International Journal of Electrical and Electronics

Engineering Research (IJEEER)

ISSN(P): 2250-155X; ISSN(E): 2278-943X
Vol. 5, Issue 6, Dec 2015, 11-18
TJPRC Pvt. Ltd.

DUAL BAND FRACTAL ANTENNA

P. S. WANKHEDE, R. B. DHUMALE & S. D. LOKHANDE
Department of Electronics Engineering, SCOE, Pune, Maharashtra, India
ABSTRACT
A fractal antenna with dual band characteristics has been designed and presented in this paper. The fractal
antenna is found to be resonant at 2.33 GHz and 6.58 GHz. This antenna is compact compared to conventional square
antenna of same size. The antenna is realized on low cost FR4 material. The antenna has improved impedance
bandwidth. The radiation patterns of this antenna at both the resonant frequencies are found to be nearly omni
directional in azimuth plane at 90 degree elevation angle. The fractal antenna is useful in multiband wireless
communication.
KEYWORDS: Compact, Antenna, Fractal, Multiband, Broadband

Received: Sep 11, 2015; Accepted: Oct 13, 2015; Published: Oct 27, 2015; Paper Id.: IJEEERDEC20152

With the advances in wireless technology to exploit variety of applications, multiband antennas or
wideband antenna have been widely studied [1]-[3]. The bandwidth requirement of Doordarshan (television) in
India, around 1985 was only to exploit 1 0r 2 channels whereas this bandwidth requirement has been increased to
many fold in 2015-16 requiring at least 200 channels to be received using a single antenna. Now days, with

Original Article

INTRODUCTION

advanced wireless techniques these channels are required to be available at many miniaturized wireless devices
such As laptops, tablets, cell phones etc. This necessary put constraints on the size of antenna to keep these
gadgets to be compact in size. The antennas are required to be small in size with enhanced bandwidth or multiband
nature and necessary gain characteristics. The various wireless applications those are popular now days are listed
in Table1.
Table 1: Frequency Bands for a Few Popular Wireless Applications [1]-[3]

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Wireless Applications
2G
3G
4G
Wireless Communication Service
Satellite Digital Radio
Multichannel Multipoint Distribution
Service (MMDS)
GPS
DCS 1800
PCS 1900
IMT-200 / UMTS
ISM Band I (Cordless Phone 1G WLAN)

Frequency Band (MHz)

800/900 1800/1900
1800-2500
2000-8000
2305-2320 / 2345-2360
2320-2680

ISM Band II (Bluetooth 802.11b WLAN)

2400-2483.5

Lower LTE (long term evolution) bands

Upper LTE bands

790960
1710269

2150-2680
1570.42-1580.42
1710-1880
1850-1990
1885-2200
902-928

[email protected].

12

P. S. Wankhede, R. B. Dhumale & S. D. Lokhande

The telecommunications systems has been widely exploited using wireless local area network [1]-[4]. Fractal
antennas are found useful to exploit multiband compact wireless communication services [1]-[4]. In 1975, the father of
fractal Mandelbrot has given the definition of fractal to be a fragmented or broken structure that can be differentiated into
parts which remains a reduced size copy of the whole [5],[9]-[10]. Also, Mandelbrot has invented many naturally occurring
fractals those cannot be defined by conventional Euclidean geometry [10]. One can differentiate between fractal and
Euclidean geometry as suggested in Table 2. Some of the example of naturally occurring fractals are lightning, ameba,
trees, snowflake etc.
Table 2: Difference between Fractal and Euclidean Geometry [10] Fractal Euclidean
Fractal
Often defined by iterative rule
Structure on many scales
Dilation symmetry (self similarity)
Fractional dimension possible
Long range correlation
Described as ramified, variegated, spiky
Rough on most scales

Euclidean
Often defined by formula
Structure on one or few scales
No self similarity
Integer dimension
Variable correlation
Described as regular
Smooth on most scales

