Design, Analysis and Optimization of A Slotted Microstrip Patch Antenna Array at Frequency 5.25 GHz for WLAN-SDMA System

The design of array antenna is vital study for today’s Wireless communication system to achieve higher gain, highly directional beam and also to counteract the effect of fading while signal propagates through various corrupted environments. In this study, the design and analysis of a (2x2) microstrip patch antenna array is introduced. It is designed to function in the 5.25 GHz which corresponds to IEEE 802.11a (VSWR<2, data rate 54Mbps/ B.W 20 dB and S-parameters, Sij <-20dB where i≠ j) wireless LAN application. It achieves single band functionality through additional slots to rectangular patch of dimension 18.8 mm by 24.4mm. The proposed antenna array is a high gain, low-cost, low weight base station antenna. The characteristic analyses such as return loss (RL), bandwidth, VSWR and radiation pattern of the prototype antenna array have been investigated both numerically and experimentally. In this investigation, VSWR less than 1.45 and bandwidth of 180MHz (For RL>-9.5dB) and antenna gain of 13.88 dBi have been achieved. Both numerical and experimental studies have been carried out to optimize the distance between the antenna elements. The measured results have a good agreement with that of simulated results. The numerical study has been done by using Zeland make IE3D electromagnetic simulator and measurements have been done with the help of Agilent make N5230A, network analyzer.