Wireless Networks (2020) 26:5485–5499

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11276-020-02399-9 (0123456789().,-volV)(0123456789().
,- volV)

A circularly polarized printed elliptical wide-slot antenna with high

bandwidth-dimension-ratio for wireless applications
Munish Kumar1 • Vandana Nath1

Published online: 30 June 2020

Ó Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020

Abstract
This paper outlines a simple design of a compact wideband microstrip-line fed antenna having two rotated elliptical wide-
slots (EWSs). Here, both the elliptical wide-slots are placed perpendicular to each other which shows the measured 10 dB
return loss bandwidth (RLBW) of about 7.78 GHz (4.94–12.72 GHz; 88.11%). The circular polarization (CP) is achieved
by varying either the semi-major axis of any of the elliptical wide-slot or angle between the EWSs. The proposed antenna
radiates left-handed circularly polarized (LHCP) and shows the measured axial ratio bandwidth (ARBW) of about
2.05 GHz (5.4–7.45 GHz; 31.91%) which falls completely inside the operating frequency band and hence relevant for
wireless applications including an upper-frequency band of WLAN, WiMAX and several standards of IEEE 802.11
including a/h/j/n/ac/ax. The proposed antenna also achieves a high bandwidth dimension ratio (BDR) of about 1062 which
along with the ARBW is the highest among the recently reported antenna structures. A peak gain of about 4.39 dBi is
reported within the entire operating band while the overall size of the antenna is only 18  17 mm2 (or 0:29ko  0:28ko ;
where ko is the wavelength corresponding to the lowest operating frequency, i.e., 4.94 GHz). The performance of the
proposed antenna in terms of RLBW, ARBW, gain, and efficiency are validated experimentally which are in concordance
with the simulated results.

Keywords Elliptical wide-slot antenna  Microstrip-line  Circular polarization (CP)  Wireless local  Area network
(WLAN)  Bandwidth dimension ratio (BDR)

1 Introduction polarized (CP) antennas came into existence and become

Recently, the antenna researchers are aiming to design
simple and compact antenna that can support multiple
frequency bands. In wireless applications such as wireless
local area networks (WLANs), worldwide interoperability
of microwave access (WiMAX), radio frequency identifi-
cation (RFIDs), satellite and radar communications, the
transmitter and receiver antennas are not always present in
line-of-sight. Due to the misalignment of both antennas and
having multipath interference, the need of circularly
& Munish Kumar
munishkm1989@gmail.com
Vandana Nath
vandanausit@gmail.com
1
University School of Information Communication and
Technology (USIC&T), GGS Indraprastha University
(GGSIPU), New Delhi, India
an essential requirement for these wireless applications [1].
Antennas with CP characteristics show distinct advantages
such as enhanced mobility, immunity to multipath distor-
tion, misalignment of transmitter and receiver antennas,
less prone to weather penetration and other propagation
effects over their linearly polarized counterparts [2].
It is possible to generate CP in conventional microstrip
patch antennas by exciting two degenerate modes of equal
amplitude and having a phase difference of 90 between
them. In the literature, a significant work has been done for
obtaining CP operation with wide axial-ratio bandwidth
(ARBW). According to [3], CP in conventional microstrip
patch antennas (MSPAs) can be generated by adding the
perturbations along the diagonal axis of the radiating patch,
i.e., 45 with respect to the feed location. Hence, the pro-
posed square antenna achieves an ARBW of maximum up
to 10% by tuning the perimeters of the slots etched in the
ground plane. Another CP-MSPA with a rectangular slot in

