Dual‐feed full‐metal‐case antenna for WWAN/LTE smartphone applications

A dual‐feed small size full‐metal‐case (FMC) antenna for hepta‐band LTE/WWAN operation in smartphone applications is presented. The antenna proposed here is an integrated part of the full metal case located at the top edge of the smartphone, and it only occupies a small volume of 5 mm × 70 mm × 6 mm. It has two feeding ports that are separately connected to an ON/OFF switch (SW1 and SW2) for controlling the lower and higher operation bands, respectively. For the case when SW1 (ON) and SW2 (OFF), Port‐1 is engaged, and a lower operating band that covers the GSM850/900 operation (824–960 MHz) is achieved. In contrast, Port‐2 will be engaged for the case when SW1 (OFF) and SW2 (ON), and with the aid of a wideband matching circuit, the antenna can induce a higher operating band that can cover the DCS/PCS/UMTS2100/LTE2300/LTE2500 operations (1690–2690 MHz). Detailed design considerations of the proposed FMC antenna are described, and both experimental and simulation results are also presented and discussed. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE 26:595–601, 2016.     

Compact dual‐band antenna based on CRLH‐TL for WWAN/LTE terminal applications

In this article, a compact dual‐band antenna based on composite right/left‐handed transmission line (CRLH‐TL) is proposed for WWAN/LTE wireless terminal applications. By using 2 symmetrical CRLH structures, the proposed antenna can easily produce 2 wide separate operating frequency bands with a compact size of 25 × 25 × 6 mm³. Additionally, a pair of matching strips is introduced on both sides of the feeding line to further improve the impedance characteristics of the terminal antenna. The experimental results demonstrate the proposed antenna is capable of working over the frequency ranges of 0.66‐1.06 GHz and 1.68‐2.88 GHz with |S₁₁| < ?6 dB, which can cover the bands of LTE700, GSM850, GSM900, GSM1800, GSM1900, UMTS, LTE2300, and LTE2500 for wireless terminals. Moreover, the multiple input multiple output (MIMO) operating performance of the proposed antenna element is also studied, and an enhanced isolation between the antenna elements is obtained by utilizing the defected ground structures and grounded branches.     

Compact nine‐band antenna for 4G/5G smartphones

This article presents a nine‐band antenna whose size is 70 mm × 7 mm × 5.8 mm for 4G/5G smartphones. The proposed antenna consists of a T‐shape coupled line and two ground branches. The T‐shape coupled line is used to produce the resonances at about 925 and 2900 MHz respectively. One ground branch along with the T‐shape coupled line is used to cover the lower band (698‐960 MHz), and the other ground branch is used to cover the 3.6 GHz band (3400‐3800 MHz). By using the higher order modes of the T‐shape coupled line and the ground branches, the higher band (1710‐2690 MHz) is covered. The advantage of the proposed antenna is that a nine‐band antenna can be realized with an only 7 mm ground clearance and without using any lumped element. A prototype is manufactured and measured. According to the measured results, at the bands of 0.693‐0.98 GHz, 1.69‐2.94 GHz, and 3.05‐4 GHz, the S11 are smaller than ?6 dB. The ?6 dB impedance operating frequency band of the proposed antenna can cover the LTE700, GSM850, GSM900, DCS, PCS, UMTS, LTE2300, LTE2500, and 3.6 GHz bands. The simulated and measured results of the radiation performance also are presented.     

A novel uniplanar antenna with dual wideband characteristics for tablet/laptop applications

A novel uniplanar antenna design for tablet/laptop applications is proposed. The proposed antenna with a size of 68 × 12 × 0.8 mm³ is comprised of three strip sections, namely, the feeding strip, parasitic shorted strip, and tuning stub strip (or printed LC matching circuit). Five resonant modes are induced by the proposed antenna, and they are combined to yield two wide operating bands that have 6‐dB return loss bandwidths of more than 50% (695‐1190 MHz and 1690‐2930 MHz). Thus, the proposed antenna can easily cover the entire LTE/WWAN operations working in the 698‐960 MHz and 1710‐2690 MHz bands. Besides demonstrating good radiation efficiency of more than 60% for the two wide operating bands, the proposed antenna also exhibits reduced ground effects, in which reducing the ground size will not deteriorate the antenna's performances.     

