Experimental results of compact microstrip antennas

Due to its low profile, the microstrip antenna has found many applications in personal communication systems. And, owing to the miniaturization of communication equipment, designs for reducing the size of the microstrip antenna have received much attention. One of the effective ways to reduce the patch size of the microstrip antenna is to introduce a shorting pin at the edge of the patch. Based on this technique, several novel designs of the compact microstrip antennas are described. The antenna size can be reduced to less than 50% of the size of a conventional microstrip antenna. By incorporating the meandering of the patch, the electrical length of the patch can be further increased. The characteristics of such compact microstrip antennas are experimentally studied. Comparisons between the compact and conventional microstrip patch antennas are also given.