Design and analysis of a microstrip fed dual-frequency planar printed antenna

A microstrip fed dual-frequency planar printed antenna (DF-PPA) is proposed. This antenna can operate in parallel at two distinct frequency bands that are commonly used in nowadays communication systems, viz., the GSM and DCS 1800, at the operating frequencies of 0.9 GHz and 1.8 GHz, respectively. To increase its compactness, the proposed antenna is operated in quart-wave mode by inserting the shorting strips, as well as a slot which separates the operating frequencies. The antenna has the advantages of being physically compact and easy to manufacture. A computer-aided design (CAD) tool, based on the Finite Difference Time Domain (FDTD) Maxwell solver, was employed in order to optimize the characteristics of the DF-PPA, including the return loss, the matching of the input impedance and the far-field radiation patterns.