A compact uniplanar antenna for nine‐band LTE/WWAN operation in tablet computers

A compact uniplanar dual wideband antenna for tablet computers is presented. The proposed antenna provides full coverage of LTE700/2300/2500, GSM850/900/1800/1900, UMTS2100, Bluetooth, and 2.4‐GHz WLAN bands with a very small foot print 30 × 10 mm². The antenna has uniplanar structure and is easy to fabricate on single side of 0.8‐mm thick FR4 substrate. This is achieved through three optimized strips: a feeding strip, an inductively coupled inverted L‐shaped strip, and a shorted strip embedded with SMT components. The proposed design supports more than eight operating bands in 3:1 VSWR standard, exhibiting positive gains over all nine bands of operation and 80%–90% radiation efficiency in the higher LTE and WWAN bands. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE 26:496–502, 2016.     

A dual‐band antenna design for MIMO LTE applications with reduced ground effects

A dual‐band planar long term evolution (LTE) antenna design is initially proposed. The size of this proposed antenna is 40 mm × 15 mm × 0.8 mm, and its structure is meticulously designed to achieve reduce ground effects, so that the ground plane size can be altered without affecting the antenna's performance. The 6‐dB impedance bandwidths of both lower and upper operating bands of proposed antenna are 13.1% (695–790 MHz) and 37.6% (2200–3120 MHz), respectively. Minimum radiation efficiencies of up to 56% are also exhibited within the three LTE bands (LTE 700/2300/2600 MHz). This proposed antenna is later used as a two‐antenna multiple input multiple output (MIMO) system for laptop computer application, and because of its reduced ground effects, good envelope correlation coefficient (ECC) of less than 0.14 and 0.0022 are measured across the lower and upper operating bands, respectively. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE 26:80–87, 2016.     

Small‐size four‐element antenna system for 2 × 2 LTE LB and 4 × 4 LTE M/HB MIMO operations in 5G mobile terminals

A small‐size four‐element antenna system for 2 × 2 LTE low band (LB, 698‐960 MHz) and 4 × 4 LTE middle/high band (M/HB, 1710‐2690 MHz) multiple‐input multiple‐output (MIMO) operations in 5G (fifth‐generation) mobile terminals is presented. The proposed antenna system is formed by two identical tunable loop antennas and two identical coupled‐fed IFA (Inverted‐F Antenna) antennas. By loading a RF switch with four output states as tunable component, the proposed loop antenna can not only operate in the M/HB, but also achieve improved bandwidth coverage in the LB. Each coupled‐fed IFA element operating in the M/HB with compact volume. The four antennas are placed on the both short side‐edge of the mobile terminal with small ground clearance of 4.2 mm. The simulated S‐parameters show that the proposed MIMO system can cover 698 to 960 MHz and 1710 to 2690 MHz with reflection coefficients less than ?6 dB and isolations are all more than 12 dB. Good MIMO performances such as radiation efficiencies, envelope correlation coefficient (less than 0.4 within the entire operation bands) and channel capacity are also obtained. The effects of user's hand(s) on performances for the proposed antenna system are also discussed. This four‐element antenna system prototype is fabricated and measured.     

Miniaturized frequency reconfigurable pentagonal MIMO slot antenna for interweave CR applications

In this article, a miniaturized 4‐element frequency reconfigurable multiple‐input‐multiple‐output (MIMO) antenna system is presented. The proposed design is low profile with planar configuration. The design consists of pentagonal slot‐based frequency reconfigurable antenna elements. Varactor diodes are used to change the capacitive reactance of the slot. The MIMO antenna system can be tuned over a frequency band covering 3.2 to 3.9 GHz with at least 100 MHz bandwidth within each band. The proposed antenna covers several commercial standards including WiMAX (3.4‐3.6 GHz), TDD LTE (3.6‐3.8 GHz), and Wi‐Fi 802.11y (3.65‐3.7 GHz), along with several other bands. The proposed design was realized on a board of dimensions 60 × 120 mm². The isolation between adjacent antenna elements is improved using slot‐line based defected ground structures (DGS). The antenna maintains a minimum isolation of 10 dB in its entire covered operating bands. The antenna is also analyzed for its far‐field characteristics and MIMO performance parameters. The proposed design is suitable to be used in mobile handsets for cognitive radio (CR) platforms.     

