Design Analysis of Broadband Stacked Microstrip Patch Antenna for WLAN Applications

A novel configuration of stacked microstrip patch antenna is designed, simulated and fabricated for WLAN applications. Return loss is calculated below -10dB scale, to indicate that the projected antenna has bandwidth of 1.34GHz when simulated and 1.73GHzwhen experimentally measured.The simulated radiation pattern is in accordance with exprimentally measured results that indicates fabricated antenna is suitable for WLAN applications. This specifies that the antenna covers all WLAN standards of 802.11 a/h/j/n/ac/p and can be considered as optimum fit for WLAN applications. The designed antenna has negligible bandwidth error which is attributed to error in fabrication, measured using vernier caliper, which is calculated to be less than 1% for lager dimensions. The considered antenna parameters and results are discussed according to National Institute of Justice Standard0205.02. The designed prototype is passed through several environmental tests like thermal vacuum cyclic test, thermal shock test and tropical exposure test based on MIL-STD-810g. The parametric analysis of various design parameters in stacked patch antenna is included to optimize the broadband performance of anticipated antenna.