Modified easy to fabricate E-shaped compact patch antenna with wideband and multiband functionality

A flexible E-shaped patch antenna that is particularly easy to fabricate is presented. E-shaped patch antennas traditionally act as wideband microstrips. Here, first a novel folded L-shaped feed is used for improved wideband operation. Then, multiband operation is enabled through scaling and tight packing with low mutual coupling. The antenna equivalent circuit is presented, and the principles of operation at the two modes of the antenna are discussed. The traditional design undergoes a clever modification to allow it for particularly easy fabrication, which minimises the need for complex tools and enables a low budget manufacturing, and the methodology for this modification is presented. The fabricated prototype exhibits fractional bandwidth larger than 20% with extremely small total antenna dimensions 18 mm × 19 mm (about λ 0 /4 × λ 0 /4 at the centre frequency). The proposed design can be particularly useful in multiband array configurations through the demonstrated scaling and tight packing, as well as for wearable applications.