A Compact Meander Microstripe Antenna for Bluetooth Headset

Alpha Fan
Dept.R&D_RF, Namtai Electronic (ShenZhen) Co.Ltd. , ShenZhen

ABSTRACT: The meander Antenna is a conventional type antenna. By correct shape size and outline design, the meander antenna can obtain good antenna parameter and fact performance. Modern consumption product with wireless function becomes increasingly more small and light. This fashion trend challenges small antenna design .This Letter describes how to achieve the good antenna performance worked on the Industrial, Scientific, Medical ( ISM ) band which is centered around 2.45G in the 11x7x4 mm3 space. By comparing the meander antenna with other type including newer design, the conventional meander shows its predominance in some respects. The method among this design, the electromagnetism simulation software ADS plays a important role, which integrated the two numerical arithmetic --- MoM and FEM. This design utilized the Mometum( MoM ) tool and the software simulation result has a close affinity to final measure. The bandwidth of planar meander Antenna attains 7% in the ISM band, and finally, the meander antenna was proved which has good performance by external laboratory with CTIA certification moreover. Key words: antenna, meander, Bluetooth, ADS

I. INTRODUCTION ecently competition of the mobile handset market has become hotter. Mobile phone companies make their efforts to get better designs. Accordingly, miniaturization research of antenna has been pursued for many years. As a result of it, many internal type antennas have been studied [1]. Microstrip antennas are used for space applications because of their light weight, better aerodynamic properties and low fabrication cost. Most antennas studied now are PIFA type antenna that can accommodate bands more than quad-band. But these antennas can work properly under the limited condition that they should be installed high from the ground of element. This high determines the bandwidth of PIFA [1] [2]. To printed PIFA, this problem still exist. Due to considering costdown, the LTCC chip antenna can not be adopted, and in addition to the lower efficiency factor [3]. Though LTCC chip antenna are easy to use. The planar folded dipole antenna requires about 0.50 length generally in order to obtain good performance [4]. So the size of folded dipole antenna is larger than the microstrip meander antenna because of monopole antenna has a mirror ground [2] [5]. In this antenna design, the EM simulation tools utility is necessary in order to save much time and money. At present, there are several mainly numerical arithmetics for example MoM, FEM, FDTD to solve the EM field and wave. Agilent Technologies recommends the ADS RF&MW simulation software embedded the Momentum which based on the MoM to 2D object. The EMDS tool with FEM engine is also integrated into ADS2008. In this design, the ADS Momentum has been used. Momentum is based on a numerical discretization technique called the method of moments. This technique is used to solve Maxwell's electromagnetic equations for planar structures embedded in a multilayered dielectric substrate. The method of moments (MoM) technique is based upon the work of R.F. Harrington, an electrical engineer who worked extensively on the method and applied it to electromagnetic field problems, in the beginning of the 1960's. It is based on older theory which uses weighted residuals and variational

calculus. In the method of moments, prior to the discretization, Maxwell's electromagnetic equations are transformed into integral equations [6]. MoM is very accurate but becomes very onerous, especially when it is applied to the solution relevant to a body whose dimensions are not small with respect to the wavelength [6]. So to simulate planar microstrip antenna, the ADS Momentum is very suitable. II. ANTENNA DESIGN APPROACH There need to design a antenna in Bluetooth headset for a famous mobile phone company. The 2.4GHz antenna must be limited in the 11x7x4 mm3 volume by the plastic structure. Because there is only so small space for design, the good performance on the antenna is difficult. The monopole meander microstrip antenna will been designed to catch the general antenna specification: BW: 100MHz @ RL < -10dB ; SWR : < 2.0 @ BW. There is an advantage that the monopole antenna is relatively easy to catch larger relative bandwidth than PIFA type [3]. The parameters of meander shape for example H, La, Lb, Lc shown as below (Figure 1 (a)) will effect the antenna performance parameter [5]. The size of monopole meander antenna is shown as below (Figure 1 (a)):

Fig. 1. (a ) (b) (a) Meander antenna PCB design size, (b) ADS layout design

This area is about /10 x /16. The meander microstrip length can get the /4 easily, but to ensure its performance is not easy . There are many factors to influence its parameter. The substrate structure is a 4 layers FR4 PCB which has permittivity r from 4.3 to 4.8 . The PCB manufacturer can easily control it and this design chooses permittivity 4.5. The microstrip width is 0.4 mm. The meander width is 9.5 and the meander is uniform. The screw pitch of the meander line is 0.8 mm. The front microstrip length is 6.7mm. These data is shown as Fig. 1(a). In the ADS2008U1 Momentum, the meander layout can be drawn easily as Fig.1(b). According to the microstrip antenna running condition, ADS can set up the substrate layer stackup as following Fig.2:

