A novel beam shaped microstrip patch antenna by metamaterial units

In this letter, we present a new beam shaped microstrip patch antenna(MPA) by matematerial units. Due to the effective phase gradient provided by matematerial units, the beamwidth broadens and the beam symmetrically expands. To demonstrate this method, we designed a microstrip patch antenna with matematerial units etched on the substrate. An experiment was carried out to verify our design method. The measured results show that the beamwidth expands at a certain extent. This design method is not limit to microstrip patch antennas and can also be extended to other types of antennas to manipulate beamwidth.