A comparative analysis of compact antennae for WLAN applications

WLAN is used for variety of applications. It has become the source of internet connectivity with a much higher data rates and is being successfully used at airports, university corridors, hotel lounges, hospitals, business centers and so on. Presently the most popular standards for WLAN being used are 802.11-b, g and n, in which standard “n” provides much higher data rate. For higher data rate, much higher bandwidth is needed. In this paper we have investigated the suitability of simple microstrip antennas i.e.(Bow-tie antenna, Elliptical inset-fed antenna and Rectangular inset-fed antenna) for WLAN applications, in comparison of more complex antennas. The purpose for choosing three different types of simple antenna structures is to analyze the reduced complexity of design with better performance amongst three. We have found that we can obtain considerable results even with the use of simple antenna structures in terms of bandwidth as compared to results obtained in previous studies. Analysis has been performed to find the relative gain, and impedance bandwidth of the three antennas.