At lower frequencies, its radiation characteristic is similar to the 9. J. Le-Wei Li, Y.-N. Li, Y. Tat-Soon, J.R.
, J.R. Mosig, and O.J.F. Martin,
monopole antenna. However, at higher frequencies, it is clear
that the radiation lobe will be split due to the higher order
mode. The maximum radiation direction is along the y direction.
To further analyze the results, the simulated and measured
radiation patterns of the xy-plane and yz-plane at 3 and 7 GHz
are plotted respectively in two-dimensional (2D) in Figure 8.
The testing environment and manufacturing tolerance leads to a
discrepancy between the measured and simulation results.
However, a good agreement between them is clearly observed.
At 3 GHz, in the xy-plane, the half-power (23 dB)
beamwidth (HPBW) is 96o (from 244o to 52o ) and main lobe
towards phi 5 0o . In the yz-plane, the HPBW is 88o
(between 137o and 225o ) and main lobe toward theta 5 180o
direction. At 7 GHz, in the xy-plane, the half-power (23 dB)
beamwidth is 65o (between 68o and133o ) and main lobe toward
phi 5 102o . In the yz-plane, the HPBW is 135o (from 23o
to158o ) and main lobe theta 5 90o . From the 2D radiation pat-
terns, we can further observe that the maximum radiation is
along the horizontal direction instead of vertical direction at
high frequency.
4. CONCLUSION
A novel compact ultrawideband pattern etched microstrip anten-
na with a windows-shaped top patch and a patterned ground
plane is presented in this paper. Due to the generating of MMR
and SPW, The simulated impedance bandwidth (under 210 dB
level) is from 3.3 GHz to more than 12 GHz. The measured
result indicates that antenna has two impedance bandwidths
which cover from 3.75 to 6.15 GHz and from 7.2 to 10.6 GHz.
In addition, due to the SPW, the proposed antenna shows maxi-
mum radiation in the end-fire direction. The peak gain of the
antenna is from 1.7 to 5.8 dBi. The radiation efficiency of the
proposed antenna lies in the range of 63 to 89.5%. Because of
good radiation characteristics and broad bandwidth, the proposed
antenna can be used for some specific applications for UWB
wireless communication system in the future.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This work was supported in part by the NSFC under contract
61372020, and the ZJNSF under contract R1110003.
REFERENCES
1. L. Zhu, S. Sun, and W. Menzel, Ultra-wideband (UWB) bandpass
filters using multiple-mode resonator, IEEE Microw Wireless Comp
Lett 15 (2005), 796798.
2. Fedral Communication Commission, First order and report: Revision
of part 15 of the Commisions rules regarding UWB transmission
systems, April 22, 2002.
3. M.R. Ghaderi and F. Mohajeri, A compact hexagonal wide-slot
antenna with microstrip-fed monopole for UWB application, IEEE
Antennas Wireless Propag Lett 10 (2011), 682685.
4. S. Dey and R. Mittra, Compact microstrip patch antenna, Microw
Opt Technol Lett 13 (2009), 1214.
5. F. Yang, A. Aminian, and Y. Rahmat-Samii, A novel surface-wave
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Microw Opt Technol Lett 47 (2005), 240245.
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A broadband and high-gain metamaterial microstrip antenna, Appl
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7. X. Han, H.J. Song, Z.Q. Yi, and J.D. Lin, Compact ultra-wideband
microstrip antenna with metamaterials, Chin Phys Lett (2012), 29.
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terial-based UWB antenna, Electron Lett 50 (2014), 12661268.
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Addendum: A broadband and high-gain metamaterial microstrip
antenna [Appl. Phys. Lett. 96,164101(2010)], Appl Phys Lett 99
(2011), 159901.
10. L. Zhu, H. Bu, and K. Wu, Broadband and compact multi-pole
microstrip bandpass filters using ground plane aperture technique,
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11. W. Menzel, L. Zhu, K. Wu, and F. B ogelsack, On the design of nov-
el compact broadband planar filters, IEEE Trans Microw Theory
Tech 51 (2003), 364370.
C 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
V
LOW PROFILE UHF LOOP ANTENNA
PROTOTYPED AND INVESTIGATED BY
CIRCUIT MODELING
H. Taghvaee,1 A. Habibi,1 A. Rezaee,2 and F. Zarinkhat1
1
Department of Electrical Engineering, K. N. Toosi University of
Technology, Tehran, Iran; Corresponding author:
hr.taghvaee@ee.kntu.ac.ir
2
Department of System and Mechatronics Engineering, Faculty of
New Sciences and Technologies, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran
Received 1 July 2016
ABSTRACT: Here we proposed a low profile antenna which is an elec-
trically coupled loop fed by a coaxial cable and operates in UHF band.
With acquisition of a square loop, near zone is covered by magnetic
field that has no harm to living being. By optimizing the dimensions
with genetic algorithm 12% of bandwidth, 2.45 dB realized gain and
33% miniaturization (k ! 2=3k) at 500 MHz is obtained. Afterwards,
the performance of the antenna is analyzed with a general circuit model
and verified using frequency domain solver simulation. In the measure-
ment phase a technique was discovered improving the bandwidth even
more, hence 150 MHz bandwidth equal 30% at 500 MHz was achieved.
These characteristics together make this antenna very beneficial in
mobile terminals that have a very wide area of applications such as
ground station targeting UAVs and where antennas need to operate
close to the human body. Due to semidirectional radiation pattern it
can be used in short and medium range remote wireless bridge net-
works. VC 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett
59:459463, 2017; View this article online at wileyonlinelibrary.com.
DOI 10.1002/mop.30324
Key words: UHF band; circuit modeling; loop antenna; low profile
1. INTRODUCTION
For mobile communication of digital broadcasting services in
the UHF band (470770 MHz), portable terminals should have
suitable gain to receive signals. In comparison to the wavelength
in the UHF band the space require for a built-in antenna is very
small [1]. Even though, the size of a loop antenna in the UHF
band is larger than the size of the mobile terminals, they are
suitable for a built-in antenna [2,3]. It is possible to minimize
the phase variation of the current by dividing the loop into sev-
eral small parts compared to the wavelength and inserting the
lumped capacitive elements in series [4]. Application for anten-
nas operating close to or inside the human body, leaping for-
ward daily. One of the major challenges of these type of
antennas is the absorbed power by diverse tissue of the opera-
tors body [5]. Power loss per unit mass (W/kg) and specific
absorption rate (SAR) [6] have been defined as measurement
factors to characterize an antennas performance near the living
being. Different organs in the living body have different electric
properties. Therefore, approximately the entire loss through the
459
living being is associated with the electric field within a compli-
cated medium with complex conductance [7]. The desired anten-
nas operating near human bodies should have a low electric
field in the near zone [8] to reduce the ohmic loss inside the
human body. The H-field antenna is virtually insensitive to pre-
cipitation static effects. This is a major advantage in airborne
situations where precipitation static forms a major weakness of
Loran-C [9]. H-field signals tend to penetrate much better in
dense urban environments and mountainous areas. This makes
the H-field antenna equipped Loran-C receiver much more suit-
able for applications such as land-mobile track-and-trace
[1012].

