Development of a printed antenna array based on Sierpinski carpet fractal elements

This paper presents the development of a printed antenna array based on Sierpinski carpet fractal elements. Its main goal is to increase the array directivity by means of ensuring the radiation beam maximum direction in the perpendicular plane of the array axis. Each element individually operates from 2.0 to 20GHz and the three-elements antenna array has been designed for providing a gain enhancement of 5.2dB, i.e. from 4.5 to 9.7dBi, at 5.8GHz by using a reflector plane. An experimental performance analysis using QPSK and 16-QAM modulation formats has been carried, with the purpose of illustrating the proposed antenna array applicability.