On the Design of Fractal Antenna Array for Multiband Applications

This paper presents the design of fractal antenna array with eight elements for multiband applications, such as WiMax (3.3–3.7 GHz), WLAN (4.82–5.95 GHz), X-band for satellite communication (7.1–7.76 GHz) and point-to-point (5.92–8.5 GHz) for high-speed wireless communication. Each element of array is separated by λ/2 distance. FR4 glass epoxy substrate with dielectric constant 4.4 and thickness of 1.6 mm is used for the designing of the proposed antenna array. ANSYS/ANSOFT HFSS V13 software is used for designing and simulating the proposed antenna. Different parameters like gain, radiation pattern and reflection coefficient are obtained at all frequencies in the range of 3 to 10 GHz. It is observed that the proposed antenna array works on eight different frequencies, whereas conventional antenna array works at seven frequencies. The three iterations of the proposed antenna array are fabricated and tested using VNA (vector network analyzer). The experimental and simulated results are compared, and both are in good agreement with each other. Measured results of the proposed antenna array are also compared with the results of antenna array present in the literature, and it is found that the proposed antenna array operates on eight frequency bands, whereas the antenna array in the literature operates on at most three frequency bands.