Th-Shaped Tunable Multi-Band Antenna for Modern Wireless Applications

A compact, reconfigurable antenna supporting multiple wireless services with a minimum number of switches is found lacking in literature and the same became the focus and outcome of this work. It was achieved by designing a Th-Shaped frequency reconfigurable multi-band microstrip planar antenna, based on use of a single switch within the radiating structure of the antenna. Three frequency bands (i.e., 2007–2501 MHz, 3660–3983 MHz and 9341–1046 MHz) can be operated with the switch in the ON switch state. In the OFF state of the switch, the antenna operates within the 2577–3280 MHz and 9379–1033 MHz Bands. The proposed antenna shows an acceptable input impedance match with Voltage Standing Wave Ratio (VSWR) less than 1.2. The peak radiation efficiency of the antenna is 82%. A reasonable gain is obtained from 1.22 to 3.31 dB within the operating bands is achieved. The proposed antenna supports Universal Mobile Telecommunication System (UMTS)-1920 to 2170 MHz, Worldwide Interoperability and Microwave Access (WiMAX)/Wireless Broadband/(Long Term Evolution) LTE2500–2500 to 2690 MHz, Fifth Generation (5G)-2500/3500 MHz, Wireless Fidelity (Wi-Fi)/ Bluetooth-2400 to 2480 MHz, and Satellite communication applications in X-Band-8000 to 12000 MHz. The overall planar dimension of the proposed antenna is 40 × 20 mm². The antenna was designed, along with the parametric study, using Electromagnetic (EM) simulation tool. The antenna prototype is fabricated for experimental validation with the simulated results. The proposed antenna is low profile, tunable, lightweight, cheap to fabricate and highly efficient and hence is deemed suitable for use in modern wireless communication electronic devices.     

Frequency Reconfigurable Antenna for Portable Wireless Applications

In this paper, the design and experimental evaluation of a hexagonal-shaped coplanar waveguide (CPW)-feed frequency reconfigurable antenna is presented using flame retardant (FR)-4 substrate with size of 37 × 35 × 1.6 mm³. The antenna is made tunable to three different modes through the status of two pin diodes to operate in four distinct frequency bands, i.e., 2.45 GHz wireless fidelity (Wi-Fi) in MODE 1, 3.3 GHz (5G sub-6 GHz band) in MODE 2, 2.1 GHz (3G Long Term Evolution (LTE)-advanced) and 3.50 GHz Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) in MODE 3. The optimization through simulation modeling shows that the proposed antenna can provide adequate gain (1.44~2.2 dB), sufficient bandwidth (200~920 MHz) and high radiation efficiency (80%~95%) in the four resonating frequency bands. Voltage standing wave ratio (VSWR) < 1.5 is achieved for all bands with properly matched characteristics of the antenna. To validate the simulation results, fabrication of the proposed optimized design is performed, and experimental analysis is found to be in a considerable amount of agreement. Due to its reasonably small size and support of multiple frequency bands operation, the proposed antenna can support portable devices for handheld 5G and Wireless LAN (WLAN) applications.     

Inkjet Printed Metamaterial Loaded Antenna for WLAN/WiMAX Applications

In this paper, the design and performance analysis of an Inkjet-printed metamaterial loaded monopole antenna is presented for wireless local area network (WLAN) and worldwide interoperability for microwave access (WiMAX) applications. The proposed metamaterial structure consists of two layers, one is rectangular tuning fork-shaped antenna, and another layer is an inkjet-printed metamaterial superstate. The metamaterial layer is designed using four split-ring resonators (SRR) with an H-shaped inner structure to achieve negative-index metamaterial properties. The metamaterial structure is fabricated on low-cost photo paper substrate material using a conductive ink-based inkjet printing technique, which achieved dual negative refractive index bands of 2.25–4.25 GHz and 4.3–4.6 GHz. The antenna is designed using a rectangular tuning fork structure to operate at WLAN and WiMAX bands. The antenna is printed on 30 × 39 × 1.27 mm3 Rogers RO3010 substrate, which shows wide impedance bandwidth of 0.75 GHz (2.2 to 2.95 GHz) with 2 dB realized gain at 2.4 GHz. After integrating metamaterial structure, the impedance bandwidth becomes 1.25 GHz (2.33 to 3.58 GHz) with 2.6 dB realized gain at 2.4 GHz. The antenna bandwidth and gain have been increased using developed quad SRR based metasurface by 500 MHz and 0.6 dBi respectively. Moreover, the proposed quad SRR loaded antenna can be used for 2.4 GHz WLAN bands and 2.5 GHz WiMAX applications. The contribution of this work is to develop a cost-effective inject printed metamaterial to enhance the impedance bandwidth and realized the gain of a WLAN/WiMAX antenna.     