123
5486
the ground plane is discussed in [4]. Here, the CP operation
is obtained by adding two parasitic strips with the cirular
antenna with the help of diodes. The biasing of these
diodes will decide the polarization type (right-handed/left-
handed) of the proposed antenna. Based on the idea of [5]
for obtaining the wider ARBW, [6] makes use of thick
substrate material with high dielectric constant. The pro-
posed antenna consists of a U-shaped slot in the square
shaped MSPA with truncated corners. The overall size of
the antenna is 60  60 mm2 with an ARBW of only 3.2%.
A w-shaped wideband CP antenna discussed in [7] with
overall size of 58:2  47:7 mm2 shows an ARBW of more
than 19% centered around 5.3 GHz by adjusting the arm
lengths. A 3-dB ARBW of about 40% ranging from 4.6–
6.9 GHz is obtained. In [8], an open T-shaped wide-slot
wideband antenna fed with the help of a bent microstrip-
line is discussed. Here, CP operation is obtained by
increasing the size of the wide-slot and by etching two
extra slots in the ground plane with a maximum ARBW of
4.55% which makes the overall design too complex.
Fractal geometries are well-known for their self-symmetry
and self-affine properties that serves both the purpose of
compactness and multiband/wideband behaviour [9]. A
CPW-fed antenna with fractal inspired tilted slot shows 3-
dB ARBW of 34.7% is proposed in [10]. In [11], an
octagonal fractal patch in a multilayer scenario is discussed
where an ARBW of 34.7% is reported. Another way of
enhancing the RLBW is using dielectric resonator antennas
(DRAs). DRAs offer feeding and shape flexibility, hence
gaining much attention from the antenna researchers in last
few years [12]. A cross-shaped rectangular DRA having
RLBW of 43.84% and a narrow ARBW of 11.23% is
proposed in [13]. A dual C-shaped microstrip-line fed
antenna with hybrid Z-shaped DRA is proposed in [14].
Here, the CP operation is generated by the offset present
between the two DRAs which gives an ARBW of 6.17%.
Another microstrip-line fed DRA with inverted F-shaped
slot is discussed in [15]. Although the proposed antenna
shows a RLBW of 50.55% but a narrow ARBW of only
14.28% is reported. Also, the ARBW does not fall com-
pletely within the RLBW range. In [16], a common L-
shaped radiator is proposed where the CP behavior is
obtained with the help of orthogonally placed CPW-feed
lines. Another wideband DRA antenna with maximum
ARBW of 18.5% is proposed in [17]. Here, the edges of the
DRA are truncated at 45 for CP operation. A fractal
inspired CP Spidron shaped DRA is proposed in [18] where
11.57% ARBW is reported. Here, a C-shaped slot along
with the fractal DRA both are responsible for the CP
operation. Another CP square shaped antenna with trun-
cated corners is proposed in [19]. Here, a periodic structure
in the form of the metallic plates is used for enhancing the
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Wireless Networks (2020) 26:5485–5499
RLBW up to 21%. The size of these metallic plates also
affects the CP operation, thereby producing an ARBW of
15.3%.
This paper introduces a wideband antenna that covers
partial C-band, complete X-band and extended up to K u
band. Two elliptical wide-slots (EWSs) of different
dimensions are etched in the ground plane. Proper tuning of
the angle between these two EWSs along with their
dimensions produces orthogonal resonant modes with 90
phase shift and hence, CP behaviour. Based on the analogy
discussed in [3], these orthogonal modes can be achieved
by etching the EWSs (or perturbations) diagonally, i.e.,
both having 45 with respect to microstrip-line (or having
90 angle between them). Compared to recently published
wideband CP antennas (discussed above), the proposed
wide-slot antenna is simple to design, possesses large
RLBW and more compact. For comparing compactness, a
parameter known as bandwidth-dimension-ratio (BDR) is
used which takes impedance bandwidth and electrical
dimensions corresponding to lowest cutoff frequency of the
antenna into consideration. The proposed antenna shows
the highest BDR of 1062 as compared to the antenna
structures discussed above. Rest of the paper is arranged as
follows. In Sect.2, the geometry of the proposed wide-slot
antenna is discussed in detail. The steps for obtaining
wideband and CP operation vis-à-vis control of frequency
bands is discussed in Sect. 3. In Sect. 4, the designing of
each part of the proposed wide-slot antenna using accurate
mathematical equations including microstrip-line and EWS
is performed. The E-field distribution in support of wide-
band response and surface current distribution for
explaining CP behaviour is also discussed here. In Sect. 5,
a parametric study of the parameters for obtaining CP
operation is performed. To validate the simulation results, a
prototype of the proposed antenna has been fabricated and
tested. Discussion about the measured results of the fabri-
cated prototypes and comparison of the proposed antenna
with latest state-of-art is performed in Sects. 6 and 7,
respectively. In last, the applications of the proposed
antenna along with concluding remarks are discussed in
Sect. 8.
2 Antenna geometry
The proposed antenna and its geometrical dimensions are
shown in Fig. 1. The proposed antenna is designed on a
1.6-mm thick low-cost FR-4 material (permittivity er ¼ 4:4
and loss tangent tand=0.02). The overall dimensions of the
substrate are 18  17  1:6 mm3 . On one side of the sub-
strate, two EWSs with semi-major axis length D and d
placed perpendicular to each other are etched from the
Wireless Networks (2020) 26:5485–5499 5487

inset (¼ 50 X in this case) and width wml of the micro-

strip line is given by [21]
Wgnd 7:48  h
wml ¼  pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi  1:25  t
er þ1:41
ð1Þ
e Z0 87
r1
where h is the thickness of the FR-4 substrate used
d l2 (equals to 1.6 mm) and t is the copper thickness
D Y
which is about 35 lm (or 1 oz). Here, the length of
Lgnd

