Selection of Suitable Dielectric Substrate for Miniaturization of Microstrip Patch Antenna Using DGS Fractals

Background: Antennas size reduction with good performance characteristics is an essential part of designing a microstrip patch antenna (MPA) to select a suitable dielectric substrate. Methods: A conventional MPA is designed at 10GHz frequency, and later Minkowski fractal (1st iteration) defected ground structure (DGS) technique is applied for size reduction. The design is made to keep the radiation and reflection characteristics in contention. Results: A miniaturized MPA with 11% size reduction has been simulated using HFSS. The simulation results show the realization and selection of the substrate materials in the design process. Here, five different substrates are judiciously implemented and later compared. The comparison is made based on return loss, bandwidth, impedance, gain and efficiency. Conclusion: We found a miniaturized MPA using the proposed first iteration of Minkowski fractal DGS. This MPA is suitable for X-band satellite communication and may be applied in government institutions, civil, military, monitoring weather, air traffic, defence tracking, maritime vessel traffic, etc., due to conformal and planar shape with reduced electrical length at 10GHz operating frequency.