A Compact 28 GHz Millimeter Wave Antenna for Future Wireless Communication

This article presents a novel modified chuck wagon dinner bell shaped millimeter wave (mm-wave) antenna at 28 GHz. The proposed design has ultra-thin Rogers 5880 substrate with relative permittivity of 2.2. The design consists of T shaped resonating elements and two open ended side stubs. The desired 28 GHz frequency response is achieved by careful parametric modeling of the proposed structure. The maximum achieved single element gain at the desired resonance frequency is 3.45 dBi. The efficiency of the proposed design over the operating band is more than 88%. The impedance bandwidth achieved for −10 dB reference value is nearly 2.9 GHz. The proposed antenna is transformed into four element linear array which increases the gain up to 10.5 dBi. The fabricated prototype is tested for the measured results. It is observed that measured results closely match the simulated results. By considering its simple structure and focused radiation patterns, the proposed design is well suited for IoT (Internet of Things), mmWave microwave sensing, 5G and future RF (Radio Frequency) front-ends.     

A Constant Gain and Miniaturized Antipodal Vivaldi Antenna for 5G Communication Applications

This paper proposes a stable gain and a compact Antipodal Vivaldi Antenna (AVA) for a 38 GHz band of 5G communication. A novel compact AVA is designed to provide constant gain, high front to back ratio (FBR), and very high efficiency. The performance of the proposed AVA is enhanced with the help of a dielectric lens (DL) and corrugations. A rectangular-shaped DL is incorporated in conventional AVA (CAVA) to enhance its gain up to 1 dBi and the bandwidth by 1.8 GHz. Next, the rectangular corrugations are implemented in CAVA with lens (CAVA-L) to further improve the gain and bandwidth. The proposed AVA with lens and corrugations (AVA-LC) gives a constant and high gain of 8.2 to 9 dBi. The designed AVA-LC operates from 34 to 45 GHz frequency which covers 38 GHz (37.5 to 43.5 GHz) band of 5G applications. Further, the presented AVA-LC mitigates the back lobe and sidelobe levels, resulting in FBR and efficiency improvement. The FBR is in the range of 12.2  to 22 dB, and efficiency is 99%, almost constant. The AVA-LC is fabricated on Roger’s RT/duroid 5880 substrate, and it is tested to verify the simulated results. The proposed compact AVA-LC with high gain, an improved FBR, excellent efficiency, and stable radiation patterns is suitable for the 38 GHz band of 5G devices.     

Metamaterial-Based Compact Antenna with Defected Ground Structure for 5G and Beyond

In this paper, a unit cell of a single-negative metamaterial structure loaded with a meander line and defected ground structure (DGS) is investigated as the principle radiating element of an antenna. The unit cell antenna causes even or odd mode resonances similar to the unit cell structure depending on the orientation of the microstrip feed used to excite the unit cell. However, the orientation which gives low-frequency resonance is considered here. The unit cell antenna is then loaded with a meander line which is parallel to the split bearing side and connects the other two sides orthogonal to the split bearing side. This modified structure excites another mode of resonance at high frequency when a meander line defect is loaded on the metallic ground plane. Specific parameters of the meander line structure, the DGS shape, and the unit cell are optimized to place these two resonances at different frequencies with proper frequency intervals to enhance the bandwidth. Finally, the feed is placed in an offset position for better impedance matching without affecting the bandwidth The compact dimension of the antenna is 0.25 λL × 0.23 λL × 0.02 λL, where λL is the free space wavelength with respect to the center frequency of the impedance bandwidth. The proposed antenna is fabricated and measured. Experimental results reveal that the modified design gives monopole like radiation patterns which achieves a fractional operating bandwidth of 26.6%, from 3.26 to 4.26 GHz for |S11|<−10 dB and a pick gain of 1.26 dBi is realized. In addition, the simulated and measured cross-polarization levels are both less than −15 dB in the horizontal plane.