l1 the microstrip line divides into two parts (as shown

X
in inset of Fig. 1) i.e. one having the metallic
ground plane (=l 1 ) and other having wide-slot or
Lml
no ground plane under it (=l 2 ) which acts as a
Ground plane
(Back-side) matching stub for that wide-slot.
SMA Connector
Microstrip-line 5 5 c
(Front-side)
Lml ¼ l1 þ l2 ¼ keff ¼ : pffiffiffiffiffiffi ð2Þ
4 4 fmin eeff
wml where c is the free space speed of light, eeff is the
h effective permittivity of the substrate material used
and given by [22]
 rffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi   2
ðer þ 1Þ 2 er  1 p 1 4
Fig. 1 Schematic of proposed microstrip line-fed antenna having two eeff ¼ 1þ : : ln þ ln
rotated EWSs. Lgnd ¼ 18 mm (0:29ko ), W gnd ¼ 17 mm (0:28ko ), 2 er þ 1 er þ 1 2 er p
r1 ¼ 0:2 mm, D ¼ 7:6 mm, d ¼ 11:5 mm, Lml ¼ 8:8 mm and ð3Þ
wml ¼ 3 mm
Equations 1 and 2 gives wml , Lml and eeff equals to
ground plane. Both EWSs are excited with the help of an 3.0 mm, 8.8 mm and 3.36, respectively for proper
open-ended microstrip-line of characteristic impedance matching.
50 X, placed on other side of the substrate. Here, l1 is the (ii) For Ant #2, an EWS (named as EWS-1) having
portion where the ground plane exists beneath it as shown semi-major axis D is etched from the ground plane.
in inset of Fig. 1. Similarly, l2 shows a portion of the The dimensions of the EWS-1 is chosen similar to
microstrip-line which does not have ground plane beneath the elliptical patch antenna. By tuning the dimen-
it. The angle between the two EWSs, i.e., h and the semi- sions of the EWS-1 etched in the ground plane, an
major axis length d together determine the level of CP in impedance matching over a large range of freqe-
the proposed antenna structure. The distance between the uncies is obtained. Two dimension factors namely
open end of the microstrip-line and centre of the EWS is semi-major axis D (in ’cm’) and eccentricity e of an
known as feeding distance r 1 which controls the level of EWS decide the resonating frequency which are
the reflection coefficient (S11 ) of the upper-frequency band. correlated as [23]
Additionally, the design of the proposed antenna is kept sffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
simple with a relatively simpler technique to obtain the CP e;o 15 qe;o
f11 ¼ 11
GHz ð4Þ
operation. All the simulations are conducted using ANSYS peD er
High Frequency Structure Simulator (HFSS) ver. 17.0
where f e;o e;o
11 is the dual-frequency and q11 is an
software [20].
approximated Mathieu function for even and odd
mode corresponding to transverse magnetic TM e11
and TM o11 mode respectively, given by [23]
3 Sequence of design steps
qe11 ¼ 0:0049e þ 3:7888e2  0:7228e3 þ 2:2314e4
3.1 Steps for wideband response vis-à-vis ð5aÞ
control of frequency bands
qo11 ¼ 0:0063e þ 3:8316e2  1:1351e3 þ 5:2229e4
(i) The preliminary design or Ant #1 as demonstrated ð5bÞ
in Fig. 2(a) has an open-ended microstrip-line with
It is clear from Eq. (4) that a large size EWS is
a characteristic impedance of 50 X. The relation-
required for generating lower resonating frequen-
ship between the characteristic impedance Z 0
cies (due to inverse relation between them). This

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5488 Wireless Networks (2020) 26:5485–5499

Reflection Coefficient (dB)

-10
l2

l1
-20

Ant #1 Ant #2
-30

-40
Ant #1
α
Ant #2
Ant #3
-50
Ant #4

3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25

Ant #3 Ant #4 Frequency (GHz)

(a) (b)

300 0

250 -10
Reflection Coefficient (dB)
Input Impedance (Ohm)

200 -20

150
-30

100
-40
= 20o
= 30o
50
-50 = 45o
= 60o

0
0.00000 0.00075 0.00150 0.00225 0.00300 0.00375 0.00450 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25

Feeding Distance (in meters) Frequency (GHz)

(c) (d)
Fig. 2 a Evolution steps of the proposed antenna; b reflection reflection coefficient with rotation angle a. Note: Here, h (¼ 90 in
coefficient (S 11 ) graph of each design step; c variation in input our case) is the angle between the two ellipses
impedance with feeding distance (r 1 ) using Eq. 6 and d variation in

will increase the overall dimensions of the antenna, The impedance matching over a wide range of fre-
thereby making it unfit for wireless applications quencies ranging from 8.49 to 9.33 GHz and from 12.74 to
having space contraints. Hence, another EWS (or 17.23 GHz is obtained by varying D and feeding distance
EWS-2) of semi-major axis d is etched in the r1, respectively as shown in Fig. 2(b) [blue dotted line].
ground plane. The combined response of both the Any defect in the ground plane causes losses in the cavity
EWSs gives rise to good level impedance matching fields which in turn degrades the quality factor and hence,
over a large range of frequencies. The values of improves the bandwidth of the patch antenna. The feeding
Mathieu function and resonating frequency corre- distance r1 (or the length l2) acts as a matching stub also
sponding to EWS-1 and EWS-2 are tabulated in plays a major role in impedance matching over the large
Table 1. range of frequencies. The input impedance due to EWS is a
function of r1 and given by

