Numerical characterization of metamaterials-based patch antenna array

This paper deals with a numerical characterization of patch antenna array that is designed by use of metamaterials concept. The array that consists of 2 patch antennas is designated to operate at 2.3GHz implemented for wireless communication. The motivation of this work is to accomplish the demand for high gain antenna in a compact size that has been rapidly increased in recent years. The proposed antenna array is developed using an FR-4 Epoxy substrate (ε_r = 4.04, loss tangent = 0.022, thickness = 0.8mm, and dimension = 56mm × 41mm) which the patches are deployed on the top side whilst a composite-left-right-handed transmission-line (CRLH-TL) network as metamaterials circuit is printed on the opposite side. To analyze numerically the characteristic of proposed patch array antenna, the ideal CRLH-TL network is modeled. The characterization of proposed antenna array is conducted numerically to obtain the characteristics such as return loss, bandwidth, VSWR (Voltage Standing Wave Ratio), gain and radiation pattern. From the characterization result, it shows that the proposed antenna array works well around 2.3GHz working frequency with working bandwidth for VSWR less than 2 is about 560MHz and the overall gain is up to 2dB around working frequency.