Artificial bee colony algorithm based modified circular-shaped compact hybrid fractal antenna for industrial, scientific, and medical band applications

This paper explores the unique design of a circular-shaped compact hybrid fractal antenna (CCHFA) with defected ground plane for industrial, scientific, and medical band applications. The designed antenna is built on an easily available 1.6 mm thick, FR4 epoxy substrate of size 37.5 x 37.5 mm(2). It utilizes a hybrid approach that involves the amalgamation of two distinct circular fractal patterns. A 50 omega feed line of width 2.8 mm is connected with the designed patch. In this design, the ground plane dimension 'L-g' is optimized specifically with an artificial bee colony (ABC) algorithm. To realize the effectiveness of the proposed design, the performance is practically evaluated through experimental testing. The proposed antenna in its final version, practically offers a bandwidth of 87.2 MHz (3.52%) and gain of 8.1 dB at the claimed resonance. Radiation patterns provided by the proposed CCHFA are arbitrary omnidirectional/bidirectional and exhibit sufficient stability. The simulated and experimental results demonstrate the applicability of ABC algorithm in the devices designed for biomedical purposes. Furthermore, an exhaustive parametric evaluation has also been conducted to examine the effect of variations in few geometrical parameters on the performance of the designed antenna.