Several naturally occurring phenomena such as lightning are better analyzed with the aid of fractals. Mandelbrot
defines the term fractal based on the definition of their dimension such as topological dimension, Euclidean dimension,
self-similarity dimension and Hausdorff dimension [5], [9]. Fractal is defined as set F such that [5]: F has a fine structure
with details on indiscriminately small scales, F is too irregular to be described by traditional geometry. F having some form
of self-similarity (not necessarily geometric, can be statistical), F can be described in a simple way, recursively, and fractal
dimension of F is greater than its topological dimension. The most simple definition fractal dimension for self-similarity
fractals is given by,
D = (log n) / log (1/f)

(1)

Where, n-no. of self-similar copies and f- fractional scale. Fractal geometries are generally infinitely sub-divisible.
Other properties associated with fractal geometries include scale invariance, plane filling or space-filling nature, and
lacunarity [10]. Some of these properties can be qualitatively linked to the features of antenna geometries using them.
A fractal often has applications in antennas for multiband wireless communication, image processing for data
compression, packaging, mechanics (fracture mechanics is a widely studied subject by mechanical engineers) etc. The use
of self similarity property in fractal antennas can achieve multiband characteristics whereas space filling property in these
antennas can be used for miniaturization. Fractal antennas have been reported for compact, multiband and broadband
applications [1], [6-7], [8], [10]. Although fractals can be used for compact antenna applications they need to obey the
fundamental limit for compactness studied by Wheeler, Chu and McLean [11]-[13] etc given by (2),
Qrad = [1/ (ka)3 ] + [1/ ka] Collin, McLean, Chu(exact)
= (1+ 2(ka)2 ) / [(ka)3 (1+ 2(ka)2 ] Chu (approximate)
= [1/ (ka)3 ] using Geometric mean by VA Tech.

(2)

where, k - the wave number associated with the electromagnetic field,

Impact Factor (JCC): 6.2879

NAAS Rating: 2.40

Dual Band Fractal Antenna

13

a-the radius of the sphere enclosing the antenna,

Qrad - radiation quality factor antenna. This fundamental limit is must in small or compact antennas to avoid
degraded performance.
In this paper presents the design and analysis of the conventional square patch antenna geometry has been modified
to behave as compact and dual-band fractal antenna using iterative fractal technique.

DESIGN OF ANTENNA
The proposed antenna hardware has been designed on FR4 substrate of area 625 square millimeter with thickness
(h) 1.56 mm and dielectric constant (r) 4.3. First, the square patch of the size 529 square millimeter has been realized on this
substrate using dimensions, L (length) = W (width) = 23 mm. The substrate is backed by the ground i.e. a copper material of
size 625 sq. m. The design of such conventional antenna is shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Design of Conventional Antenna

Now, the proposed fractal antenna as shown in Figure 2 is realized on the substrate by generating a slot of
dimension L = W = 13.861 mm in the conventional square patch of dimensions, L = W = 23 mm. An another square patch
of dimensions, L = W = 9.351 mm with a gap of 4.5 mm from inner boundary first slotted patch or external boundary of first
slot is generated as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2: Design of First Iterated Fractal Antenna

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

The conventional and the proposed fractal antennas are compared using their reflection loss characteristics as
shown in Figure 3. It can be easily understood that although the size of both conventional and fractal antenna are same, but
the realized resonant frequency of 2.33 GHz using proposed fractal antenna is found to be much lower than 2.98 GHz
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14

P. S. Wankhede, R. B. Dhumale & S. D. Lokhande

realized using a conventional patch of same size. This is due to increase in the length of current path (L) due to incorporation
of slot to reduce the size of the antenna to attribute compactness in the proposed antenna.
The measured and simulated reflection loss characteristics of the conventional antenna are in close agreement as
shown in Figure 3 and are tabulated in Table 3.

