Design of a Dual Band SNG Metamaterial Based Antenna for LTE 46/WLAN and Ka-Band Applications

The non-existing properties of the metamaterial surfaces can be utilized to improve the antenna radiation characteristics. In this article, a design and performance analysis of a Single Negative (SNG) metamaterial based antenna is imparted for LTE 46/WLAN and Ka-band (like in satellite communication for the receiving side) applications. The unit cell of the metamaterial surface exhibits negative permittivity and positive permeability; yielding a high magnitude positive refractive index, is used to improve and analyze the performance of the proposed monopole antenna element. The proposed SNG based antenna covers a -10 dB bandwidth from 5.35-5.69 GHz (LTE 46/WLAN) and 17.81-20.67 GHz (Ka-band). The total size of the proposed antenna element is 20.2 x 28 .4 mm(2) while a 2 x 3 SNG metamaterial surface is used at the back of the antenna element which improves the gain from 4.52 dB to 9.13 dB for the desired Ka band and 1.17 to 5.04 dB for the LTE 46/WLAN band. Furthermore, for the LTE 46/WLAN frequency band, the impedance matching also gets better, resulting in the return loss improvement from -11 dB to -32.4 dB. Moreover, the radiation efficiency is also improved by more than 10 % for the Ka band after employing the SNG metamaterial surface. The measured results fall in good agreement with the simulated one and make the proposed SNG metamaterial based antenna design competent for the LTE 46/WLAN and Ka-band (like in satellite communication for the receiving side) applications.