By the testing the real PCB with Agilent Precision NetAnalyzer (PNA) E3381A, the meander antenna works on the 2.45GHz. This indicates the dielectric body (for example plastic) and valume has a certainly affection. The meander antenna runs very well as below ( Figure 5 ) and it gets 180MHz bandwidth with matching circuit. The ADS can also view the 3D EM structure as following Figure 6 and radiation pattern. This simulation spent about 5 minutes at Pentium 4

Fig. 3. Full-scale meander antenna on the Bluetooth headset PCB

Fig. 2. Momentum substrate layer stackup setup

Frequency range: start: 1GHz, end: 4GHz; Sweep Type: Adaptive, Adaptive is the preferred sweep type. It uses a fast, highly accurate method of comparing sampled S-parameter data points to a rational fitting mode l[6]; Port exciter: Internal; and defining Mesh parameters. Because the meander antenna need find the work resonant frequency 2.45G and its length has some uncertainty, the predesign must provide relatively easy debug method. In general, the front microstrip length (6.0 mm) can be look as variable in engineering. So if the meander antenna do not work on the resonant frequency, the front microstrip can be changed in order to meet the specification. The exciter was loaded at the feed point by the 50 Ohm microstrip. There is a type matching circuit in the feed point port which makes the impedance matching easily so that can achieve less return loss . III. MEASUREMENT RESULT By the ADS simulating, the meander antenna has a result as below (Figure 4 ). The result shows that the meander antenna runs nearly at the 2.5GHz frequency. In fact, this is controlled result. The resonant frequency will drift down due to the mechanical structure affection. The longish meander is advantage to correct the antenna parameter because cutting out the microstrip part is easier than adding length. So keep this size now. After simulation, it has a over 200 MHz bandwidth as figure 4. The real PCB size is shown as Figure 3.

Fig. 4. Simulation result at S11 Return Loss

Fig. 5. Measure result by Agilent NetAnalyzer E3381A

3.2G, 2G RAM. Figure 7, Figure 8 and Figure 9 are the radiation pattern which is measured by external CTIA certification laboratory. The measure result indicates the

meander antenna has better isotropic radiation pattern and higher gain about 2.70dBi.

Fig. 6. Momentum EM 3D view

Fig. 9. Measured antenna patterns, theta=90 Red line: 2401MHz; Yellow line: 2441 MHz; Blue line: 2480 MHz

IV. CONCLUSION The conventional meander microstrip antenna has better isotropic radiation pattern and higher radiation efficiency. It can be easily designed into little volume structure product like Bluetooth headset. The EM simulation tool is powerful in development procedure. It can save a large amount of time and work in design phase. Selecting correct arithmetic tool and setup is important to corresponding antenna type and size. By simulating the design on the antenna, it is very effective and successful to achieve the expectable goal. ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Fig. 7. Measured antenna patterns, phi=0 Red line: 2401MHz; Yellow line: 2441 MHz; Blue line: 2480 MHz

This work was supported by R&D_RF project team at Electronic (ShenZhen) Co.Ltd. The authors would like to thank SP, Aaron, Chris, Hosern and Agilent Technology for their great support. REFERENCES
[1] [2] [3] [4] Kin-Lu Wong, Planar Antenna For Wireless Communication, New York, John Wiley And Sons, 2003. Vincent F. Fusco, Foundations of Antenna Theory and Techniques, Malaysia, Pearson Education Limited, 2005. Auden Andersen, Antenna Select for Low Power Wireless Application, China, EDN magazine , Dec 2008, pp.25-27 Takashi Yamano, Jun Itoh, Kim Yongho, Fundamental Characteristics of Planar Folded Dipole Antenna with a Feed Line, IEEE International Symposium on Antennas & Propagation and USNC/URSI Meeting , July 2008. J.R. James, P.S. Hall, Handbook of Microstrip Antennas, London , Peter Peregrinus Ltd, Vol. 1, 1989. Agilent Technologies, Advance Design System 2008 update1 manual, July 2008. L. Lucci, Iterative MoM based evaluation of EM scattering from dielectric bodies with inclusions, IEEE International Symposium on Antennas & Propagation and USNC/URSI Meeting , July 2008.

[5] [6] [7] Fig. 8. Measured antenna patterns, phi=90 Red line: 2401MHz; Yellow line: 2441 MHz; Blue line: 2480 MHz