This study presents a new stacked design of reduced size broadband microstrip patch antenna for ultra-wideband (UWB) operation. A folded triangular patch's feeding technique, half V-shaped slot and shorting pins are employed to design the proposed stacked antenna. Shorting pins are applied at the edge of structure to miniaturize the size of the patch. The proposed design with the half V-shaped slot and without stacked patch provides the measured impedance bandwidth (S11<−10 dB) of 115.7% (4.35-16.3 GHz) for broadband application. In the proposed design with the half V-shaped slot, the wide bandwidth with an acceptable size reduction is achieved. By adding a stacked element on the upper patch, the impedance bandwidth of the proposed antenna is improved from 3.47 to 17.35 GHz. The stacked design includes a measured impedance bandwidth of 133.3% with reduced sizes of more than 78% compared to the corresponding full design and an enhanced maximum gain of 6.2 dBi. The obtained radiation and impedance results show that the proposed design is applicable for wideband operation. Besides, the effects of some basic concepts and surface currents on the suggested structure are investigated to explain their broadband performance.
