Elliptical planar monopole antenna with extremely wide bandwidth

A planar monopole antenna with an extremely wide bandwidth is introduced, which is composed of an elliptical monopole patch and a trapeziform ground plane, both printed on the same side of a substrate, and is fed by a tapered CPW feeder in the middle of the ground plane. The simulated and experimental results demonstrate that this antenna achieves a ratio impedance bandwidth of 21.6:1 for VSWR/spl les/2, and exhibits a nearly omnidirectional radiation pattern, while its area is only about 0.19/spl lambda//sub l//spl times/0.16/spl lambda//sub l/ where /spl lambda//sub l/ is the wavelength of the lowest operating frequency.     

CLIP antenna for wireless bluetooth applications

In this paper, a novel design for a coplanar waveguide antenna is developed that consists of two U-shaped slots. The antenna is named CLIP. The antenna was designed for a central frequency of 2.4 GHz, with an input impedance of 50 /spl Omega/. The antenna dimensions represent a 72% size reduction compared to a conventional microstrip rectangular-patch antenna. The measured antenna bandwidth was about 11%, while its gain was about 17 dB. These values are fairly acceptable in all wireless communication systems. The antenna configuration has a bidirectional radiation pattern, while a unidirectional radiation pattern was achieved by using a /spl lambda//sub 0//4 reflector with a metal plate. A 2/spl times/2 multi-element sub array was implemented to widen the application area. The mutual coupling between adjacent elements was low. Orthogonal-plane coupling between adjacent elements was introduced to increase the reduction in the mutual coupling. The mutual coupling level was reduced to less than -23 dB in all coupling planes. The CLIP antenna element and arrays were fabricated. Experimental measurements showed very good performance, which agreed well with simulation results.     

Development and analysis of a folded shorted-patch antenna with reduced size

The length of a wall-shorted rectangular patch antenna can be reduced from /spl sim//spl lambda//sub 0//4 to /spl sim//spl lambda//sub 0//8 by a simple folding operation, which results in a stacked shorted-patch (S-P) structure with a resonant frequency that can be controlled by modifying the distance between the stacked (lower and upper) shorted-patches. A theoretical analysis based on a simple transmission-line model is presented and compared with numerical simulations, showing good agreement if the height of the folded patch is much smaller than the patch length. The physical insight of the variation of the resonant frequency for this reduced-size antenna can be understood by considering the antenna as a shorted patch loaded with a capacitor. An experimental verification is carried out for a 15 mm/spl times/15 mm/spl times/6 mm folded S-P antenna prototype designed for the 2.4 GHz ISM band that can achieve a 10-dB return loss bandwidth of 4% and results in a nearly omni-directional radiation pattern.     

Composite right/left-handed transmission line based compact resonant antennas for RF module integration

Several electrically small resonant antennas employing the composite right/left-handed transmission line (CRLH-TL) are presented for integration with portable RF modules. The proposed antenna designs are based on the unique property of anti-parallel phase and group velocity of the CRLH-TL at its fundamental mode. In this mode, the propagation constant increases as the frequency decreases, therefore, a small guided wavelength can be obtained at a lower frequency to provide the small /spl lambda//sub g//2 resonant length used to realize a compact antenna design. Furthermore, the physical size and the operational frequency of the antenna depend on the unit cell size and the equivalent transmission line model parameters of the CRLH-TL, including series inductance, series capacitance, shunt inductance and shunt capacitance. Optimization of these parameters as well as miniaturization techniques of the physical size of unit cell is investigated. A four unit-cell resonant antenna is designed and tested at 1.06 GHz. The length, width and height of the proposed antenna are 1/19/spl lambda//sub 0/, 1/23/spl lambda//sub 0/ and 1/83/spl lambda//sub 0/, respectively. In addition, a compact antenna using a 2-D three by three mushroom like unit cell arrangement is developed at 1.17 GHz, showing that an increased gain of 0.6 dB and higher radiation efficiency can be achieved over the first prototype antenna. The same design is applied in the development of a circularly polarized antenna operating at 2.46 GHz. A 116/spl deg/ beamwidth with axial ratio better than 3 dB is observed. The physical size of the proposed mushroom type small antenna and the circularly polarized antenna is 1/14/spl lambda//sub 0/ by 1/14/spl lambda//sub 0/ by 1/39/spl lambda//sub 0/ and 1/10/spl lambda//sub 0/ by 1/10/spl lambda//sub 0/ by 1/36/spl lambda//sub 0/, respectively.     