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Wireless Networks (2020) 26:5485–5499
Table 1 Values of various
EWS Semi-major axis length
parameters
EWS-1 D = 7.60 mm
EWS-2 d = 11.50 mm
J12 ðkr1 Þ
Zin ðr1 Þ ¼ 1:864 ð6Þ
Gtotal
where J 1 ðxÞ is the first order Bessel’s function and Gtotal is
the total sum of conductance due to metallic, dielectric
material and radiation losses. Fig. 2(c) shows the variation
in Z in with respect to r 1 which gives Z in ¼ 50 X for
r 1 ¼ 0:2 mm.
The electric field distribution at 5 GHz and 7.4 GHz
[calculated using Eq. (4)] is plotted in Fig. 3. It may be
noted a strong E-field distribution around the perimeter of
Ellipse-1 and Ellipse-2 corresponding to their resonant
frequency at 7.4 GHz and 5 GHz, respectively is obtained.
The presence of Ellipse-2 increases the current path length
and hence, make the generation of lower resonating modes
possible in the proposed antenna structure.
3.2 Steps for CP response
(ii)
(i) In the next step, this EWS is rotated around its
center with an inclination angle of a. This rotation
of the wide-slot changes the length l2 which acts as
a matching stub and brings variation in the
matching frequency range. Figure 2(d) shows the
variation in reflection coefficient for different val-
ues of rotation angle a. As we go from Step-II to
Step-III, the lower cutoff frequency increases from
8.48 to 11.74 GHz because of the decrement in l2
Fig. 3 Simulated electric field distribution at a 5 GHz and b 7.4 GHz
5489
Eccentricity Mathieu function Resonating frequency
qe11 qo11 f e11 f o11
0.925 4.299 6.198 6.717 GHz 8.065
0.950 4.613 6.733 4.477 GHz 5.409
due to rotation of EWS. It is clear that as a goes
from 0 to 45 , the RLBW increases from 39.12%
(16.04–23.84 GHz) to [ 71% (11.9–[ 25 GHz).
The RLBW decreases as a goes beyond 45 and
reaches to 55.65% (13.70–24.27 GHz) for a ¼ 60 .
Also, the lowest cutoff frequency increases from
11.90 to 13.70 GHz as a increases from 0 to 60 ,
respectively. According to [23], rotating the EWS
around its center can also produce CP. But the
ARBW reported covers the frequency range from
8.59 to 12.15 GHz, i.e., the proposed antenna
proves its applicability mainly for satellite com-
munications and other high frequency wireless
applications. Hence, another ellipse of different
dimensions, concentric to Ellipse-1 is also etched
from the ground plane which increases the surface
current length thereby produces lower cutoff fre-
quency as depicted from Fig. 3.
To minimize this lower cutoff frequency (which has
reached to 13.70 GHz due to rotation of EWS-1) in
order to cover the lower frequency range up to 5
GHz, another EWS of semi-major axis d(named as
EWS-2) is etched from the ground plane. Both the
EWSs are placed concentric to each other. The
rotation in EWS-2 along with change in its semi-
major axis length d increases the current path
consequently, improves the RLBW is noticed. For
CP operation, a quadrature phase difference
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5490 Wireless Networks (2020) 26:5485–5499

between the vertical and horizontal components of
the E-field is required. In the proposed antenna,
variation in rotation and semi-major axis length of
EWS-2 helps in establishing a phase difference of
90 between the Ex and Ey components for CP
operation. By rotating the EWS-2 by h ¼ 90 with
respect to EWS-1 (or  45 with respect to
microstrip-line), the RLBW and ARBW up to
10.04 GHz (4.83–14.87 GHz; 101.93%) and
2.2 GHz (5.3–7.5 GHz; 34.76%), respectively are
4 Theoretical formulations and initial
design considerations
4.1 Calculation of fringing capacitance
The fringing fields generated from the open-ended micro-
strip-line excite the EWS etched in the ground plane. The
capacitance arises due to these fringing fields of length Dl
is given by [24]
pffiffiffiffiffi

2pf Dl eeff
obtained keeping d = 11.5 mm. This rotation of tan c
Cf ¼ ð7Þ
EWS-2 brings reduction in the axial-ratio and seen 2pfZ0
to be below 1 dB within the operating frequency
where f is the operating frequency and Dl can be expressed
band of the proposed antenna. In subsequent
as [24]
sections, a parametric analysis of h and d is
presented to analyze the effect of h and d on f1 :f2 :f3
Dl ¼ h: ð8Þ
RLBW and ARBW. f4
The vector current distributions on the ground plane with The Dl attains the value of 0.563 mm for f1 , f2 , f3 and f4
EWSs for xt ¼ 0 ; 90 ; 180 and 270 intervals at equals to 0.337, 1.111, 1.009 and 0.999, respectively. The
6.25 GHz are shown in Fig. 4(a). A clockwise rotation of variation of the fringing capacitance C f with frequency is
the surface current is noticed which validates LHCP shown in Fig. 5(a).
behaviour of the proposed antenna at 6.25 GHz. It can be
seen that the current density mainly concentrated near the 4.2 Coupling between microstrip-line and EWS
vertex of the EWSs, hence responsible for CP behaviour
and wide RLBW of the proposed antenna. Furthermore, the The coupling between the microstrip-line and EWS can be
purity of LHCP or RHCP behaviour can be identified by modeled by an ideal transformer whose turns-ratio, N can
plotting their polarization ratio as shown in Fig. 4(b) where be calculated as [25]
the magnitude of LHCP is remarkably higher than the
RHCP verifies its LHCP operation.

