Design and analysis of EBG-based low-profile microstrip antennas for wireless communications

Abstract

Users of portable wireless devices like mobile phones always desire such devices to have small volume, light weight (or low-profile) and low cost. With the dramatic reduction in overall size, the antennas used in such portable devices have become one of the their largest components. Therefore, much effort has been devoted to miniaturizing the size of antennas to meet the demand for devices with smaller volume and low profile. The objective of this research work is to design and analyze Electromagnetic Band Gap (EBG) based low-profile antennas for wireless communications. To satisfy that, the EBG concept was employed in the ground plane as well as the patch antenna. Elecromagnetic model for the wave propagation in EBG-based structures was carried out and mathematical model was solved numerically using the full-wave Finite Difference Time Domain (FDTD) method. Some novel models were proposed and significant reduction in microstrip antennas sizes applying EBG concept was achieved. Experimental verifications on antenna models were performed and compared to simulated results.