Bandwidth enhancement of a planar monopole microstrip patch antenna

This paper presents a simple broadband planar monopole microstrip patch antenna with curved slot and partial ground plane. The proposed antenna is designed and fabricated on commercially available FR4 material with εr = 4.3 and 0.025 loss tangent. Bandwidth enhancement has been achieved by introducing a curved slot in the patch and optimizing the gap between the patch and the partial ground plane and the gap between the curved slot and the edge of the patch. Simulated peak gain of the proposed antenna is 4.8 dB. The impedance bandwidth (defined by 10 dB return loss) of the proposed antenna is 109% (2–6.8 GHz), which shows bandwidth enhancement of 26% as compared with simple monopole antenna. The antenna is useful for 2.4/5.2/5.8-GHz WLAN bands, 2.5/3.5/5.5-GHz WiMAX bands, and other wireless communication services. Measured results show good agreement with the simulated results. The proposed antenna details are described and measured/simulated results are elaborated.