A simple design of planar microstrip antenna on composite material substrate for Ku/K band satellite applications

Summary A straight forward design of rectangular slotted microstrip planar antenna fed by 50 ohm microstrip line is proposed for Ku/K band satellite applications. The radiating patch of the antenna occupies an area of 17 × 17 mm2 and fabricated on 1.0 mm-thick ceramic filled bioplastic composite material substrate whose dielectric constant (er) is 10.0. The dual resonant square-shaped antenna has been formed by inserting four arc shape slots at the corners with the combination of circle and square and wide square shape slot at the center. The results from the measured data show that the antenna has a lower resonant mode impedance bandwidth for S11 < −10 dB is of 18.4% (11.67–14.05 GHz) and upper resonant mode bandwidth is of 8.2% (18.19–19.75 GHz) centered at 12.94 GHz and 19.04 GHz, respectively. The antenna prototype has achieved maximum gains of 3.1 dBi and 4.13 dBi with average radiation efficiencies of 75.3% and 86.4% for the lower band and the upper band, respectively. The numerical data analyses of both the measured and simulated results show relatively good agreement. Moreover, the consistent and symmetrical radiation patters of the proposed antenna make it suitable candidate for the Ku/K band satellite applications. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.