Polarization Reconfigurable Two-Layer Stacked Patch Antenna Design for Wi-Fi Applications

Abstract

A two-layer stacked microstrip patch antenna designed for 2.45GHz Wi-Fi applications features electronic reconfigurability between the two orthogonal linear polarization states, namely, vertical polarization (VP) and horizontal polarization (HP). Bandwidth and gain improvement were achieved by (i) the use of defected ground structures, and (ii) the use of fractals. The antenna design was optimized to enable electronic switching. Simulations were performed considering five parameters – polarization, return loss, bandwidth (BW), gain, and radiation pattern – until the final design exhibited a gain of 7.15 dBi and a BW of 183.7MHz. The radiation patterns yielded by the antenna for both polarization configurations also showed that the design is polarization reconfigurable.