Design of a broadband microstrip antenna with artificial magnetic conductor ground plane

The design and characterization of a novel broadband microstrip antenna with artificial magnetic conductor ground plane (AMC) is presented in this paper. It is suitable for applications which include GSM 1800, UMTS and ISM 2.4 technologies. An artificial magnetic conductor ground plane is used to improve the antenna performance and reduce antenna size. The performances of the proposed antenna are studied using finite element method ANSOFT High Frequency Structure Simulator (HFSS), and then the designed antenna is realized and validated by measurements. It was observed in the network analyzer measurements of the proposed antenna that the designed antenna has 1.1 GHz impedance bandwidth which is obtained between the frequencies of 1.7 GHz and 2.8 GHz. Details of the proposed antenna design are described, and experimental results are presented.