Abstract:
In high performance spacecrafts, satellites and radar applications there is a need to
consider factors like weight, cost, ease of fabrication and robustness. Microstrip
antennas make a suitable choice in this regard. These antennas are low profile, cost
effective, mechanically robust and have versatile performance in terms of resonant
frequency, radiation pattern and polarization. Introducing fractal geometries in patch
antennas have enhanced their advantages. Novel star-shaped fractal design of slotted
rectangular patch antenna is proposed. Gain and bandwidth of microstrip rectangular
patch antenna is improved by addition of star-shaped fractals on two sides and four
corners of rectangular patch. A linearly polarized antenna is designed for 10GHz and
has directionality. Introduction of fractal geometry improved the gain from 5.479dB
to 11dB and impedance bandwidth from 550MHz to 5GHz with respect to simple
rectangular patch antenna. Two materials RT Duroid 5880 and FR4 are used as
substrates. Likely application areas for proposed design cover X and Ku band
(according to IEEE standards) like amateur radio, motion detector, radar based
applications, space and terrestrial communication systems.
