DESIGN OF A COMPACT MICROSTRIP PATCH ANTENNA FOR WIRELESS SENSOR NODES

This paper presents the design of a compact micro strip patch antenna at 2.4 GHz for wireless sensor networks (WSNs) applications. Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) consist of nodes with a limited power source with compact size. In this paper, two compact micro strip patch antennas are designed and simulated by using Zeland Inc's IE3D software. The performance is then measured in terms of gain, bandwidth and polarization. Although energy consumption and dimensions are reduced, the efficiency of the antenna together with its performance, should not be significantly degraded. Transmission line model is used to determine the length and width of the antenna, where the first antenna is the size of 39mm long and 47mm wide and the second design produces an antenna with 28.6mm long and 37.7mm wide. It is observed that the two antennas are still able to maintain the performance and received a good level of efficiency. Still, several important parameters are found decline due to antenna miniaturization.