Concentrated Ground Plane Booster Antenna Technology for Multiband Operation in Handset Devices

The current demand in the handset antenna field requires multiband antennas due to the existence of multiple communication standards and the emergence of new ones. At the same time, antennas with reduced dimensions are strongly required in order to be easily integrated. In this sense, the paper proposes a compact radiating system that uses two non-resonant elements to properly excite the ground plane to solve the abovementioned shortcomings by minimizing the required Printed Circuit Board (PCB) area while ensuring a multiband performance. These non-resonant elements are called here ground plane boosters since they excite an efficient mode of the ground plane. The proposed radiating system comprises two ground plane boosters of small dimensions of 5 mm x 5 mm x 5 mm. One is in charge of the low frequency region (0.824-0.960 GHz) and the other is in charge of the high frequency region (1.710-2.170 GHz). With the aim of achieving a compact configuration, the two boosters are placed close to each other in a corner of the ground plane of a handset device (concentrated architecture). Several experiments related to the coupling between boosters have been carried out in two different platforms (barphone and smartphone), and the best position and the required matching network are presented. The novel proposal achieves multiband performance at GSM850/900/1800/1900 and UMTS

Miniaturized DGS and EBG structures for decoupling multiple antennas on compact wireless terminals

MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output) technology has been presented to significantly increase the wireless channel capacity and reliability without requiring additional radio spectrum or power. In MIMO systems, multiple antennas are mounted at both the transmitter and the receiver. When this technology is employed for a compact wireless terminal, one of the most challenging tasks is to reduce the high mutual coupling between closely placed antenna array elements. The high mutual coupling produces high correlation between antenna elements and affects the channel capacity of MIMO system. The objectives of this thesis are to design practical miniaturized structures to reduce high mutual coupling for small wireless terminals. The research is conducted in the following areas. Initially, a PIFA design and two-element PIFA array are proposed and optimized to operate at 1.9GHz. A pair of two coupled quarter-wavelength linear slits is inserted in a compact ground plane, resulting in significant reduction of the mutual coupling across antenna operating frequency band. In order to take up less space on the ground plane, instead of the linear slits, miniaturized convoluted slits are implemented between the two closely placed PIFAs. Although the convoluted slits have small area and are positioned close to the edges of the ground plane, the miniaturized convoluted slit structures achieve a reduction of mutual coupling between antenna elements and succeed in reducing the effect of the human body (head and hand) to the antennas. In order to further reduce the size of the slits etched on the compact ground plane, a novel double-layer slit-patch EBG structure is proposed. It consists of a two-layer structure including conducting patches and aperture slits placed on either side of a very thin dielectric layer. They are placed in very close proximity to each other (55μm). A two-element printed CPW-fed monopole array operating around 2.46GHz and a two-element UWB planar monopole array operating from 3GHz to 6GHz have been employed to investigate the proposed slit-patch EBG structures. The optimized double-layer slit-patch EBG structure yields a significant reduction of the mutual coupling and produces the maximum miniaturization of antenna array. Another novel convoluted slit-patch EBG structure has been presented to reduce the mutual coupling between two PIFAs operating at 1.9GHz. These results demonstrate that the slit-patch EBG structure is a feasible technology to reduce the mutual coupling between multiple antennas for compact wireless terminals

Mutual Coupling Reduction Between Two PIFA Using Uni-Planar Fractal Based EBG for MIMO Application

Fractal Structures based on Electromagnetic bandgap (EBG) can contribute to the mutual coupling reduction between microstrip antennas due to its capability of suppressing surface waves propagation in a given frequency range. In this paper, a new arrangement of one layer Uni-Planar Fractal based on EBG (UPF-EBG) structure is analysed using the commercial finite element full wave solver High-Frequency Structure Simulation (HFSS version 17.0). The structure without any shorting pins or vias is based on a well-known fractal structure called Sierpinski carpet, within which two iterations have been applied as planner EBG between two PIFA for increase isolation issue. The total dimensions of the PIFA antenna are 40 mm × 68 mm × 1.6 mm and operate at 2.65 GHz approximately which is defined for wireless Long Term Evolution (LTE) MIMO application. Here a compact periodic lattice (2 × 3 EBG structures are joint to improve the mutual coupling) inserted between E-plane coupled PIFA array, and precise performance study is implemented to investigate the mutual coupling. As a result, significantly more than 30 dB mutual coupling reduction is noticed from the simulations

A Review on Different Techniques of Mutual Coupling Reduction Between Elements of Any MIMO Antenna. Part 1: DGSs and Parasitic Structures