Switched parasitic antenna on a finite ground plane with conductive sleeve

A switched parasitic monopole antenna on a finite ground structure with a conductive sleeve attached to a small, circular ground plane controls the vertical radiation direction. The antenna was designed using a genetic algorithm and finite element (FEM) solver. At 1.575 GHz, the constructed antenna exhibited a front to back ratio of 10.7 dB and gain of 6.4 dBi with no elevation from the horizontal. The switched parasitic nature of the antenna allowed it to steer a directional beam through 5 locations in the azimuth. Incremented from 0/spl lambda/ to 0.45/spl lambda/, the sleeve was observed to linearly depress the main lobe elevation with little influence on other antenna characteristics such as gain and S/sub 11/.     

Small dual C-slot printed antenna

A novel shorted dual C-slot printed antenna is presented. The antenna consists of two C-shaped slots embedded within the shorted patch antenna to maximise the current path of the antenna. A 10 dB return loss bandwidth of 5.4% has been achieved. The overall dimension of the antenna is 0.11/spl lambda//sub 0//spl times/0.074/spl lambda//sub 0//spl times/0.074/spl lambda//sub 0/ and is suitable for application where limited space is a premium. Importantly, the antenna is easy to develop.     

Investigations on miniaturized endfire vertically polarized quasi-fractal log-periodic zigzag antenna

This paper presents the investigations on a miniaturized vertically polarized traveling wave antenna for operation in the high frequency band (3-6 MHz), with a specific requirement of keeping its height near 1/8th of a wavelength. The antenna is desired to have a good endfire gain and front to back ratio, and small radiation levels in the vertical direction at broadside angle. A log-periodic Zigzag antenna (LPZA) has acceptable performance in both gain and polarization. Its height however is large, at about one wavelength (1/spl lambda//sub L/). The concept of fractal antenna is employed in this antenna to achieve the necessary height reduction to /spl lambda//sub L//8, while keeping its radiation characteristics nearly constant. Both single and dual arm quasifractal log-periodic zigzag antenna (QFLPZA) configurations are investigated, with a maximum antenna height of only 1/8th of a wavelength, showing the desired radiation characteristics, and a wide impedance bandwidth of 67%. This type of antenna may find applications in surveillance radar.     

Effect of helix turn angle on the performance of a half wavelength quadrifilar antenna

The impedance and radiation pattern parameters of a /spl lambda//2 quadrifilar helix antenna (QHA) with turn angles in the range 0/spl deg/ to 235/spl deg/ are analyzed. It is shown that by selecting the helix turn angle to satisfy the minimum bandwidth and beamwidth requirements, an improved electrical performance and a reduction in the physical size of the antenna is obtained. This is demonstrated by comparing the performance of a conventional half turn QHA with structures having a smaller pitch length. The computed results are validated by experimental data at L-band.     

Multiple meander strip monopole antenna

A novel multiple meander strip monopole antenna is presented. By iteratively meandering the vertical strip, compactness and broadband characteristics for the monopole antenna were achieved simultaneously. The designed monopole antenna with a radiation element volume of 14/spl times/14/spl times/14 mm/sup 3/ has the measured bandwidth ratio of 3.87:1, from 2.83 to 10.96 GHz for VSWR/spl les/2, with fairly frequency-insensitive omni-directional radiation characteristics.     

Simple reconfigurable antenna with radiation pattern

A radiation pattern reconfigurable antenna is proposed. By controlling the switch states, the antenna can be worked as a monopole antenna with an omnidirectional radiation pattern or a dipole antenna with reflector, which has directional radiation pattern. Detailed design considerations of the proposed antenna, simulated and experimental results are presented and discussed.     

