volume | PIER Journals

Abstract

As wireless communication technologies evolve, the demand for more efficient and compact antennas has escalated. Fractal antennas, with their unique self-similar design, offer a promising solution to meet these needs. Traditional antenna designs often face limitations in bandwidth and efficiency, especially in complex environments like urban areas, where high-performance antennas are crucial. This paper proposed a novel star-fractal patch integrated with a Sierpinski triangle fractal defective ground structure. This combination creates a double fractal design, which is further enhanced by adding a rectangular split ring resonator (R-SRR) array as a metasurface superstrate to achieve a reasonable bandwidth with improved gain for C-band wireless applications. This novel antenna structure results in improved impedance matching within the 5.22 GHz to 5.78 GHz operating frequency range. Electromagnetic simulations and anechoic chamber measurements validate the performance parameters of the proposed antenna. A proposed compact fabricated antenna achieved a bandwidth of 10.24% with noteworthy improvements in directivity across the operating frequency range compared to a full ground structure. The measured results align closely with the simulated data, demonstrating the reliability of the design approach. The fractal antenna design demonstrated substantial enhancements in performance parameters, confirming its viability as a superior alternative to conventional antenna designs in enhancing wireless network capabilities. These advancements could enable next-gen wireless and IoT applications by solving challenges in miniaturization, integration, and multi-band operation. Future research aims to enhance capabilities with dynamic reconfigurability, wider and selective frequency coverage of metamaterial inspired fractal antennas.

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Mr. Piyush Dalsania

Dr. Jagdish M. Rathod