Performance enhancement of the compact microstrip antennas using AMC ground planes

Employing the artificial surfaces as the planar microstrip antenna ground planes has shown promising results. This paper presents the application of artificial magnetic conductor (AMC) in input impedance bandwidth and gain enhancements of the compact size microstrip antennas. It is shown that using AMC ground plane, the input impedance of a compact conventional microstrip antenna can be enhanced from 2.8% to about 8%. Peak gain is also increased from 5.4 dBi to 6.71 dBi.