Dual antenna system for metal frame mobile phone applications

A dual antenna system with 77 mm × 10 mm × 7.5 mm for metal frame (MF) LTE/GPS mobile phones is proposed and studied. The antenna proposed in this study comprises two antenna elements (Ant 1 and Ant 2) and a decoupling line. Ant 1 as the main antenna that covers the lower band (698‐960 MHz), the GPS band, and the higher band (1710‐2690 MHz) consisting of a ground branch, a coupled line, and a tuning line. Ant 2 as the auxiliary antenna that covers the higher band consisting of a monopole branch and a match circuit. Ant 1 and Ant 2 form a two‐element MIMO antenna covering the higher band. The advantages of the proposed antenna are that the main antenna (Ant 1) covers the GPS band and all of the 2G/3G/4G bands, and the two‐element MIMO antenna covering the higher band, which consists of Ant 1 and Ant 2 located at the same side of a mobile phone with an MF, is obtained. A prototype is manufactured and tested. For Ant 1, the measured working bands (under ?6 dB condition) are 685 to 965 MHz and 1480 to 2800 MHz, and the LTE700, GSM850, GSM900, GPS, GSM1800, GSM1900, UMTS, LTE2300, and LTE2500 bands are covered. For Ant 2, the measured working band (under ?6 dB condition) is 1640 to 2720 MHz, and the GSM1800, GSM1900, UMTS, LTE2300, and LTE2500 bands are covered. The measured isolations between Ant 1 and Ant 2 are larger than 12 dB at the working bands. The measured efficiencies, envelope correlation coefficients, and mean effective gains are also presented.     

Dual‐band quasi‐self‐complementary antenna for wireless local network operation

This article proposes a compact (6 × 21 × 0.4 mm³) antenna with dual‐band operation that satisfies the wireless local area network. To achieve optimal impedance matching for the lower and upper operating bands, the proposed antenna structure is designed as a quasi‐self‐complementary (QSC) type, in which the lower (2.4 GHz) operating band is excited through the loop‐like structure of the proposed antenna, whereas its self‐complementary counterpart (rectangular patch structure) induces the upper (5.2/5.8 GHz) operating band. Further investigation was also conducted by printing the proposed QSC antenna onto a flexible substrate of 0.063 mm in thickness. To cover both operating bands, the proposed flexible antenna was restructured to 20.5 × 8 mm². The design and initial characteristics of the two proposed antennas were discussed in detail via simulation, and the experimental results showed satisfactory performance of both operating bands. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE 24:298–305, 2014.     

A dual‐band eight‐antenna multi‐input multi‐output array for 5G metal‐framed smartphones

A dual‐band eight‐antenna array operating in the long‐term evolution (LTE) band 41 (2.496‐2.69 GHz) and 3.5‐GHz band (3.3‐3.7 GHz) for fifth‐generation (5G) metal‐framed smartphone is presented. The proposed dual‐band antenna array is composed of four identical dual‐antenna building blocks (DABBs). Each DABB consists of two identical antenna elements with a neutralization line between them. The antenna array is simulated, fabricated, and measured. The isolations are better than 10.5 dB and 11.0 dB in the low band (LB; LTE band 41) and high band (HB; 3.5‐GHz band). The total efficiencies are 41% to 54% and 46% to 64% in the two operation bands, respectively. In addition, the measured envelope correlation coefficients are less than 0.11 and 0.06, the calculated channel capacities are better than 34.5 and 36.3 bps/Hz in the LB and HB, respectively. Furthermore, four hand‐grip scenarios are investigated, and results show that proposed antenna array can maintain excellent multiple‐input multiple‐output performances in all scenarios.     

Hepta‐band coupled‐fed antenna for metal‐ring‐frame WWAN/LTE smartphone applications

A small‐size 40 mm × 10 mm coupled‐fed antenna for hepta‐band WWAN/LTE metal‐ring‐frame (MRF) smartphone applications is investigated. Unlike conventional solutions that remove the redundant resonances excited by the MRF, the proposed antenna makes full use of the MRF resonances. By meticulously co‐design the antenna and MRF, multi‐resonance frequencies are excited and integrated, which results in achieving hepta‐band operation for an MRF smartphone antenna. Detail design considerations and experimental results of the proposed antenna are provided and analyzed. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE 26:633–639, 2016.     

