Broadband, miniaturized stacked-patch antenna based on magneto-dielectric substrates for L-band operation

In this paper, the use of magneto-dielectric layers will be extended to the application of stacked-patch antenna designs. The low profile and wide bandwidth of microstrip stacked-patch antennas makes them an attractive choice for many RF applications. It will be shown that even with moderate values of xi_r and mu_r it is possible to considerably reduce the size (length, width, and thickness) of these antennas while retaining their attractive wideband characteristics. Additionally, we will explore the tradeoff between the size and gain of these antennas. Moreover, it was shown that the bandwidth of the magneto-dielectric designs exceeds that of the dielectric-only designs. For the investigation in this paper the design process was carried out via a genetic algorithm. This robust algorithm is well suited for the design of these antennas since it can readily handle numerous design parameters while optimizing the antenna for one or more design objectives. One of the key aspects of a GA is in the definition of its cost function.