A wideband circularly polarized stacked slotted microstrip patch antenna

A wideband, single-feed, circularly polarized, stacked, square, slotted microstrip patch antenna is proposed for radio-frequency-identification-reader applications. The proposed antenna consists of an upper square asymmetric slotted patch, stacked over a lower square asymmetric slotted radiating patch and a microstrip stub, along with a coaxial feed. The wideband circularly polarized radiation of the antenna is achieved using a microstrip stub in the lower patch and a stacked slotted square patch. The proposed antenna is designed using a combination of low-cost FR4 substrate and foam. The measured 10 dB return-loss bandwidth of the antenna was around 21% (833 MHz to 1033 MHz), and the 3 dB axial-ratio bandwidth of the antenna was around 13.4% (835 MHz to 955 MHz). The gain was around 7.0 dBic over the 3 dB axial-ratio bandwidth. The overall antenna volume was 0.601λ 0 × 0.601λ 0 × 0.895λ 0 (where λ 0 is the free-space wavelength at 900 MHz).