The reconfigurable microstrip patch antenna in the current work has a new design and can operate at numerous frequencies, specifically at 8.17 GHz, 11.13 GHz, 15.77 GHz, and 17.46 GHz in the OFF state and 8.38 GHz, 11.13 GHz, 14.51 GHz, 16.20 GHz, 17.46 GHz, and 18.52 GHz in the ON state. The switching element used for antenna reconfiguration is a single PIN diode modeled on High Frequency Structure Simulator (HFSS) software. The ON/OFF switching configurations of the diode make the antenna capable of resonating at different frequencies in the X-band (8-12 GHz) and Ku-band (12-18 GHz) applications. Inclusion of square fractal slots on the ground plane leads to considerable improvement in bandwidth and gain. The proposed antenna is designed on a low-cost FR-4 substrate with a dielectric constant of 4.4 and a thickness of 1.6 mm. The proposed antenna shows good performance in terms of return loss, radiation pattern, and gain.

Reconfigurable, fractal, return loss, PIN diode, VSWR, radiation efficiency