A Novel Metamaterial Design Using Genetic Algorithm for High Gain Energy Harvesting Antenna

In this paper, a new metamaterial prototype is designed using a Genetic algorithm (GA) method to improve the gain of the microstrip patch antenna. This metamaterial is Zero-Index Metamaterials (ZIMs), which consists of a 5 × 5 matrix with a dimension of 40 mm × 40 mm × 1.2 mm. The metamaterial is positioned above a prove-fed patch antenna with a resonating frequency of 5.8 GHz. Simulation results show that the gain enhancement of microstrip patch antenna is from 7.6 dBi to 11.4 dBi. The GA method presents a significant performance improvement of the antenna design and optimization.