Not all fractal antennas work well for a given application or set of applications.

This makes the fractal antenna an excellent design for wideband and multiband applications.

Hence fractal antennas offer a closed-form and unique insight into a key aspect of electromagnetic phenomena.

In general the fractal dimension of a fractal antenna is a poor predictor of its performance and application.

Log-periodic antennas are designed to be self-similar and are thus also fractal antenna arrays.

Most allusions to fractal antennas make reference to these "fractal element antennas".

Computer search methods and antenna simulations are commonly used to identify which fractal antenna designs best meet the need of the application.

Advances in antenna technology, including fractal antennas, have allowed a general reduction in antenna size across all industries and applications.

A fractal antenna's response differs markedly from traditional antenna designs, in that it is capable of operating with good-to-excellent performance at many different frequencies simultaneously.

For this reason, fractal antennas are very compact, multiband or wideband, and have useful applications in cellular telephone and microwave communications.

A good example of a fractal antenna as a spacefilling curve is in the form of a shrunken fractal helix.

Such fractal antennas are also referred to as multilevel and space filling curves, but the key aspect lies in their repetition of a motif over two or more scale sizes, or "iterations".

Confusion by those who claim "grain of rice"-sized fractal antennas arises, because such fractal structures serve the purpose of loads and counterpoises, rather than bona fide antennas.

As fractals can be used as counterpoises, loads, ground planes, and filters, all parts that can be integrated with antennas, they are considered parts of some antenna systems and thus are discussed in the context of fractal antennas.

Cohen's efforts with a variety of fractal antenna designs were first published in 1995 (thus the first scientific publication on fractal antennas), and a number of patents have been issued from the 1995 filing priority of invention.

A fractal antenna is an antenna that uses a fractal, self-similar design to maximize the length, or increase the perimeter (on inside sections or the outer structure), of material that can receive or transmit electromagnetic radiation within a given total surface area or volume.

In this manner, the fractal antenna, just like any other antenna with reactive loading (i.e. dielectric, ferrites, capacitors, inductors, etc.), can have its resonant frequency lower than that of the typical free-space half-wavelength fundamental resonant frequency predicted by setting the largest physical dimension of the antenna equal to half a wavelength.