Figure 3: Simulated and Measured Reflection Loss for First Iterated Fractal Antenna
Fractal antennas are in close agreement. As shown in Figure 2, the proposed fractal antenna has two square patches
separated by a gap to represent dual band properties. Therefore the proposed fractal antenna shows 2.33 GHz and 6.58 GHz
frequencies. First due to larger patch size and second due to smaller patch size as shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4: Simulated Reflection Loss Plot First Iterated Fractal Antenna

In addition to these two resonance frequencies, a spurious second resonance is observed between these two
resonances due to outer square ring. All the results are shown in Table 3.
Table 3: Comparative Reflection Loss of Various Configurations of Antenna
Types of Antenna
Square patch antenna
1st Iterated fractal
antenna

Simulated, S11
3 GHz, -21.52 dB
2.33 GHz,
6.58 GHz,

Measured, S11
2.98 GHz, -11.17 dB
2.36 GHz,

The empirical formulation to justify the realized frequencies and dual bend nature of the antenna is reported in [3]
and given by equation (3) and (4) below and can be used to design the dual band antenna for desired frequency band.
Impact Factor (JCC): 6.2879

NAAS Rating: 2.40

Dual Band Fractal Antenna

15

f1 = c / 2 ( eff) * L

(3)

f2 = c / 2 ( eff) * L

(4)

Here, L = L + W2 = 36. 861 mm and L = 2 * W3 = 13.224 mm. L and L are average lengths of the current
paths for first & second resonance and L = 23 mm, W2 = 13.861mm and W3 = 9.351 mm are physical dimensions.
The conventional and fractal antennas are compared on the basis of their impedances and are shown in Figure 5
and 6 respectively. The dual band characteristics of the fractal antenna can also be seen in their impedance characteristics
as shown in Figure 6. Both, the antennas are found to be resonant where the impedance of the excitation is 50 to find a
good impedance matching.

Figure 5: Real and Imaginary Part in Impedance Exhibited by

Conventional Square Patch Antenna
It is seen in Figure 6 and 7 that reactance of the antenna is minimum near the resonance to reduce the stored
reactive power to exhibit maximum radiative nature.

Figure 6: Real and Imaginary Part in Impedance Exhibited by

1st Iteration Fractal Square Patch Antenna

RADIATION PATTERNS
The gain theta and gain phi radiation patterns of the conventional and fractal antenna at resonating frequencies have
been simulated as shown in Figure 7 and 8. It has been seen that the fractal antenna shows similar and omni directional
radiation pattern in azimuth plane at 90 degree elevation. The theta-gain of 4 dB at 2.99 GHz at elevation angle equal to 90
degree in conventional antenna is observed compared to 3 dB and 10 dB at 2.33 GHz and 6.58 GHz respectively in the

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16

P. S. Wankhede, R. B. Dhumale & S. D. Lokhande

proposed first iterated fractal antenna as shown in Figure 2.

H-plane
Figure 7: Radiation Patterns for Conventional Square Patch Antenna at 2.99 GHz

At theta 90 deg.

At theta 90 deg.

f = 2.33 GHz

f = 6.58 GHz

Figure 8: Radiation Patterns for 1st Iteration Fractal Antenna in H Planes

CONCLUSIONS
The proposed fractal has shown dual band characteristics due to self-similar patches. Incorporation of self similarity
in the proposed fractal design not only made the antenna multiband but has represented the compactness by reducing the
dimension required to realize the lowest frequency in the antenna using a conventional square patch antenna. The square
fractal patch antenna shows dual band behavior due to two self similar iterations incorporated in the designed antenna
compared to its conventional counterparts. This compactness is attributed to space filling properties in the antenna. The
antenna is found useful to exploit many wireless applications requiring multiple wireless frequency bands.
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J. Kim, C. Yang, T. Yun, and C. Jung, Multimode Multiband (VHF / UHF /L / 802.11 a/b) Antennas for Broadcasting and
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Impact Factor (JCC): 6.2879

NAAS Rating: 2.40

Dual Band Fractal Antenna

2.

17

Cheng-Hung Kang, Sung-Jung Wu, and Jenn-Hwan Tarng, A Novel Folded UWB Antenna for Wireless Body Area Network,
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