Design and fabrication of flexible and frequency reconfigurable antenna loaded with copper, distilled water and seawater metamaterial superstrate for IoT applications

The manuscript represents a novel superstrate metamaterial loaded microstrip patch antenna to achieve multiband frequency reconfigurability. The performance is observed for the frequency band of 4 to 8 GHz. Metamaterial property is enabled by engraving triangular‐shaped split‐ring resonators in the substrate. Frequency tunability is achieved based on the switching mechanism of three PIN diodes. Different materials are loaded in the split ring resonators like copper, distilled water, and seawater for the performance observation in terms of reflectance response, Bandwidth, gain and tunability. The design provides the reflectance response of −43.38 dB, Bandwidth of 220 MHz, and frequency tunability of 100 MHz. The proposed design is also giving the highest gain of 8.3 dB. The structure is fabricated using FR‐4 to reduce the overall cost of the antenna, and it is tested using a vector network analyzer and anechoic chamber. Simulated results and fabricated ones are compared for reliability. The proposed design, with its flexible and reconfigurable capability, can be applicable in IoT applications.