This two-part article presents a review of different techniques of mutual coupling (MC) reduction. MC is a major issue when an array of antennas is densely packed. When the separation between the antennas i

Design and Measurement-Based Evaluation of Multi-Antenna Mobile Terminals for LTE 3500 MHz Band

Design of multi-element antennas for small mobile terminals operating at higher frequencies remains challenging despite smaller antenna dimension and possibility of achieving electrically large separation between them. In this paper, the importance of the type of radiating elements operating at 3400-3600 MHz and their locations on the terminal chassis are highlighted. An isotropic radiation pattern that receives incoming signals from arbitrary directions is obtained by combining the radiation patterns of multiple antennas with localized chassis current distribution. Four multiport antennas configurations with two- and eight-element antennas are designed and evaluated experimentally in indoor propagation environments. Our proposed designs of multi-element antennas provide the highest MIMO channel capacity compared to their counterparts using antennas with less localized chassis current distribution, even in the presence of user's hand

Design of high-efficiency antennas for mobile communications devices

This thesis deals with the design of high-efficiency antennas for small mobile communications devices. Owing to the continuously stricter requirements set for multisystem mobile terminals, the ongoing need for efficient antennas in personal mobile communications is evident. In this work, the entire system consisting of the antenna; the mobile terminal working actually as part of the antenna; and the user of the terminal is considered. The ratio between the power radiated into the free space and the antenna input power, i.e. the total efficiency of this system, forms a general concept for the studies. The total efficiency is partly affected by the losses in the antenna element. As the antenna efficiency, bandwidth, and volume are strongly interrelated exchangeable quantities, it is essential to find other approaches for enhancing the antenna efficiency than simply sacrificing other performance. Further, the metal chassis of a mobile terminal has to be part of the antenna element design because of its considerable effect on antenna performance. In addition, the total efficiency of the entire system is partly affected by the losses owing to the user. Thus, the evaluation of antenna performance is equally important when the mobile terminal is located near a user or when it is in free space. The main goal of this work is to provide novel and useful information for the design of mobile terminal antennas with special emphasis placed on the maximization of the total efficiency. To obtain necessary background understanding for the design of antennas with minimized user interaction, the general energy-absorption mechanism in the human tissue is studied in this thesis. It is shown that the peak SAR (specific absorption rate) is not actually related to the antenna current, as has been commonly believed. Instead, the SAR maximums can be explained by inspecting the antenna's quasi-static electric near field components perpendicular and parallel to the surface of the tissue at the air-tissue interface and utilizing the boundary conditions of quasi-static fields at the interface. As SAR is directly proportional to the total electric field in the tissue, the SAR distributions caused by a certain antenna differ considerably in tissues with different permittivity values, e.g. brain and fat. The bandwidth, efficiency in talk position, and SAR performance of a typical monoblock handset antenna-chassis combination is comprehensively investigated in this work for clarifying the roles of different parts of the radiating system. The system is treated as a combination of the separate wavemodes of the antenna element and the chassis. Based on the results, guidelines are given to control or analyze the combined performance both in the sense of radiation properties (bandwidth, efficiency) and user interaction (SAR). It is also demonstrated that there is a connection between the studied three performance parameters: a local maximum in SAR values and a local minimum in radiation efficiency occur when the bandwidth reaches its maximum and the resonant frequency of the chassis equals that of the antenna. The suitability of dielectric resonator antennas (DRA) for mobile terminals is studied theoretically and experimentally with the main attention paid to the loss characteristics. It is observed that DRAs are appropriate for this purpose especially when very small antenna elements are needed. As an application example, a novel means to realize a high-performance dual-resonant antenna design for mobile terminals is presented. In addition, losses in the frequency-tuning circuits of small resonant antennas are systematically investigated. Design guidelines for tuning circuits with minimized losses with respect to the achievable tuning range are given. Based on the proposed theory, a low-loss tuning circuit with suitable characteristics for mobile terminal antennas is introduced.reviewe

Polarization Diversity UWB Antennas with and without Notched Bands

Acknowledgement to The Electromagnetics AcademyIn this article, a couple of UWB antennas are presented. These antennas have the shape of two overlapped circles. The presented antennas are polarization diversity antennas with and without dual band reject filters. Measurements show that the antennas work well within the whole UWB. Antennas have practical reflection parameters S11 and S22 lower than −10 dB, practical coupling parameters S12 and S21 lower than −15 dB, an Envelope Correlation Coefficient lower than 0.015 and a diversity gain between 9.97 to 9.99 dB. Simulations of the antennas are done using the CST softwar