Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 December 2016
In this study, a dual-wideband monopole antenna has been designed and developed for the universal mobile telecommunications system (UMTS), wireless local area network (WLAN), and worldwide interoperability for microwave access (WiMAX) applications. A novel approach integrating artificial bee colony (ABC) with the HyperLynx® 3D electromagnetic platform based on the method of moments has been employed to calculate the design parameters of the monopole antenna performance for the respective target frequencies and return loss. The proposed dual-wideband antenna operates in the dual-frequency ranges of 1.69–3.99 and 4.75–6.22 GHz applicable for the UMTS, WLAN, and WiMAX applications and it is fabricated on the flame resistant-4 substrate plate of 42 × 51 × 1.6 mm3. The performance of the presented monopole antenna is analyzed in terms of gain, radiation pattern, and s-parameter. The input reflection coefficient (S11) parameter and radiation pattern of the antenna are verified through the measurements. The measured values of the antenna parameters are found to match well within tolerable limits with the simulation results. The results illustrate that the presented dual-wideband monopole antenna obtained by using the ABC algorithm exhibits better performance in point of operating bands and s-parameter as compared with the multi-band antennas previously published in the literature.