Abstract
This paper presents the design and manufacture of a 1×4 microstrip patch antenna array designed for WLAN applications (2.4 GHz) and the effect of substrate thickness on bandwidth and some radiation characteristics is investigated. An FR4 substrate with a dielectric constant of 4.3 is used. Three different values of substrate thickness are considered: 1.2 mm, 1.6 mm, and 2 mm. The design and simulation of the results were performed using the CST 2019 simulation program. The results showed that at a thickness of 1.2 mm, the bandwidth was 0.06881GHz, the return loss was -42.058 dB, the VSWR was 1.0159, the gain was 6.5977 dB, and the directivity was 11.141 dB. At a thickness of 1.6 mm, the bandwidth was 0.09767 GHz, the return loss was -37.293 dB, the VSWR was 1.0277, the gain was 7.2912 dB, and the directivity was 11.13 dB. At a thickness of 2 mm, the bandwidth was 0. 1260GHz, the return loss was -25.476 dB, the VSWR was 1. 1125, the gain was 7.6222 dB, and the directivity was 11.11 dB. These results show that the substrate thickness is directly proportional to the bandwidth and some other characteristics, i.e., the bandwidth increases as the thickness increases in the proposed model. On the other hand, the thickness is inversely proportional to the directivity, i.e., the directivity decreases as the thickness increases.