Design of a reduced size 7-patch antenna array with FSS based directivity enhancement

Technological development has driven electronic component design into the miniature world resulting in surprisingly small yet shockingly powerful devices. In an attempt to decrease the size of handheld wireless communication devices, it is necessary to design the smallest possible antenna structures that fulfill the communication needs. In this paper we present the design and analysis of a 7-patch antenna array operating at 10 GHz with shorting posts that tend to decrease the size by more than 50% as compared to the original. In addition we have succeeded in getting a directivity boost of 3 dB by using Fabry-Perot (FP) cavity utilizing frequency selective surfaces (FSS). Design and analysis of the antenna array as well as the FSS layer is presented in this work. Simulation results clearly indicate the advantages of this design in terms of smaller size and higher directivity.