Theory and analysis of differentially-driven microstrip antennas

This paper studies differentially-driven microstrip antennas. The theory of microstrip antennas based on the improved cavity model is expanded to analyze the input impedance and radiation characteristics of the differentially-driven microstrip antennas. The differentially-driven microstrip antennas were fabricated. Their performances were experimentally verified. Results show that the occurrence of resonance for the differentially-driven microstrip antennas also depends on the ratio of the separation /spl xi/ of the dual feeds to the free-space wavelength /spl lambda//sub o/. When the dual feeds are located far from each other /spl xi///spl lambda//sub o/>0.1, the resonance occurs, and the input resistance at resonance is rather large. However, when the dual feeds are located near to each other /spl xi///spl lambda//sub o/<0.1, the resonance does not occur, the input resistance is quite small, and the input impedance is inductive. Compared with single-ended microstrip antennas, the differentially-driven microstrip antennas have larger resonant resistance, similar co-polar radiation patterns, and lower cross-polar radiation component.     

A novel approach for miniaturization of slot antennas

With the virtual enforcement of the required boundary condition (BC) at the end of a slot antenna, the area occupied by the resonant antenna can be reduced. To achieve the required virtual BC, the two short circuits at the end of the resonant slot are replaced by some reactive BC, including inductive or capacitive loadings. The application of these loads is shown to reduce the size of the resonant slot antenna for a given resonant frequency without imposing any stringent condition on the impedance matching of the antenna. A procedure for designing this class of slot antennas for any arbitrary size is presented. The procedure is based on an equivalent circuit model for the antenna and its feed structure. The corresponding equivalent circuit parameters are extracted using a full-wave forward model in conjunction with a genetic algorithm optimizer. These parameters are employed to find a proper matching network so that a perfect match to a 50 /spl Omega/ line is obtained. For a prototype slot antenna with approximate dimensions of 0.05/spl lambda//sub 0//spl times/0.05/spl lambda//sub 0/ the impedance match is obtained, with a fairly high gain of -3dBi, for a very small ground plane (/spl ap/0.20/spl lambda//sub 0/). Since there are neither polarization nor mismatch losses, the antenna efficiency is limited only by the dielectric and ohmic losses.     

Printed annular monopole antenna for ultra-wideband applications

A novel printed monopole antenna for ultra-wideband applications is introduced, which consists of an annular monopole patch and a trapeziform ground plane with a tapered CPW feeder in the middle. The simulated and experimental results demonstrate that this antenna achieves a ratio impedance bandwidth of more than 10:1 for VSWR/spl les/2, and exhibits the nearly omnidirectional radiation pattern with a simple structure.     

Capacity of MIMO systems with closely spaced antennas

Wide-band radio channel measurements at 5.2 GHz with four transmit and four receive antennas at variable element spacing are reported, aiming to evaluate the potential of compact antenna arrays at mobile terminals. We show that, for an element spacing d<0.5/spl middot//spl lambda/ (down to 0.2/spl middot//spl lambda/), the link capacity is not smaller than that for much larger d. This is explained by the observation that mutual coupling changes the radiation patterns of closely spaced antenna elements, individually. Compact multi-antenna terminals may thus become practical.     

A slotted post-wall waveguide array with interdigital structure for 45/spl deg/ linear and dual polarization

This work proposes a dual-polarized planar antenna; two post-wall slotted waveguide arrays with orthogonal 45/spl deg/ linearly-polarized waves interdigitally share the aperture on a single layer substrate. Uniform excitation of the two-dimensional slot array is confirmed by experiment in the 25 GHz band. The isolation between two slot arrays is also investigated in terms of the relative displacement along the radiation waveguide axis in the interdigital structure. The isolation is 33.0 dB when the relative shift of slot position between the two arrays is -0.5/spl lambda//sub g/, while it is only 12.8 dB when there is no shift. The cross-polarization level in the far field is -25.2 dB for a -0.5/spl lambda//sub g/ shift, which is almost equal to that of the isolated single polarization array. It is degraded down to -9.6 dB when there is no shift.     