A compact dual‐band 2 × 1 metamaterial inspired mimo antenna system with high port isolation for LTE and WiMax applications

This article proposes a compact (43 × 26 × 0.8 mm³) dual‐band two‐element metamaterial‐inspired MIMO antenna system with high port isolation for LTE and WiMAX applications. In this structure, each antenna element consists of a square–ring slot radiator encircling a complementary split ring resonator. A tapered impedance transformer line feeds these radiating apertures and shows good impedance matching. A 2 × 3 array of two‐turn Complementary Spiral Resonator structure between the two antenna elements provides high dual‐band isolation between them. The fabricated prototype system shows two bands 2.34 – 2.47 GHz (suitable for LTE 2300) and 3.35 – 3.64 GHz (suitable for WiMAX). For spacing between two antennas of 10 mm only, the measured isolation between the two antenna elements in the lower band is around ?32 dB while that in the upper band is nearly 18 dB. The system shows a doughnut‐shaped radiation patterns. The peak measured antenna gains for the proposed MIMO system in the lower and higher bands are 3.9 and 4.2 dBi, respectively. The MIMO system figure of merits such as the envelope correlation coefficient, total efficiency are also calculated and shown to provide good diversity performance.     

A wideband rectifier array on dual‐polarized differential‐feed fractal slotted ground antenna for RF energy harvesting

This article reports a novel wideband rectenna for RF energy harvesting applications. A wideband fractal slotted ground antenna (SGA) is adopted. The operating frequency bands of the antenna are GSM, UMTS, Wi‐Fi, and LTE2600/4G bands. The antenna is fed by a dual‐polarized and differential‐feed (DP‐DF) microstrip lines disposed with an angle of 90° each relative to the other. The feed lines are etched on the bottom side of the substrate and connected to an array of four wideband RF‐to‐DC rectifiers. A nonuniform transmission lines filter ensures wideband behavior for each rectifier. The rectenna performances are simulated and measured. The experiments show an output DC voltage of 1 V at a power density of 26.6 μW/cm² over the frequency band of operation with a peak efficiency of 50%. The proposed rectenna is suitable for energy harvesting applications in urban environments.     

Multiband multiple‐input multiple‐output antenna with high isolation for future 5G smartphone applications

A multiband high‐isolation multiple‐input multiple‐output (MIMO) antenna using balanced mode and coupled neutralization line (NL) is presented in this article. The balanced modes of dipole and loop antennas, which leads to good isolation intrinsically are used for the 8 × 8 MIMO in the LTE bands 42 (3400‐3600 MHz)/Chinese 5G band (3300‐3400 and 3400‐3600 MHz). The unbalanced mode of loop antennas, which optimized by decoupling structure are designed for the 4 × 4 MIMO in the LTE band 40 (2300‐2400 MHz). Therefore, the eight‐antenna array is formed by four dipole elements and four loop elements. The simulated and measured results show that the proposed antenna can cover 2300 to 2400 and 3300 to 3600 MHz, with reflection coefficient better than ?6 dB and isolation higher than 15 dB. Good radiation performance and low envelope correlation coefficient can also be obtained. Specific absorption rate of user's hand is also discussed in this article.     

A Dual‐band and dual‐polarized antenna array for 2G/3G/LTE base stations

A dual‐band antenna array is proposed for the application of base station (BS) in 2G/3G/long term evaluation (LTE) mobile communications. This antenna consists of two independent ±45° dual‐polarized arrays, one of which operates from 1.71 to 2.17 GHz, and the other of which is designed from 2.5 to 2.69 GHz. The proposed BS antenna array has a high isolation of greater than 29 dB and high front‐to‐back ratio of more than 26 dB at the operating frequencies. The measured peak gain is 17.9 and 18.1 dBi for the lower and upper bands, respectively, and the cross polarizations isolation (CPI)(within ±60º of the mainlobe) is 16 dB lower than the broadside co‐polarization. It was confirmed that the proposed antenna array meets the communication standards in China. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE 26:154–163, 2016.     