2. BACKGROUND

2.1. Comparing Previous Version of Antenna

In this section, we compare the proposed antenna with previous
version of antennas operating at analogous frequency regime but
with distinct designs. One of the most popular antennas in UHF
band is YagiUda antenna, although this type of antenna often
applying in television signal broadcasting, nowadays, it can be
employ as a ground station for UAVs too. High gain, low pro-
file and simple layout are the advantages of this type of antenna
in contrast to large size and low bandwidth that are the disad-
vantages. There has been many attempts [13] to reduce its
Figure 1 (a) Circuit model of the square loop antenna, (b) perspective
dimensions nevertheless the issue did not solve yet. Helical
of simulated antenna on the ground plane and (c) magnified view of
antenna or Helix, because of highly directional pattern and wide antenna. [Color figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]
bandwidth are used typically as ground stations for satellites and
UAVs. They have two different radiation modes which enable
them to readily find the target in any distances (near or far).
L 5 100 mm, W 5 27.50 mm (loop width), K 5 6 mm,
Since this form of antenna is big and extremely heavy, thus can- g 5 2 mm, P 5 2.5 mm, and the thickness of the metal equal
not be used as a portable device [14]. Radio frequency identify- to 1 mm also the space between loop and ground plane is fixed
ing devices (RFID) are adequately low profile and provide on 4 mm. These dimensions are achieved after genetic algorithm
enough bandwidth, generally are used in shape of Microstrip optimization. Other dimensions are swept in simulations and
loop antenna. compared with the results of the circuit modeling. Figure 1 dem-
In the near zone of a loop current magnetic field is dominant onstrates the perspective and magnified view of the antenna.
and electric field is weak, hence it can operate near or inside The core penetrates through the patch and touches the loop and
human body sans harmful effect [15], yet low gain made this dielectric remains between them. This space has a capacitive
sort of antenna ineffective for far field propagation and far dis- roll to improve mismatching.
tance communications. In this section, a circuit model is employed to study the
antennas properties. Figure 2 demonstrates a RLC circuit,
2.2. Electrically Coupled Loop Antenna where Cr is resonance capacitor, Rl is loss resistance, Rr is radia-
In Section 1, we reviewed multiple kind of antennas that led us tion resistance, LA is inductance, and Li is inductance of the
to a novel antenna which is combining the advantages of men- loop conductor (wire).
tioned antenna. To reduce the size of antenna and maintain the Many equations for inductance assume a conductor with a
characteristic of antenna; we proposed a new configuration of circular cross-section of radius R (i.e., a wire). An effective
electrically coupled loop antenna (ECLA) which is a rectangular radius Re of a printed trace conductor can be calculated as:
vertical loop antenna above a ground plane. A loop coupled
electrically to a coaxial cable by a substrate in shape of dielec- Re 50:353t10:243W (1)
tric layer. This antenna operates above a metallic ground plane
with an air spacing between the antenna and the ground plane. The inductance of a square loop can be calculated as [16]:
This type of antenna has been used formerly in VHF and UHF    
band [7,8] but in comparison to our work these former types 2l0 H H
LA 5 3 ln 20:744 (2)
provided very limited bandwidth and gain. With some modifica- p Re
tions, the bandwidth and gain is increased, dimensions adapted
for UHF application, also radiation pattern improved for proper The radiation resistance and surface resistance of a small loop
communication. antenna are given by Ref. [17]:
 4
3. PROPOSED ANTENNA CONFIGURATION
Hp
Rr 53203 ; (3)
k
3.1. Basic Form of the Antenna r
The ECLA has been simulated using the AG Computer Simula- f pl0
RS 5 ; (4)
tion Technology CST@ for the following dimensions: r

