19mm, W=33.3mm, L=60.87mm,
L1=19.6 mm, L3= 21.9 mm, Ws1= 2.88
mm, Ws2= 2.03 mm, Ls1= 21.77mm,
Ls2=20.66 mm, and (Xf,
Yf)=(27.98mm,5.03mm).