Design and development of wideband gap-coupled slot rectangular microstrip array antenna

Abstract

A novel design of four-element gap-coupled slot rectangular microstrip array antenna (FGSRMSA) is presented for broadband operation. The elements of antenna are fed using aperture coupled technique. From the experimental results it is seen that the antenna operates at single band of frequencies and shows broadside radiation characteristics. The overall impedance bandwidth is found to be 26.72 %, which is 1.114 times more than that of four-element gap-coupled rectangular microstrip array antenna (FGRMSA). This shows the effect of slots in enhancing impedance bandwidth of FGSRMSA. The slots in FGSRMSA also improve the antenna input impedance and increase the gain by 20.8% when compared to FGRMSA. Details of antenna designs are described and experimental results are discussed.