Design of an efficient miniaturized UHF planar antenna

The design aspects and the measured results of a novel miniaturized planar antenna are described. Such architectural antenna design is of great importance in mobile military communications where low visibility and high mobility are required. Slot radiating elements, having a planar geometry and capable of transmitting vertical polarization when placed nearly horizontal, are appropriate for the applications at hand. Slot antennas also have another useful property, so far as impedance matching is concerned. Basically, slot dipoles can easily be excited by a microstrip line and can be matched to arbitrary line impedances simply by moving the feed point along the slot. Antenna miniaturization can be achieved by using a high permittivity or permeability substrate and superstrate materials and/or using an appropriate antenna topology. We demonstrate miniaturization by designing an appropriate geometry for a resonant narrow slot antenna. A very efficient radiating element that occupies an area as small as 0.12/spl lambda//sub 0//spl times/0.12/spl lambda//sub 0/ is designed and tested. Simulation results, as well as the measured input impedance and radiation patterns of this antenna, are presented. This structure shows a measured gain of 0.5 dBi on FR4 substrate, which has a loss-tangent of the order of 0.01. Also, the effect of finite ground plane size on gain and resonant frequency is investigated experimentally.     

Novel small-size directional antenna for UWB WBAN/WPAN applications

This paper presents a novel small-size directional antenna design for ultrawide-band wireless body area networks/wireless personal area networks applications. The design is based on a typical slot antenna structure with an added reflector in order to achieve directionality. The effects of different antenna parameters and human body proximity on the radiation characteristics are analyzed. Antenna measurements with an optic RF setup were performed in order to characterize the small-size antenna far field radiation pattern. The different structural antenna parameters were optimized via extensive numerical simulations. Results show that for frequencies above 3.5 GHz, where the power front-to-back ratio of the directional antenna is greater than 10 dB, its impedance is nearly the same as in the free space. It is not the case neither for the omnidirectional slot antenna nor the monopole antenna next to the body. Between 3 and 6 GHz performance of the novel directional antenna, in terms of radiation efficiency and SAR values, is significantly improved compared to omnidirectional antenna designs.     

Experiments with small V-band waveguide reflector feeds

The radiation patterns of simple rectangular waveguide feeds have been measured at V band. A low-cost test arrangement, operating in the far field but without any absorbers, is shown to give better than 0.5 dB repeatability and more than 30 dB of dynamic range. The general rules of waveguide-feed design for reflector antennas are applicable, but the tendency of narrow feed patterns is somewhat emphasized compared to observations in earlier work at C or X band. For horizontal polarization, the difference is 5 dB at 90/spl deg/ between WR-28 and WR-90 hardware. This is partly caused by an increase in the relative guide material thickness at shorter wavelengths. No clear connection between pattern widths of the two linear polarizations was observed if the guide height was increased, the largest momentary deviation being 3 dB for a rectangular 7.1 by 7.1 millimeter feed. Changes in the guide width had a monotone effect up to 3 dB at 90/spl deg/ offset. Very small feed aperture sizes, around /spl lambda//4 or less, did not show respective widening of 1 dB patterns, although such expected effects were visible at lower amplitude levels.     

带有开口谐振环引向器的新型端射天线设计

设计一种带有开口谐振环(SRRs)引向器的新型端射天线。天线由反射板、地板、辐射单极子和开口谐振环组成。天线的反射板结构使天线在低频处阻抗匹配,有效地提高了天线带宽;用六对开口谐振环结构作为天线的引向器,很好地实现了天线的高增益。仿真和实测结果表明,天线阻抗带宽达到73.7%(2～4.21 GHz),增益为4.3～10.3 dB;在天线的带宽内,天线的辐射方向图稳定,设计的天线满足S波段无线通信领域的需求。     

新型小型化的宽带定向天线

设计了一种小型化宽带定向天线。椭圆形的印制单极天线是一种小型化的超宽带天线,通过将该单极天线的地板折叠为字母C的形状,作为单极天线振子的反射腔,不仅实现了天线的定向性,同时进一步减小了天线的高度尺寸（0．13λ0,λ0为工作频率空气波长）。制作了天线样件并进行了测试,实测结果表明,该小型化天线驻波小于3的工作带宽为700～3800MHz,天线的方向图在整个频带内具有良好的定向辐射特性。