50

40

30
Polarization Ratio (dB)

20

10

0° 90° 0

-10

-20

-30
LHCP
-40 RHCP

-50
5.00 5.35 5.70 6.05 6.40 6.75 7.10 7.45
270° 180° Frequency (GHz)

(a) (b)

Fig. 4 a Simulated surface current distribution of the proposed antenna for xt ¼ 0 , 90 , 180 and 270 intervals at 6.25 GHz and b simulated
polarization ratio of the proposed wide-slot antenna

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Wireless Networks (2020) 26:5485–5499 5491

0.0632 450 0.65

0.0630 400 0.60

Fringing Capacitance, C f (pF)
0.0628 350 0.55

Turns-ratio (N)
0.0626
300 0.50

Z slot (in Ω)
0.0624
250 0.45

0.0622
200 0.40

0.0620
150 0.35
0.0618
100 0.30
4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

Frequency (GHz) Frequency (GHz)

(a) (b)
175 1.20
Rcyd
(kD) 0.06

150 1.05
Rcyd (kD) and Xcyd (kD) (in Ω)

0.05
0.90
125

C slot (in pF)

0.04 0.75
100
CP (in nF)

0.60
0.03
75
0.45
0.02
50
0.30

25 Xcyd
(kD) 0.01
0.15

0 0.00 0.00
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

kD (radians) Frequency (GHz)

(c) (d)
10
0.35
Q1 60

0.30 8
Ccc
Coupling Coefficient (Ccc )

45
0.25
6
Q2

0.20 30
1

4
Q

0.15
15
0.10 Q2 2

0.05 0 0
4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

Frequency (GHz)

(e)

123
 5492 Wireless Networks (2020) 26:5485–5499

b Fig. 5 a Variation in fringing capacitance (C f ); b variation in EWS where C lstrip and Llstrip are the capacitance and inductance
impedance and turns-ratio; c variation in Rcyd and X cyd and d coupling
of the microstrip-line, respectively, C slot is the imaginary
coefficient ðC cc Þ and e quality-factors Q1 /Q2 within the operating
frequency range part of the impedance due to EWS given in Eq. (10a), i.e.,
1
equals to xImðZ slot Þ
and C cc is the coupling coefficient
between the microstrip-line and EWS.
rffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
Z0
N¼ ð9Þ
Zslot 5 Parametric analysis
in which the term Z slot is the impedance due to center
driven EWS that can be approximately obtained by The parameters affecting the CP operation of the proposed
equating it to the impedance of a short cylindrical dipole antenna has been investigated here. The angle between the
Z cyd (neglecting the loss resistance) derived as [26] two EWSs or h and dimension of the ellipse having semi-
major axis length d together determine the level of CP and
377  377
Zslot ¼ ð10aÞ hence, ARBW of the proposed antenna. Here, the para-
4Zcyd metric study of both parameters is discussed.
D
Zcyd Rcyd ðkDÞ  jf120ðln  1ÞcotðkDÞ
b ð10bÞ 5.1 Effect of rotation angle h
 Xcyd ðkDÞg
The effect of angle between both EWSs or h is depicted in
Rcyd ðkDÞ ¼  0:4787 þ 7:3246ðkDÞ þ 0:3963ðkDÞ2 Fig. 6. It can be seen that the CP behavior below h ¼ 70 is
þ 15:613ðkDÞ3 not obtained. Further, as h goes from 70 to 90 , the axial-
ð10cÞ ratio bandwidth (ARBW) improved from 2.94 to 12.7%. At
h ¼ 100 , the ARBW goes down to 10.75% and no CP is
and reported beyond this value.
Xcyd ðkDÞ ¼  0:4456 þ 17:0082ðkDÞ
ð10dÞ 5.2 Effect of semi-major axis length d
 8:6793ðkDÞ2 þ 9:6031ðkDÞ3

The impedances Z cyd (kD) and Z slot (kD) along with The axial-ratio versus frequency for different values of d
turns-ratio N at different frequency points are tabulated in along with measured axial-ratio is shown in Fig. 7. The
Table 2 and are shown in Fig. 5(c). The approximated change in d from 10.5 to 12 mm brings the corresponding
values of Rcyd ðkDÞ and X cyd ðkDÞ with electrical length kD change in ARBW from h to 12.96 GHz with maximum of
using third-order polynomials [using Eqs. (10c) and (10d)] 33.46% at d equals to 11.5 mm. At d = 11.5 mm, the
are also plotted in Fig. 5(d). proposed antenna shows the 3-dB beamwidth of about 88
A parallel plate capacitance C P couples the ground and 90 in E- and H-principal planes as depicted from inset
plane having EWS and microstrip-line and given by image in Fig. 7 where the simulated angular variation of
rffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi

ffi
axial-ratio is shown.
   2
 Clstrip þ Cslot þ Clstrip þ Cslot 4  Clstrip  Cslot 1  C12
cc
CP ¼
2
ð11aÞ 6 Results and discussion
1 For validating the simulated results obtained by ANSYS
Ccc ¼ rffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi


ffi
Llstrip 1 ð11bÞ Electronics Desktop (ver. 17.0), a prototype of the pro-
x Rlstrip  xCslot Rslot
posed antenna has been fabricated on the commercially
available low-cost FR-4 substrate. The antenna prototype is

