A mutual coupling study of linear and circular polarized microstrip antennas for diversity wireless systems

In this paper, an analysis of mutual coupling is presented to examine the benefits of orthogonal polarizations and patterns for adjacent microstrip antennas. The mutual coupling between two linear polarized antennas orientated in parallel polarizations (E and H plane) is reduced using low dielectric constant materials. The mutual coupling can be reduced an additional 20-35dB at the same inter-element spacing when adjacent elements are orientated in orthogonal polarizations, O plane. Similarly, the mutual coupling between two circular polarized antennas orientated in the parallel polarization is reduced using low dielectric constant materials. However, the reduction in mutual coupling between two circular polarized antenna elements orientated in the O plane is only an additional 1-6 dB. The mutual coupling between a linear polarized sum beam (1/2/spl lambda/) and difference beam (1/spl lambda/) antenna is reduced 20-35 dB below the case when using identical antennas only in the H- and O-planes. Compact two- and four-element multielement antennas with inter-element spacings less than 0.15/spl lambda/ are fabricated and the S parameters and radiation patterns are measured.     

2 GHz electromagnetic crystal reflector antenna

The radiation pattern of a monopole antenna with a small electromagnetic crystal (EMXT) reflector was investigated. High frequency structure simulations predict a considerable amount of near-field shielding with undisturbed antenna impedance matching when a perfect magnetic conductor reflector is positioned near the monopole. The pattern distortion created by the reflector gradually decreases, reaching a minimum in the far field. Experimental results show the monopole with an EMXT reflector, /spl lambda//sub 0//4/spl times//spl lambda//sub 0//2 in size, produces a radiation pattern with a front-to-back ratio of 10.8 and 5.7 dB in the near and far fields, respectively.     

A compact antenna for ultrawide-band applications

A novel compact and ultrawide-band (UWB) antenna is presented in this paper. The basis for achieving such an UWB operation is through proper magnetic coupling of two adjacent sectorial loop antennas in a symmetrical arrangement. A large number of coupled sectorial loop antennas (CSLA) with different geometrical parameters are fabricated and their measured responses are used to experimentally optimize the geometrical parameters of the antenna for achieving the maximum bandwidth. Through this optimization process an antenna with a VSWR of lower than 2.2 (S/sub 11/<-8.5 dB) across an 8.5:1 frequency range is designed. The maximum dimension of this antenna is smaller than 0.37/spl lambda//sub 0/ at the lowest frequency of operation and provides an excellent polarization purity. Furthermore, the antenna exhibits a relatively consistent radiation pattern. Modified versions of the CSLA are also designed to reduce the overall metallic surface and weight of the antenna while maintaining its wide-band characteristics. This allows modifying its dimensions to design low frequency light-weight UWB antennas.     

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.     

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.     

Three orthogonal polarisation DRA-monopole ensemble

A dual feed HE/sub 11/spl delta// mode dielectric resonator antenna (DRA) loaded monopole antenna ensemble is described. The two antennas were unaffected by co-location, having coupling less than -25 dB at 2.33 GHz, making the ensemble capable of radiating all three orthogonal linear polarisations. The dielectric resonator antenna had an input impedance bandwidth of 1.9%, while the monopole gave 56%. This small volume ensemble antenna is suitable for mobile communications terminals.     

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.     

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.     

5.8-GHz circularly polarized rectifying antenna for wireless microwave power transmission

This paper reports a new circularly polarized (CP) high-gain high-efficiency rectifying antenna (rectenna). The CP rectenna can be rotated and still maintain a constant dc output voltage. The high-gain antenna has an advantage of reducing the total number of rectenna elements to cover a fixed area. The rectenna is etched on Rogers Duroid 5870 substrate with /spl epsi//sub r/=2.33 and 10 mil thickness. A high-gain dual-rhombic-loop antenna and a reflecting plane are used to achieve a CP antenna gain of 10.7 dB and a 2:1 voltage standing-wave ratio bandwidth of 10%. The rectenna's pattern has an elliptical cross section with orthogonal beamwidths of 40/spl deg/ and 60/spl deg/. The rectenna circuit has a coplanar stripline band-reject filter that suppresses the re-radiated harmonics by 20 dB. A highly efficient Schottky diode is used for RF-to-dc conversion with an efficiency of approximately 80% for an input power level of 100 mW and a load resistance of 250 /spl Omega/.     

A cavity-backed rectangular aperture antenna with application to a tilted fan beam array antenna

A rectangular aperture of A/sub x//spl times/A/sub y/, cut in the top conducting plate of a triplate transmission line and backed by a cavity, radiates a tilted beam off the direction normal to the aperture. The mechanism of the radiation is explained using the Poynting vector distribution above the aperture and the phase distribution of the electric field over the aperture. The tilt angle is calculated as a function of side length A/sub x/ for a representative value of A/sub y/=18 mm=0.747/spl lambda//sub 12.45/, where /spl lambda//sub 12.45/ is the wavelength at a test frequency of 12.45 GHz. A tilted beam of approximately 27/spl deg/ is realized at A/sub x//A/sub y/=8/9 with a gain of approximately 8 dB. Using this value of A/sub x//A/sub y/, an array antenna composed of rectangular cavity-backed aperture elements is investigated. The array forms a tilted fan beam without phase shifters. The frequency responses of the gain and input impedance are discussed.     

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.     

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.     

Experimental study of wideband printed annular slot antenna with cross-shaped feedline

A annular slot antenna with cross-shaped feedline has been investigated experimentally to obtain a large bandwidth enhancement. The voltage standing wave ratio (VSWR), radiation pattern, and antenna gain of this configuration are presented. Although the use of a high relative permittivity (/spl epsiv//sub r/=4.3) substrate usually restricts the operation bandwidth, the radiation resistance also was a low value. The measured bandwidth is /spl sim/ 108.4% (2.0 /spl ges/ VSWR).     

