Comparative study on various artificial magnetic conductors for low-profile antenna

This paper investigated comparatively the characteristics of four types of artificial magnetic conductor (AMC) surface, including a mushroom-like (electromagnetic band gap) EBG, uniplanar compact EBG (UC-EBG), Peano curve, and Hubert curve, as a ground plane for a low-profile antenna. The AMC surface structures are designed to have an in-phase reflection property for a plane wave of normal incidence in the vicinity of 2.45 GHz. The bandwidths of the in-phase reflection for the AMC surfaces and return losses, radiation patterns, and gains of the horizontal wire antennas on the AMC ground planes are all measured and compared with each other. The measured data show that all the AMC surfaces act as good ground planes for a low-profile antenna, yet the bandwidth and gain of the mushroom-like EBG structure are broader and larger, respectively, than those of the other structures.