Table 2 Variation in
S. no. Frequency (GHz) kD Z cyd Z slot Turns-ratio, N
impedances Z cyd ðkDÞ, Z slot ðkDÞ
and turns-ratio (N) with 1. 4.0 0.963 20.908 - j255.244 11.326 ? j138.274 0.600
frequency
2. 5.0 1.204 36.186 - j204.195 29.896 ? j168.705 0.540
3. 6.0 1.445 58.055 - j170.162 63.811 ? j187.033 0.503
4. 7.0 1.686 87.823 - j145.854 107.651 ? j178.783 0.489

123
Wireless Networks (2020) 26:5485–5499 5493

8 ax, sub-6 GHz band for 5G, HiPERLAN-1/2 (5.15 GHz),

partial UWB band (3.1–10.6 GHz), amateur radio, and
7 fixed/mobile satellite services. Fig. 8(b) shows the output
taken from the Anritsu MS2038C VNA Master while
6
testing the proposed wide-slot antenna.
5
Axial Ratio (dB)

6.2 Gain versus frequency

4
3 terns and measuring gain is performed inside an anechoic
2
1 θ
0 The peak gain is also measured for the given operating
5.50 5.75 6.00 6.25 6.50 6.75 7.00
Frequency (GHz)
Fig. 6 Effect of rotation angle h on ARBW of the proposed wide-slot
antenna
tested successfully using Anritsu MS2038C VNA Master.
A slight difference in measured and simulated results is
reported which may occur due to the cable losses and
human error while soldering the 50 X SMA connector with
the microstrip-line.
6.1 Reflection coefficient versus frequency
Figure 8(a) shows the simulated and measured reflection
coefficient values of the proposed antenna which shows
that the measured results are in good agreement with the
simulation results. The measured frequency range for
reflection coefficient below - 10 dB is 4.94 GHz–
12.72 GHz (88.11%) that covers different licensed and
unlicensed standards of IEEE 802.11 including a/h/j/n/ac/
All the calculations related to the plotting of radiation pat-
θ = 70
ο chamber where a horn-type antenna is taken as a source and
θ = 80
ο the proposed antenna under test (AUT) is taken as a receiver,
= 90
ο placed at a distance of 1.8 meters apart. The measurement
θ = 100
ο setup is shown in Fig. 9.
7.25 7.50 frequency band against frequency at h ¼ / ¼ 0 as shown
in Fig. 10(a). The peak gain varies from 0.52 to 4.39 dBi
with average gain of 3.05 dBi within the entire frequency
band ranging from 4.94–12.72 GHz. Also, the peak gain
varies from 2.59 to 4.14 dBi within the ARBW range.
Fig. 10(a) also shows the radiation efficiency of the pro-
posed wide-slot antenna. It is seen that the radiation effi-
ciency at h ¼ / ¼ 0 varies from 76.71% to 97.81% and
97.81% to 82.94% within the RLBW and ARBW range,
respectively. The average radiation efficiency within
RLBW and ARBW range is 86.40% and 89.23%,
respectively.
The simulated and measured E-plane and H-plane
radiation patterns are shown in Fig. 10(b, c and d, e) at 5.70
and 11.58 GHz, respectively. The presence of EWS causes
sufficient back radiation and produces nearly omni-direc-
tional radiation patterns at both resonating frequencies. It
has been observed that the measured E-plane and H-plane
radiation patterns both match with the simulated at both

Fig. 7 Simulated axial-ratio versus frequency for different values of d. Inset image shows the simulated theta variation of axial-ratio in dB

123
5494 Wireless Networks (2020) 26:5485–5499

Fig. 8 a Simulated and

measured reflection coefficient
and b VNA output of the
proposed antenna. Red line:
simulated and blue line:
measured (Color figure online)

Fig. 9 Photograph of the

measurement setup for
measuring gain and plotting
radiation pattern in an anechoic
Reference horn
chamber
antenna

Spectrum RF Absorber
Function
analyzer
generator

Proposed AUT

resonant frequencies. The peak gain of the proposed
antenna within the 3-dB ARBW range is 4.15 dBi. The
simulated and measured LHCP/RHCP radiation patterns
for / ¼ 0 (E-plane) and / ¼ 90 (H-plane) of the pro-
posed wide-slot antenna are shown in Fig. 11. It is evicted
that in both the planes, the RHCP radiation fields is dom-
inated by the LHCP radiation fields by [ 15.83 dB (aver-
age) for all values of theta. For h ¼ 0 , an isolated by about
44 dB is obtained for both LHCP and RHCP radiation
patterns.
6.3 Axial-ratio versus frequency
The measured 3-dB ARBW of about 2.05 GHz (5.4–
7.45 GHz) is obtained for d = 11.5 mm at h ¼ / ¼ 0 is
shown in Fig. 12. The measured percentage ARBW is
31.91% which is approximately 26% of the measured
RLBW. The minimum axial ratio of 0.07 dB at 6.25 GHz
is obtained. The measured ARBW of the proposed antenna
is 6.5 times to that reported in [27].

