Design and Development of Rectangular Microstrip Array Antennas for X and Ku Band Operation

This paper presents the design and development of two element slot loaded rectangular microstrip array antenna for dual band operation. The dual bands are achieved at X and Ku band of frequencies. Effect of slots of different shapes embedded on the array elements is studied experimentally for enhancing the bandwidth. It is found that by using L-shape complementary slots on the array elements and H-shape slots in the ground plane, the bandwidth at Ku-band can be enhanced from 20.1 % to 40.4 % without much affecting the operating bandwidth at X-band. Further enhancement of bandwidth at the Ku-band does not affect the nature of broadside radiation characteristics. Details of antenna design are described and experimental results are discussed. The proposed antennas may find applications for the systems operating at X and Ku-bands.