Multiband,miniaturized, maze shaped antenna with an air‐gap for wireless applications

A novel maze shaped multiband monopole antenna with a miniaturized size of only 6 × 4 × 1.6 mm³ is proposed. To further achieving excellent radiation performances across the desired operating bands, an air‐gap is set between the proposed antenna and system ground. To assess the performances of the antenna, simulations are initially carried out by loading a 1.6 mm thick nonconducting Polycarbonate material (analogous to an air‐gap) between the antenna and system ground, and a simplified equivalent circuit (EC) model of the proposed antenna is also derived. The proposed antenna has excited two different resonance frequencies, in which the lower band (f_L) and upper band (f_U) can yield broad 10‐dB impedance bandwidths of 6.5% (2.37‐2.53 GHz) and 16% (5.05‐5.90 GHz), respectively. Furthermore, desirable gain and radiation efficiency of 2.85 to 6.40 dBi and 57% to 85%, respectively across the two operating bands were also achieved. A practical experiment is also carried out by installing the proposed antenna into a real laptop computer (L412 Think Pad Lenovo).     

Design of multi‐band antenna for LTE wearable device with shared slots and radiators for smart watch

In this study, multi‐band antenna for LTE wearable device with shared slots and radiators for smart watch was present. This study incorporated 4G communication frequency bands, a GPS positioning system, and BT/Wi‐Fi in a 43.6 × 43.6 × 5.8 mm³ metal case to achieve satisfactory radiation fields and performance efficiency within a small space. This article presents an overview of the theory. There are four ports in the system. Frist, Port 1 is a low‐frequency antenna offering LTE 700 and GSM 850/900. The maximal gain and efficiency are respectively 3.9 dBi and 82%. Second, Port 2 is a high‐frequency monopole with a winding long path on the side of the frame to achieve a reflection loss bandwidth that fully encompasses GSM 1800/1900/UMTS and LTE 2300/2500. The maximal gain and efficiency of this port are respectively 5.3 dBi and 92%. There are also have GPS (Port 3) and Wi‐Fi (Port 4) antenna implement IFA and loop excitation mechanisms, respectively. This antenna system can fulfill the market demand. As confirmed through both simulation and measurement, the antenna can cover LTE bands. Increasing the path capacity of a MIMO system to increase the transmission speed is a crucial focus in mobile communication research and development.     

Dual‐band dual‐polarized compact planar monopole antenna for wide axial ratio bandwidth application

In this article, a geometrically simple, microstrip line‐fed planar monopole structure with slanting edge ground plane is designed to realize the dual‐band dual‐polarized operation. The proposed antenna consists of a rotated U‐shaped patch and an electromagnetically coupled L‐shaped parasitic radiating element. Owing to the combination of microstrip line‐fed radiating patch and a slanting‐edge rectangular ground plane on the opposite side of the substrate, the proposed dual‐band antenna can generate broad axial ratio bandwidth (ARBW) in the upper frequency band. The overall dimension of the prototype is only 32 × 32 × 1.6 mm³. The measured results validate that the proposed antenna has two operational frequency bands, 29.84% (1.54‐2.08 GHz) for linearly polarized radiation and 71.85% (3.96‐8.4 GHz) for circularly polarized radiation. Measured result shows that 3‐dB ARBW of the proposed antenna is 73.54% (3.80‐8.22 GHz) in the higher frequency band. It shows that the higher frequency band exhibits a left‐hand circularly polarized radiation in the boresight direction.     

A low profile aperture coupled antenna with broadband circular polarization characteristics for UHF RFID applications

An aperture coupled microstrip‐line fed antenna (circular patch) with CP radiation is initially investigated. To achieve good CP radiation at 925 MHz UHF RFID frequency, the technique of loading an inverted C‐shaped slit into the circular patch is initially proposed. By further loading an open eccentric‐ring shaped parasitic element around the circular patch, an additional CP frequency can be excited at 910 MHz, and by combining these two CP frequencies, broad CP bandwidth that can cover the entire 902‐928 MHz UHF RFID band is achieved. Because of the parasitic element, the total dimension of proposed antenna is modified to 170 × 170 × 11.4 mm³. From the measured results, the impedance and CP bandwidths of the proposed antenna were 9.4% (859‐944 MHz) and 3.1% (902‐930 MHz). Furthermore, its corresponding peak gain and efficiency are 5.9 dBic and 84.3%, respectively. Further analyses have shown that the proposed antenna can also achieve good CP frequency agility across the desired UHF RFID operating band (902‐928 MHz).