[Urgunde, 3(12): December,2014] ISSN: 2277-9655 Scientific Journal Impact Factor: 3.449 (ISRA), Impact Factor: 2.114 http: // www.ijesrt.com© International Journal of Engineering Sciences & Research Technology [684] IJESRT INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ENGINEERING SCIENCES & RESEARCH TECHNOLOGY A Review on Gain & Bandwidth Enhancement Techniques of Microstrip Patch Antenna Kirankumar R. Urgunde * , Hemant L. Jadhav, Amol J. Pawar Department of Electronics & Telecommunication, ICEEM, Maharashtra, India. Abstract In the recent years the study of Microstrip patch antennas has made great progress. If we compare this antenna with conventional antennas, then it is important to note that the Microstrip patch antennas have more advantages and better prospects, Such as they are lighter in weight, low volume, low profile, smaller in dimension, ease of fabrication and conformity. Moreover, these Microstrip patch antennas can provide dual and circular polarizations, dual-frequency operation, frequency agility, broad band-width, and feed line flexibility, and beam steering & omni- directional patterning also. Because of this Microstrip patch antennas of all shapes are widely used in communication systems. However, these antennas have some limitations like low bandwidth due to surface wave losses, and low gain when used in conventional form. Hence, so this work focuses on the improvement of such parameters which are reported in literatures. Keywords: Microstrip antenna, Gain, Bandwidth. Introduction As per the Webster’s Dictionary an antenna is defined as “metallic device as a rod or as a wire which is used for transmission or reception of the radio waves through the free space”. Also the IEEE Standards define antennas (IEEE Std 145 1983) “as a means for radiating or receiving radio waves.” Initially, the Microstrip antennas are developed only for the space communication, but today due to its advantageous nature they are used in government as well as in some commercial applications [1-2]. Actually these antennas are developed by sandwiching dielectric material in between metallic patch and larger metallic sheets of ground plane. Patches are available in various configurations such as circular, square, rectangular, dipole etc. but out of all these only circular and rectangular patches are mostly preferred for the wireless applications, because which provides very low cross polarization radiation. The Microstrip antennas are developed by using grounded substrate and metallic patch. Following Figure 1.1 shows the basic structure of Microstrip antenna. Fig 1. Basic structure of Microstrip antenna [2]. Also these antennas are very easy to integrate with microwave integrated circuits and when a particular metallic patch is selected then these are very desirable in terms of higher impedance, resonant frequency and polarization, since they are mostly preferred for wireless applications [1-3]. But along with all advantages & applications the electrical behaviour of basic Microstrip antenna is affected due to number of parameters such as very narrow bandwidth due to surface wave losses, lower gain, low cross polarization [1-2]. So the basic aim of this paper is to review different techniques which are available to enhance the bandwidth as well as gain of Microstrip antenna.