A wideband X-band circularly polarized printed monopole antenna backed by AMC reflector for 5G/IoT CubeSat applications

This letter presents a coplanar waveguide-fed printed monopole antenna backed by an artificial magnetic conductor (AMC) reflector. The proposed monopole antenna achieves circular polarization by loading the monopole with a printed coil and using an asymmetric ground plane. In addition, the AMC increases the antenna gain while maintaining a wide axial ratio (AR) bandwidth. The unit cell of the AMC is based on a Minkowski-like prefractal geometry. The antenna is fabricated and measured with a total size of 1.07 λ0 × 1.07 λ0 × 0.25 λ0 at the operating frequency of 8.5 GHz. The measured results show a wide −10 dB impedance bandwidth of 26.9% (7.12–9.38 GHz), a wide 3 dB AR bandwidth of 22.23% (8–9.89 GHz) as well as a peak gain of 8.3 dBi at 8.5 GHz. This is significantly better than comparable antennas in addition to this design being the smallest in size.