In this paper, a novel design of low profile printed slot antenna using wideband artificial magnetic conductor (AMC) is presented with improved radiation performance. For this purpose, the radiating slots with three unequal arms fed by coplanar waveguide are employed for broadening the impedance bandwidth with three resonances. It achieves a wide impedance bandwidth in the measured frequency range of 7.96–12.56 GHz (S11 ≤ −10 dB) for X-band applications. By loading a novel wideband planar AMC surface as the antenna ground plane, the radiation properties of this printed slot antenna are enhanced. This design includes the measured −10 dB impedance bandwidth from 5.75 to 14.51 GHz (86.48%). The proposed wideband planar AMC design operates at the frequency of 10.15 GHz with ±90° reflection phase bandwidth of 8–12.38 GHz (43.15%). The AMC surface is designed with the 5 × 8 array of periodic patches which are developed underneath the broadband printed slot antenna. In comparison with the proposed design without AMC, the printed slot antenna loaded with AMC introduces 62.82% size reduction, a bandwidth enhancement of 41.65%, and better impedance matching. It also contributes considerable features like a low profile antenna with unidirectional radiation patterns and an increased gain of more than 10.6 dBi.