460 MICROWAVE AND OPTICAL TECHNOLOGY LETTERS / Vol. 59, No. 2, February 2017 DOI 10.1002/mop
 r
GP
C2 5C1 3 H5=3 3FC2 ; (10)
2

where C2 is the capacitance between loop and ground plane and

R is the overall resistance due to the ground plane and the loop
radiation resistance, L1 and C1 are representatives for inductance
and capacitance of the antenna. This transform is essential due
to analytic procedure. Hence, R0 is source impedance equals
50 Ohm due to coaxial cable standard impedance, By applying
Figure 2 The proposed circuit model for the ECLA FI 5 0.3425, Fr 5 2.55, FC1 5 0.07 and FC2 5 0.18 it can be
seen that circuit modeling results are in a good agreement with
full wave simulation results.
The loss resistance of a loop with wire effective radius Re
and loop side H is [17]: 3.2. Simulation and Results
The results of the return loss of the antenna with the full wave sim-
 
H RP ulation is shown in Figure 3(a) for different values of H. It can be
Rl 5 RS 11 ; (5) seen that vertical side of the loop (H) has a major effect on the
Re RSkin
operation frequency of the antenna. Return loss can be matched by
where Rp is the ohmic resistance per unit due to proximity altering the L for specific frequency to reach the minimum return
effect, but we shall not be concerned with this phenomenon loss. The analytical predictions are in correspondence with full
because this antenna has only a single loop. Furthermore, RSkin wave simulation results. Ground plane size is always a challenge
is the ohmic resistance per unit due to skin effect and can be in designing an electric field antenna [18,21]. A magnetic field
calculated as [17]: antenna can be devised with any ground plane scale [7], Figure
3(b) supports this statement as it can be seen resizing the ground
RS plane has a minor effect on operation frequency.
RSkin 5 ; (6) It is worth mentioning the simulation time reduction via our
2pRe
proposed method. For the studied structure, it takes more than
The induction inductance of the loop sides is very small and can 30 min to analyze using the frequency-domain electromagnetic
be omitted. In order to use all of these parameter in a practical solver with a computer possessing the following characteristics:
circuit model with agreement to the full wave simulation results, processor, Intel(R) Core (TM) i7-5700HQ CPU @3.50 GHz;
we should apply some correction coefficients: installed memory (RAM), 16.0 GB. While, it takes only less
than 0.5 s for the circuit modeling analysis on the same comput-
L1 5LA 3FI ; (7) er. So, we can analyze this structure in a remarkably shorter
R5Rl 1Rr 3Fr ; (8) time using an ordinary and easy-to-implement MATLAB code.
s In Figure 4, normalized radiation pattern for principal planes
400H4 and diverse frequencies are shown. These simulations result in
3
p
C1 53:9685e213 3FC1 ; (9) 2.45 dB realized gain with 0.13 dB radiation efficiency at
100W
500 MHz operation frequency.

