Proximity fed gap-coupled half E-shaped microstrip antenna array

Abstract

Broadband gap-coupled array configuration of proximity fed rectangular microstrip antenna with half E-shaped microstrip antennas are proposed. The rectangular slot in half E-shaped patch reduces the orthogonal TM01 mode resonance frequency of equivalent rectangular patch and along with TM10 modes of fed and parasitic rectangular patches, yields broader bandwidth of more than 470 MHz (>45%). An improvement in radiation pattern and gain characteristics over the bandwidth is obtained by gap-coupling half E-shaped patches along all the edges of proximity fed rectangular patch, which yields bandwidth of nearly 510 MHz (∼49%). Further to enhance the gain, a gap-coupled 3 × 3 array configuration of half E-shaped patches with proximity fed rectangular microstrip antenna is proposed. The gap-coupled array configuration yields bandwidth of more than 530 MHz (>50%) with broadside radiation pattern and peak gain of 11 dBi.