Design of a Compact Printed Wide-Slot Antenna for

WLAN Applications
Nutgaree Chaiteang, Phagagrong Ghankaew, Yosita Chareonsiri, and Wanwisa Thaiwirot1
Faculty of Engineering, King Mongkuts University of Technology North Bangkok
1518 Pibulsongkram Road, Bangsue, Bangkok, 10800 Thailand
E-mail: 1wanwisat@kmutnb

AbstractA compact printed wide-slot antenna for wideband

operation is proposed in this paper. The proposed antenna
consists of a microstrip feed line with widened tuning stub and a
wide rectangular slot with a T-shaped slot. The prototype of the
proposed antenna has been successfully constructed and tested.
Experimental results show that the -10 dB impedance bandwidth
of the proposed antenna can reach about 99% from 2.00 GHz to
5.89 GHz and these frequency bands cover the 2.4/5.2/5.8 bands
for WLAN applications and 2.5/3.5/5 GHz bands for WiMAX
applications. Details of the antenna design, some significant
parametric studies and experimental results are also described
and discussed.
Keywordswide-slot antenna;
antenna; printed antenna; WLAN

I.

slot

antenna,

broadband

INTRODUCTION

Printed wide slot antennas have received much attention

and are applicable in various wireless communication
applications such as WiMAX (Worldwide Interoperability for
Microwave Access) and WLAN (Wireless Local Area
Network). The printed slot antennas are attractive because they
usually have a wide impedance bandwidth, simple structure,
low profile, low cost and easy fabrication. Many previous
studies of the different printed wide slot antennas fed by a
microstrip line and coplanar waveguide have been reported [12]. Various slot structure have been utilized for broadband
antennas such as square slot [2], arc-shape slot [3], T-shape slot
[4], etc. In [5], a polygonal slot antenna fed by microstrip line
has been proposed. By employing a rectangular slot with a
triangular slot on the bottom, the antenna can obtain 104%
impedance bandwidth which covers 1.85-5.83 GHz. However,
the antenna does not possess a compact profile having a
dimension of 100 80 mm 2 . A printed wide-slot antenna with a
fractal-shaped slot fed by microstrip line has been proposed
[6]. By etching the wide-slot as fractal shapes, the bandwidth
can be enhanced, but its size is large, and the bandwidth is not
wide enough to support most wireless applications. The
antenna proposed in [7] is a printed wide-slot antenna fed by a
microstrip line. This antenna consists of an arc-shape slot and a
square-patch feed and can achieve 120% impedance bandwidth
(1.82-7.23 GHz). The bandwidth is good enough but the size is
very large ( 110 110 mm 2 ). Although these antennas as
mentioned above achieve good broadband characteristics,

978-1-4799-2993-1/14/$31.00 2014 IEEE

however, their overall sizes are large for applications that

require miniaturized antennas.
In this paper, the design of a printed wide-slot antenna is
proposed. The proposed antenna has advantages such as simple
structure, low cost, compact size and easy fabrication. From the
experimental results, the impedance bandwidth (10-dB return
loss bandwidth) can reach about 99% from 2.00 GHz to 5.89
GHz and these frequency bands cover the WLAN bands
(2.4/5.2/5.8 GHz) and WiMAX bands (2.5/3.5/5 GHz). Details
of the proposed antenna design and experimental results are
presented and discussed.
II.

ANTENNA DESIGN AND STRUCTURE

Fig. 1 shows the geometry of proposed antenna, which is

design and fabricated on a low cost FR4 substrate with relative
permittivity of 4.4 ( r ) and the substrate thickness of 1.6 mm
(h). The proposed antenna consists of a microstrip feed line
with widened tuning stub and a wide rectangular slot with a Tshaped slot, which is connected from the bottom of wide
rectangular slot. The widened tuning stub of widthWst = 13 mm
and length Lst = 13 mm is connected to the end of the
microstrip feed line having a width Wf = 3 mm and a length

Lf = 12 mm.

Fig. 1. Geometry of the proposed antenna.

(a)

(b)

Fig. 2. Protograph of the frabicated antenna (a) front view (b) back view.

The slot in the ground plane consists of a wide rectangular

slot with size of 21 26 mm2 ( Ls Ws ) and a T-shaped slot,
which is connected from the bottom of wide rectangular slot.
The T-shaped slot has the dimensions of 3 2 mm2 ( S1 S 2 )

The optimal length of microstrip feed line is 12 mm. In order to

improve impedance bandwidth, variations of the parameter T1
on the T-shape slot are also studied. The effects of the
parameters T1 on the return loss are shown in Fig. 6. It can be
seen that the impedance bandwidth of the proposed antenna is
improved with increasing T1. The parameter T1 = 7 mm is
chosen in this study. The widened tuning stub, which is
connected to microstrip feed line also influnces impedance
matching of the proposed antenna. By tuning the width of stub
Wst = 11, 13, 15 mm, the impedance matching is affected,
while the bandwidth changes slightly as shown in Fig. 7. When
the width of tuning stub is chosen to be 7 mm, the antenna can
be formed wide operating band, with good impedance
matching achieved for frequencies over the whole WLAN and
WiMAX band.

and 7 2 mm2 (T1 T2 ). The overall dimensions of the

proposed antenna is 30 45 mm2 (W L ). By combining the
wide rectangular slot with a T-shaped slot, the proposed
antenna can achieve wide bandwidth about 99%, which is the
close to the bandwidth of [5], but the proposed antenna is
smaller than [5].
III.

EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

Fig. 2 shows prototype of the proposed antenna. The

simulation of the proposed antenna was performed by using
commercial software CST microwave studio. An optimized
prototype was fabricated and tested. The measured and
simulated return loss of the compact wide-slot antenna is
shown Fig. 3. The measured impedance bandwidth, which
defined by S11 < 10 dB, is about 99% (2.00 -5.89 GHz) with
respect to the center frequency at about 3.95 GHz. The
obtained bandwidth of the proposed antenna covers WLAN
and WiMAX spectrum. In order to provide good impedance
matching and a wide impedance bandwidth, the influence of
important parameters are studied. Fig. 4 shows the tuning
effect of varying the rectangular slot width as Ws = 18, 22,
26 mm. It can be observed from Fig. 4 that the width of the
wide slot Ws controls the resonance frequency bands and
impedance matching of the proposed antenna. The resonance
frequency shifts to the higher frequency bands and the
impedance bandwidth is not wide enough for broadband
application with decreasing Ws. The parameter Ws is chosen as
26 mm because the impedance bandwidth covers the broad
bandwidth. The microstrip-line length Lf is an important
parameter, which influences the coupling between the
microstrip feed line and the radiating slot of the proposed
antenna. Fig. 5 shows the simulated return loss of various
lengths of the microstrip feed line Lf. When the parameter Lf =
10 mm, the bandwidth and impedance matching become worse
because the coupling becomes worse. When the parameter Lf =
14 mm, the bandwidth and impedance matching at higher band
is improved, however, it cannot provide broadband operation.

Fig. 3. Measured and simulated return loss of the proposed antenna.

Fig. 4. Simulated return loss of the proposed antenna with various length Ws.

Fig. 5. Simulated return loss of the proposed antenna with various length Lf.

yz-plane is bi-directional radiation pattern. The measured

antenna gains of the proposed antenna are about 2.54 dBi,
4.10 dBi and 5.59 dBi at 2.4 GHz, 5.2 GHz and 5.8 GHz,
respectively.
xz-plane

yz-plane

Fig. 6. Simulated return loss of the proposed antenna with various length T1.

(a) 2.4 GHz

xz-plane

yz-plane

Fig. 7. Simulated return loss of the proposed antenna with various length Wst.

From the studies as mentioned above show that by

combining the wide rectangular slot and T-shaped slot, the
proposed antenna can achieve broadband operation because
the wide rectangular slot operates the low frequency mode and
the T-shaped slot operates the high frequency mode. Fig. 8
shows the surface current distributions of the proposed
antenna at 2.4 GHz and 5.8 GHz. It can be observed that the
surface current distributions for 2.4 GHz are concentrated on
the part of wide rectangular slot and T-shaped slot as shown in
Fig. 8(a), while the surface current distributions for 5.8 GHz
are concentrated on the T-shaped slot as shown in Fig. 8(b).

(b) 5.2 GHz

xz-plane

yz-plane

(c) 5.8 GHz

Fig. 9. The simulated and measured radiation patterns of the proposed
antenna in the xz- and yz-planes at (a) 2.4 GHz, (b) 5.2 GHz, (c) 5.8 GHz.

(a) 2.4 GHz

(b) 5.8 GHz

Fig. 8. Simulated surface current distributions for the proposed antenna:

(a) 2.4 GHz; (b) 5.8 GHz.

Fig. 9 shows the simulated and measured radiation patterns

with both co-and cross polarizations in xz-plane and yz-plane
at 2.4 GHz, 5.2 GHz and 5.8 GHz, respectively. The measured
results show that the radiation pattern in xz-plane is nearly
omni-directional pattern. Futhermore, the radiation pattern in

IV. CONCLUSIONS
A compact printed wide-slot antenna for wideband
operation has been presented. By combining the wide
rectangular slot and T-shaped slot, the proposed antenna can
achieve broadband operation, which covers the WLAN and
WiMAX bands. In the experimental results, the bidirectional
radiation pattern and sufficient antenna gain over the whole
operating bands can be obtained. In addition, the proposed
antenna also has simple structure, compact size and good
radiation characteristics.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

[4]

This work was supported by the faculty of engineering,

King mongkuts university of technology north bangkok.

[5]

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