Resumen
This paper presents a feasibility study for designing a floating patch antenna structure fed with a probe from a microstrip. The main premise is to eliminate the dielectric in the patch design, which is equivalent to having an air dielectric and leads to the necessity of proper support to fasten the patch in the air. The novelty of this paper is that this new device, apart from being fed with the though-wire technique directly from the microstrip line, has to be, by design, robust and easy to manufacture, and, at the same time, it has to present, simultaneously, good values in all of the performance indexes. A prototype has been designed, manufactured, and measured with good performance results: a bandwidth higher than 10% around 2.4 GHz, a radiation efficiency higher than 96%, a 9.63 dBi gain, and a wide beamwidth. The main advantages of this prototype, together with its good performance indexes, include its low fabrication cost, low losses, light weight, robustness, high integration capability, the complete removal of the dielectric material, and the use of a single post for feeding the patch while simultaneously fixing its floating position.