VOL. 10, NO 19, OCTOBER, 2015 ISSN 1819-6608 ARPN Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences © 2006-2015 Asian Research Publishing Network (ARPN). All rights reserved. www.arpnjournals.com 8736 DESIGN AND ANALYSIS OF MINKOWSKI FRACTAL ANTENNA Noorsaliza Abdullah, Abdirahman Mohamud Shire, Munsar Abdi Ali and Ezri Mohd Faculty of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, University Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia, Parit Raja, Johor, Malaysia E-Mail: nsaliza@uthm.edu.my ABSTRACT Minkowski technique is proposed in this paper in order to design dual-band microstrip antenna with frequency bands of 1.8 GHz and 2.4 GHz. The conventional microstrip patch antenna has single band in which its return loss is - 25.92 dB at 2.4 GHz. The CST simulated results show that when Minkowski fractal microstrip antenna is designed, the antenna operates with two frequency bands for return loss of -19.301 dB and -39.575 dB at 1.8 GHz and 2.4 GHz respectively. The antenna is fabricated on FR-4 substrate with permittivity of 4.3 and thickness of 1.6 mm. Keywords: minkowski, fractal antenna, dual-band. INTRODUCTION In view of the progress of the recent communication systems and increase in application areas with vital requirements such as small size, less weight and better performance, the miniaturized multiband antennas are in great demand. Microstrip antennas are a class of miniaturized antennas with many advantages like light weight, conformability, low cost etc. For simple radiating patch shapes, the design can be carried out easily [1]. There remain many methods for the design of antennas for various applications and improving their performances [2]. The conventional antenna designed for broadband applications suffer from space for size and restricted bandwidths. However, there have been several efforts worldwide to bring together the fractal geometry with electromagnetic theory. These have led to a plethora of new and innovative antenna designs such as Minkowski fractal. In many cases the use of fractal antennas can simplify circuit design, reduce construction costs and improve reliability. Furthermore they are self-loading, no antenna parts such as coils and capacitors are needed to make them resonant. Arranging the elements in a fractal pattern to reduce the number of elements in the array and obtain wideband array for multiband performance [3-4]. Consequently, fractal shape antennas are becoming a useful way to design advanced antennas such as multiband antennas with approximately the same input characteristics for different frequency bands and also as small size antennas [5-7]. This paper deals with the design and analysis of dual band Minkowski fractal antenna. This paper contains four sections, in section two; the configuration of the antenna is elaborated. The results and discussion are highlighted in the third section, while the conclusion of this paper is summarized in the fourth section and then followed by a reference part. DESIGN OF THE ANTENNA The proposed antenna is designed in commercially available Computer Simulation Technology (CST) software. The antenna is designed on FR-4 substrate with permittivity of 4.3 and thickness of 1.6 mm. This is preferred because of ease of fabrication and availability. The design of the conventional square microstrip patch antenna is shown in Figure 1. The width and length of the antenna are calculated using equations found in [8]. By using these equations the antenna parameters such as width and length are optimized to 38.39 mm and 29.778 mm respectively. The antenna is fed using 50 Ω coaxial probe. The conventional microstrip antenna is shown in Figure-1. Figure-1. Configuration of Square microstrip patch antenna.