Design And Fabrication Of A Microstrip Antenna For WI-MAX Applications

Abstract: Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (Wi-Max) is a broadband technology enabling the delivery of last mile (final leg of delivering connectivity from a communication provider to customer) wireless broadband access (alternative to cable and DSL). It should be easy to deploy and cheaper to user compared to other technologies. Wi-Max could potentially erase the suburban and rural blackout areas with no broadband Internet access by using an antenna with high gain and reasonable bandwidth Microstrip patch antennas are very popular among Local Area Network (LAN), Metropolitan Area Network (MAN), Wide Area Network (WAN) technologies due to their advantages such as light weight, low volume, low cost, compatibility with integrated circuits and easy to install on rigid surface. The aim is to design and fabricate a Microstrip antenna operating at 3.5GHz to achieve maximum bandwidth for Wi-Max applications. The transmission line model is used for analysis. S-parameters (S11 and S21) are measured for the fabricated Microstrip antenna using network analyzer in a lab environment. The fabricated single patch antenna brings out greater bandwidth than conventional high frequency patch antenna. The developed antenna also is found to have reasonable gain.