Evaluative Assessment of an X-band Microstrip Patch Antenna for Wireless Systems

Microstrip patch antennas (MPAs) are rapidly gaining more attention due to the proliferation of communication devices and systems with frequencies becoming more suitable for the size and performance of this type of antenna. Due to recent advancements in semiconductor technology, high dielectric constant materials are used to achieve additional size reduction which has made MPAs very useful and popular in the design of mobile devices and wireless systems. However, MPAs suffer from problems associated with narrow bandwidth and low gain. Techniques employed for improving the performance of MPA hinge on tweaking features such as the patch size, substrate height, ground plane size and feeding method. In view of this, this research designs and analyzes the performance of an X-band MPA for wireless systems using CST Microwave Studio. Including the ground plane, the proposed design has a low profile structure of 17 mm × 17 mm × 1.6 mm which is suitable for wireless systems. The proposed design also resonates at a frequency of 10 GHz with an omnidirectional radiation pattern exhibiting a gain of 7.2 dBi. Return Loss, VSWR, Gain and Radiation Pattern are the performance indicators employed in this research. The proposed MPA design demonstrates marked performance improvement when benchmarked with a similar MPA designed for 5G applications.