123
Wireless Networks (2020) 26:5485–5499 5495

9.0 100

7.5

Radiation Efficiency (%)

90

6.0
80

Peak Gain (dBi)

4.5
70

3.0
60

1.5
Simulated Gain
Measured Gain 50
Simulated Rad. Efficiency
0.0 Measured Rad. Efficiency

40
4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

Frequency (GHz)
(a)

Sim. Copol
Sim. Copol 0 Sim. xpol
0 Sim. xpol Meas. copol
340 20 330 30
Meas. copol Meas. xpol
320 -6 40 Meas. xpol -2
-22 -14
300 60
300 60
-38 -26

-54 -38
280 80
270 90

260 100

240 120 240 120

220 140
210 150
200 160
180 180

(b) (c)

Sim. xpol
Sim. Copol 0 Meas. xpol
0 Meas. copol
330 30 Sim. Copol
330 30 Sim. xpol Meas. copol
-3 Meas. xpol
-7

300 -11 60 300 -14 60

-19 -21
-27
-28
270 90 270 90

240 120 240 120

210 150 210 150

180 180

(d) (e)

123
 5496 Wireless Networks (2020) 26:5485–5499

b Fig. 10 a Simulated/Measured gain and efficiency versus frequency

4.0
curves; simulated and measured 2-D far-field, b, c E-plane and d, e H- Simulated
plane radiation pattern of the proposed antenna at fr1 = 5.70 GHz 3.5 Measured
and fr2 = 11.58 GHz, respectively
3.0

Axial ratio (dB)

2.5

7 Comparison analysis 2.0

In this section, a comparison of the proposed antenna is 1.5

performed with recently reported antenna structures. A 1.0

detailed comparison based on several parameters such as
overall physical and electrical dimensions, RLBW (for 0.5

S11 \  10 dB), ARBW (axial-ratio \ 3 dB) and BDR is 0.0

given in Table 3. Although Sect. 1 discusses various
techniques of obtaining CP operation, yet only those ref- 5.0 5.5 6.0 6.5 7.0 7.5

erences are included in Table 3 where the range of ARBW
lies around 5 GHz, i.e., similar to our proposed antenna
structure. Based on the data tabulated in Table 3, following
points can be concluded.
1. As mentioned previously, the proposed antenna shows
RLBW of about 88.11% which is highest among the
recently reported antenna structures
[3–7, 10, 11, 13, 15–19].
2. In our design, two EWSs of different dimensions are
etched in the ground plane. The CP operation is
governed by two factors, i.e., semi-major axis length of
one of the ellipse and the angle between the two EWSs.
Hence, tuning of only these two parameters will decide
the level of AR and hence, ARBW of the proposed
antenna structure. If p1 and p2 are the perimeters of
EWS-1 and EWS-2, respectively, then LHCP beha-
viour is reported if p2 =p1 [ 1 (as in our case).
Similarly, RHCP behaviour can be obtained if
Frequency (GHz)
Fig. 12 Simulated versus measured axial-ratio of the proposed
antenna
p1 =p2 [ 1. The desired CP behaviour with large
ARBW can be obtained by simply varying the above
two parameters of either EWS as also discussed in [3].
3. Unlike the feeds discussed in [1–3, 5, 8], our feeding
system is similar to what is discussed in
[10, 15, 17, 18], i.e., an open-ended 50 X microstrip-
line is used to excite the EWS. Here, the value of
feeding distance, i.e., r 1 is varied to obtain the
wideband response. Unlike [12–14, 16, 19], the
proposed antenna is not bulky and hence, relevant for
wireless applications.
4. Our proposed wide-slot antenna is smaller in size and
provides both wide RLBW and ARBW for wireless
applications along with sufficient gain and wide

LHCP-sim
Sim. Gain LHCP 0 LHCP-meas
0 Meas. Gain LHCP 330 30 RHCP-sim
330 30 Sim. Gain RHCP RHCP-meas
Meas. Gain RHCP -2
-2
300 -14 60
300 -14 60
-26 -26

-38 -38
270 90
270 90

240 120 240 120

210 150 210 150

180 180

(a) (b)
Fig. 11 a E-plane and b H-plane radiation pattern at 6.25 GHz showing LHCP behavior of the proposed wide-slot antenna

123
Wireless Networks (2020) 26:5485–5499 5497

Table 3 Comparison with other wideband CP microstrip patch antennas

[Ref.]/year Technique used Size 10 dB RLBW 3-dB ARBW BDR
mm 9 mm ko  ko GHz (or %) GHz (or %)

