How is a fractal antenna better than a meander (crank-line)antenna?
Antennas made of repeating sections are not new. The first of these meander antennas is the ever popular spring, or a Wheeler helix, now over 50 years old. It is a three dimensional version. Two dimensional ones look like Grecian frescos or rug borders. Antennas engineers refer to these meanders as crank-line antennas, or CLAs. Electrically, CLAs are uniform , discrete and repeating reactive loads, and can be replaced as an equivalent circuit by a series of the same valued reactive component. As such, the benefit is that the height of the antenna is shortened, juts as with FEA. But because CLAs are limited by the repetition of the same sized geometric pattern, they do not have the chance to be shaped to best produce the reactive loads needed for best performance and multiple frequency operation. Basically, they get by, but have never been shown to be the best in performance for smaller antennas with multiple band needs. On the other hand, FEA are, by definition, easily shaped, just by