Broadband RFID tag antenna with quasi-isotropic radiation pattern

A passive RFID tag antenna in the UHF band using two bent dipoles and a modified double T-matching network is proposed. The antenna was fabricated with a thin copper layer printed on a 50 /spl mu/m-thick PET substrate for low-cost production. The proposed antenna provided a quasi-isotropic radiation pattern and a fairly broad bandwidth S/sub 11/<-10 dB, 8.5%) for conjugate-matching with a commercial tag chip. The efficiency of the antenna was about 90% in the operating frequency band. The measured readable range was between 170 -240 cm for an arbitrary rotation angle of the tag.     

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.     

A fast MoM calculation technique using sinusoidal basis and testing functions for a wire on a dielectric substrate and its application to meander loop and grid array antennas

The input impedance matrix element of the method of moments (MoM) for an arbitrarily shaped wire antenna printed on a dielectric material Z/sub m,n/ is formulated to be composed of three terms Z/sup /spl psi/s//sub m,n/, Z/sup /spl psi///sub m,n/, and /spl Delta/Z/sub m,n/ involving single-, double-, and triple-integral calculations, respectively. The MoM based on the Z/sub m,n/ formulated in this paper (new MoM) is applied to two antennas-a meander loop antenna and a grid array antenna-as well as a simple loop used as a reference antenna. The computation time to obtain the current distribution of each antenna by the new MoM technique is compared with the time required for the conventional MoM, which has an impedance matrix element composed of four terms, all involving triple-integral calculations. It is revealed that the new MoM drastically reduces the computation time: for example, by a factor of 937 for the grid array antenna. In addition, the radiation characteristics of these two antennas are discussed. It is found that a reduced-size meander loop (62% smaller than the simple loop reference) has a radiation pattern similar to the simple loop reference. It is also found that the grid array has an axial beam radiation pattern without side lobes in the principal planes.     

Printed figure-of-eight wire antenna for circular polarization

A new printed wire antenna with circular polarization properties is presented. The geometry of the printed wire which takes the form of a figure-of-eight has a total length of 1.3/spl lambda//sub o/ and serves as a nonresonant traveling-wave antenna. It is shown that a 3-dB axial ratio bandwidth of 15% can be achieved. The half-power and 3-dB axial ratio beamwidth is approximately /spl plusmn/45/spl deg/, while its gain is of the order of 6.5 dB.     

A half-moon antenna

This work presents a half-moon antenna (HMA), which is composed of two semi-circular top and bottom conducting plates joined by a rectangular conducting plate. The HMA has a wide radiation beam. Radiation in the y-z plane (in the E plane) is hemispherical with a half-power beam width (HPBW) of more than 200/spl deg/. Radiation in the x-y plane (in the H plane) forms a sector beam with an HPBW of more than 100/spl deg/. To reduce the backward radiation and improve the gain, chokes are added to the HMA. An increase in the gain of approximately 1 dB is obtained. In order to obtain a tilted beam, the radius of the bottom plate is reduced. The maximum beam direction of the tilted beam /spl theta//sub max/ is not sensitive to frequency. Within a frequency range of 11 to 14 GHz (24%), /spl theta//sub max/=167/spl deg//spl plusmn/2/spl deg/. The gain is found to be G=9.5/spl plusmn/0.5 dBi within this same frequency range.     

A novel amplifying antenna array using patch-antenna couplers-design and measurement

This paper proposes a novel amplifying antenna array using the patch-antenna coupler formed by placing one or two open-ended microstrip lines (coupled lines) near and along the nonradiating edge(s) of a patch antenna. An X-band five-element array with broadside 25-dB Chebyshev radiation is demonstrated. When the input signal is fed to the center element, with most of the power radiating from the antenna, part of it is tapped to the coupled lines, amplified by an FET amplifier, and fed to the next antenna element. This process is repeated after all the antenna elements are fed with suitable power. The amplitude distribution of the fields radiated from the antennas is controlled by the coupling coefficient from the patch to the coupled line, which, in turn, is governed by the coupling length and gap between the patch and line. The measured return loss of the designed five-element array is -27 dB at the center frequency of 10 GHz with 2% 10-dB bandwidth. The radiation pattern possesses a transmitting gain of 15.9 dB, a half-power beamwidth of 17/spl deg/, and a sidelobe level of -22 dB.     

High-Efficiency Angled-Dipole Antennas for Millimeter-Wave Phased Array Applications

A high-efficiency microstrip-fed endfire angled-dipole antenna has been developed for millimeter-wave phased array applications. The antenna is built on both sides of a Teflon substrate (epsiv_r = 2.2) and this allows a wideband feed from the single-ended microstrip line to the differential dipole. The design results in wide radiation patterns for scanning purposes with a gain of around 2.5 dB at 20-26 GHz and a cross-polarization level of < -15 dB at 24 GHz. A mutual coupling of < -23 dB is measured between adjacent elements with 6.8 mm center-to center spacing (0.50-0.54 lambda₀ at 22-24 GHz). A variant of the angled-dipole antenna with a magnetic ground plane edge was also developed, and shows a measured gain of > 6 dB at 23.2-24.6 GHz and very low mutual coupling between elements (<-23 dB for a 6.8 mm spacing). Both antennas result in a radiation efficiency of > 93% when referenced to the microstrip line feed (including mismatch loss). The usefulness of these antennas as phased array radiators is demonstrated by several eight-element linear arrays at 22-24 GHz with scan angle up to 50 degrees. The application areas are in automotive radars and high data-rate communication systems.