[3]/2013 Truncated corners 90 9 90 0.30 9 0.30 0.994–1.027 (3.27%) 1.003–1.011 (0.79%) 36.73
[4]/2017 Parasitic strips & slot 50 9 50 0.87 9 0.87 5.23–5.77 (9.82%) 5.4–5.6 (3.63%) 12.92
[5]/2008 L-probe fed with U-slot 100 9 100 1.27 9 1.27 3.62–4.67 (25.33%) 4.15–4.9 (16.57%) 17.40
[6]/2011 Truncated corners with U-slot 25 9 25 0.13 9 0.13 1.545–1.80 (15.25%) 1.56–1.61 (3.15%) 919.77
[7]/2018 w shaped antenna 58.2 9 47.7 0.97 9 0.795 5–7 (33.33%) 5–6 (18.18%) 43.23
[10]/2019 Fractal tilted slot 46 9 36 0.55 9 0.43 3.6–4.57 (23.74%), 6.37–9.05 (34.70%) 99.58
5.1–10.1 (65.79%)
[11]/2018 Fractal parasitic patch 25 9 24 0.33 9 0.32 4.0–8.44 (71.38%) 4.84–6.77 (33.25%) 669.21
[13]/2016 Cross-shaped DRA 35 9 30 0.47 9 0.41 4.06–6.34 (43.85%) 5.04–5.64 (11.23%) 229.99
[15]/2018 Rectangular DRA 50 9 50 0.72 9 0.72 4.31–6.78 (44.54%) 4.07–6.82 (50.50%) 86.33
[16]/2018 CPW-fed L-shaped radiator 25 9 25 0.26 9 0.26 3.15–7.75 (84.40%) 5.12–7.15 (33.08%) 1224.91
[17]/2019 Truncated DRA 46 9 46 0.47 9 0.47 3.06–3.97 (25.89%) 3.15–3.80 (18.70%) 117.40
[18]/2015 Spidron DRA 40 9 40 0.576 9 0.576 4.32–6.30 (37.29%) 5.13–5.76 (11.57%) 112.39
[19]/2019 Truncated square patch 32 9 32 0.55 9 0.55 5.12–6.32 (21%) 5.08–5.92 (15.3%) 70.34
Our Work Two elliptical wide-slots 18 9 17 0.29 9 0.28 4.94–12.72 (88.11%) 5.4–7.45 (31.91%) 1061.91

beamwidth. In order to measure the compactness of the
antenna, a parameter called bandwidth dimension ratio
(BDR) is calculated. This parameter shows how much
RLBW can be offered by per electrical unit area of the
proposed antenna structure and is given by [28]
%B:W:
BDR ¼
kw  kL
The proposed antenna shows the largest BDR of about
1062 among all the reported antenna structures. Fig-
ure 13 shows the comparison of BDR of all the
references compared in Table 3 graphically. It is found
that reference [16] shows higher BDR but physically it
has more size and less percent bandwidth (% B.W.) as
compared to the proposed antenna. Also, the antenna
proposed in [16] has a complex geometry and have
three parameters to govern the CP operation.
ð12Þ
8 Conclusion

In this paper, a circularly polarized wide-slot antenna with

1200 wide return loss bandwidth has been designed, fabricated
Bandwidth Dimension Ratio (BDR)

and tested successfully. The proposed antenna consists of a

1000
pair of elliptical wide-slots excited with the help of an
open-ended 50 X microstrip-line. To provide the circular
800
polarization operation, the semi-major axis and angle
between the wide-slots are varied and optimized accord-
ingly. The measured 10-dB return loss bandwidth of
600
88.11% (4.94–12.72 GHz) is obtained along with 31.91%
(5.4–7.45 GHz) of axial-ratio bandwidth that covers upper
400
frequency band of WLAN. The proposed design shows the
LHCP fields in the bore-sight direction with the peak gain
200
of 7.23 dBi within the entire operating frequency band.
The peak gain of 4.15 dBi is obtained within the 3-dB
0
[7] [9] [10] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] Our Work
axial-ratio bandwidth. A good broadside patterns, good 3-
Reference # dB beamwidth of about 90 is observed in both principal
planes. The simple design and compact size of 17 
Fig. 13 Comparison of BDR of the proposed wide-slot antenna with 18 mm2 (or 0:29ko  0:28ko ) make the proposed antenna
recently reported CP wideband antenna structures

123
5498
an attractive practical candidate for modern wireless
applications including WLAN and several licensed and
unlicensed standards of IEEE 802.11 including a/h/j/n/ac/
ax.
Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank G. B. Pant
Engineering College, New Delhi, India for providing the testing
facility at their microwave and optical communication laboratory.
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Publisher’s Note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to
jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Munish Kumar was born in New
Delhi, India, in 1990. He
received his master’s degree in
Electronics and Communication
(ECE) from USIC&T, Guru
Gobind Singh Indraprastha
University (GGSIPU), India, in
2015 where he is currently pur-
suing Ph.D. degree. He has
worked extensively and co-au-
thored several research articles
on fractal microstrip patch
antenna and electromagnetic
bandgap structures in various
international journals and con-
ferences. His current research involves designing of fractal microstrip
antennas for multiband applications.
5499
Vandana Nath is an Assistant
Professor in the University
School of Information, Com-
munication and Technology,
Guru Gobind Singh Indra-
prastha University, New Delhi,
India. She obtained her Ph.D.
from the University of Delhi.
Dr. Nath worked as a research
fellow in Solid State Physics
Laboratory (SSPL), DRDO
from 1999 to 2004. Her research
interests include modeling and
simulation of electronic devices
and circuits and microwave
devices. She has co-authored more than 30 research papers in various
international journals and conferences including IEEE Transactions
on Electron Devices, Microwave and Optical Technology Letters,
Applied Physics A, Superlattices and Microstructures, Microsystem
Technologies, Wireless Personal Communications. Dr. Nath is a
member of IEEE, and life member of ISTE and SSI.
123