Investigations and design of small-size printed antennas on a Reactive Impedance Substrate

In this paper we compare the performances of microstrip antennas printed on conventional substrate and on a Reactive Impedance Substrate, both of them being constituted with the same substrate layers. In particular we investigate the effects of the lateral size and number of reactive elements upon the antenna bandwidth and size of the radiating element. The impedance and radiation characteristics of two patch antennas with and without a RIS arrangement are also compared experimentally.