Small-Size Wide-Band Low-Profile “Pixel Antenna”: Comparison of Theoretical and Experimental Results in L Band

Abstract

This paper presents a small (≈λ/2 × λ/2) low-profile (λ/10) planar antenna built to work on a very large frequency band (≥40%) for applications in Telecom, Radar, IoT, etc. This antenna is called a “Pixel Antenna” because it was first used as a pixel in an agile beam radiating surface. In this paper, the pixel antenna is used alone to design multiband or wide-band antennas keeping the same radiation pattern and polarization throughout the band. The working principle used to design the Pixel Antenna is deduced from the well-known EBG (electromagnetic band gap) antenna in its low-profile version which already has a bandwidth close to ≈20%. The aim of this present work is to double this bandwidth by simultaneously feeding two modes of the original EBG material. The theoretical and experimental results are compared for an L band application, exhibiting bandwidth from 1 GHz to 1.52 GHz (41%). In addition, good radiation patterns of pixel antenna stay constant over the entire useful band without any degradation of the antenna performance. This proposed antenna design can be used to obtain wide bandwidth for any chosen frequency band (S band, X band, C band, etc.) using frequency scaling.