Figure 3 (a) The return loss coefficient versus side of the loop (H), solid lines represent circuit model, and dash lines represent full-wave simulation,
(b) the return loss coefficient versus different size of the ground plane long (GP), solid lines represent circuit model and dash lines represent full-wave
simulation. [Color figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]

DOI 10.1002/mop MICROWAVE AND OPTICAL TECHNOLOGY LETTERS / Vol. 59, No. 2, February 2017 461
Figure 4 (a) Radiation pattern in XY plane, (b) XZ plane, and (c) YZ plane for different frequencies. [Color figure can be viewed at wileyonlineli-
brary.com]

3.3. Measurement coaxial cable in the region between antenna and the ground
After some consideration in fabrication we created a simple pro- plane [this part is highlighted with orange color in the Fig.
totype. For instance, we discovered a pragmatic technique to 1(c)], excising the role of ground plane as a radiating element,
increase the bandwidth. By removing the metallic shield of the afterward bandwidth increased from 60 to 120 MHz

Figure 5 (a) Perspective of prototyped antenna, (b) measurement results compared to the full wave simulation results. [Color figure can be viewed at
wileyonlinelibrary.com]

Figure 6 (a) Radiation patterns in YZ plane for 550 MHz, (b) 500 MHz, and (c) 450 MHz solid lines represent measurement results and dash lines
represent full-wave simulation results. [Color figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]

462 MICROWAVE AND OPTICAL TECHNOLOGY LETTERS / Vol. 59, No. 2, February 2017 DOI 10.1002/mop
(measurement 2). It is worth noting that by applying this
technique larger ground plane is essential. Figure 5(a) demon-
strates a perspective of prototyped antenna. In this prototype:
H 5 100 mm, K 5 4 mm, and ground plane sides equal
175 mm. The space between the antenna and the ground
plane is fixed to 5 mm. Although a square loop surrounding
equals to k generally, in this design it reduced to2=3k. It
means that we obtained 33% miniaturization. Figure 5(b)
demonstrates the measurement results compared to the full
wave simulation results. The simulation and measurement 1
are agree well. Another practical procedure is rotating the
square loop 180 degrees due to azimuth angle, videlicet the
ground plane is no longer symmetric proportion to the square
loop position, subsequently bandwidth raised up to 150 MHz
(measurement 3).
In Figure 6 normalized radiation pattern of prototype antenna
for three different frequencies in the YZ plane are shown.
According to these patterns we can use this antenna for semidir-
ectional mobile terminal communication or ground station appli-
cations. Also by changing the shape of the ground plane diverse
pattern will be in access readily.
At 450 MHz, the radiation pattern is similar to a dipole radi-
ation which has an omnidirectional pattern, by increasing the
operation frequency one of the lobes incline to have less gain,
Also back lobes are attenuated at 550 MHz therefore this pattern
has more maximum gain. The behavior of simulation patterns
follow the measurement patterns.
5. CONCLUSION
We proposed a relatively small antenna compared to the wave-
length (k ! 2=3k) in UHF band and introduced a circuit model
for easier optimization and behavior investigation of the anten-
na. This method has advantageous over computation time and
memory resource while producing results of good agreement.
Furthermore, we obtained 150 MHz equal 30% bandwidth, 33%
miniaturization, and 2.45 dB gain with 0.13 dB radiation effi-
ciency at 500 MHz operation frequency. This antenna is con-
nected to a square ring, Thus in the near zone the electric field
is weak and has no harm for the living being, Therefore, it can
be used in the environments where people present.
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C 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
V
COUPLED-FED TRI-BAND MIMO MOBILE
ANTENNA FOR WWAN AND LTE
APPLICATIONS
Jianfeng Zhu,1 Botao Feng,2 Li Deng,1 Biao Peng,1 and
Shufang Li1
1
Beijing Key Laboratory of Network System Architecture and
Convergence, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications,
Beijing, 100876, China; Corresponding author:
zhujianfeng@bupt.edu.cn
2
College of Electronic Science and Technology, Shenzhen
University, Shenzhen, 518060
Received 6 July 2016
ABSTRACT: In this paper, a coupled-fed tri-band multiple-input-
multiple-output (MIMO) mobile antenna is proposed for WWAN and
LTE applications. The MIMO antenna system is composed of two anten-
na elements and they are oriented diagonally at the non-grounded por-
tion of the FR-4 substrate. Each antenna element consists of a planar
inverted-F antenna (PIFA) coupled-fed by a L-shaped driven strip mono-
pole. By adding a parallel-resonant spiral slit in the main ground, the
bandwidth of the lower band can be enhanced to cover the whole
GSM850 and GSM900 bands without increasing the antenna size. Slits
embedded on the ground are employed to enhance port isolation
between the antenna elements. The proposed antenna provides triple
bands including the lower band of 810965 MHz, middle band of
463