Design of a Multi-Band Microstrip Textile Patch Antenna for LTE and 5G Services with the CRO-SL Ensemble

A textile multi-band antenna for LTE and 5G communication services, composed by a rectangular microstrip patch, two concentric annular slots and a U-Shaped slot, is considered in this paper. In the ground plane, three sleeved meanders have been introduced to modify the surface current distribution, leading to a bandwidth improvement. The U-Shaped slot, the dual circular slots, and the meanders shape have been optimized by means of the Coral Reefs Optimization with Substrate Layer algorithm (CRO-SL). This population-based meta-heuristic approach is a kind of ensemble algorithm for optimization (multi-method), in which different search operators are considered within the algorithm. We show that the CRO-SL is able to obtain a robust multi-band textile antenna, including LTE and 5G frequency bands. For the optimization process, the CRO-SL is guided by means of a fitness function obtained after the antenna simulation by a specific simulation software for electromagnetic analysis in the high frequency range.