IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL.

4, 2005

421

Quarter-Wavelength Wideband Slot Antenna for 35 GHz Mobile Applications

An Ping Zhao, Senior Member, IEEE, and Jussi Rahola, Member, IEEE
AbstractIn this letter, a quarter-wavelength ultra-wideband (UWB) slot antenna for 35 GHz mobile applications is proposed. Numerical results indicate that the performance of the antenna is insensitive to the size of the ground plane and an optimal performance of the antenna can be easily obtained by varying the dimensions of the slot and tuning stubs. Furthermore, a prototype of the antenna is made and a good agreement between simulation and measurement is achieved. Index TermsMobile terminals, quarter-wavelength slot antenna, ultra-wideband antenna.

I. INTRODUCTION

LTRA-WIDEBAND (UWB) wireless technology that promises high transfer speed and low current consumption has attracted increasing attention from both academia and industry. Although according to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) specication the frequency range used for UWB applications is between 3.1 and 10.6 GHz, suggestions on using frequency bands 35 GHz and 68 GHz for initial UWB applications in mobile devices have been made. In the past, wideband antennas using perpendicular monopole [1] and planar congurations with either circular patch [2] or slot [3][7] antennas have been reported. Among these designs, planar wideband antennas have potential for use in mobile terminals. Due to the size limitations of current mobile handsets, however, designing antennas that are not only working in the above suggested frequency bands but also small enough for mobile terminals is still quite challenging. In this letter, a quarter-wavelength wideband slot antenna used for 35 GHz mobile applications is proposed. The mechanism of the proposed quarter-wavelength slot antenna is based on the half-wavelength wideband slot antennas [5], [6], which consist of a rectangular slot and an U-shaped tuning stub. In particular, the quarter-wavelength slot antenna is achieved by using about one half of the half-wavelength slot and arranging the opening of the slot along one edge of the mobile terminal, resulting in very signicant size reduction. The parameters that affect the performance of the quarter-wavelength slot antenna are analyzed and the advantages of the antenna are demonstrated. Moreover, good agreement is obtained between measurement and simulation results.

Fig. 1. Geometry of the proposed quarter-wavelength slot antenna (in mm).

Fig. 2. Antenna return loss inuenced by the length (L ) of the vertical stub. For all cases, W = 40 mm, L = 80 mm, D = 38 mm, L = 12 mm, and = 10:2 mm. L

II. ANTENNA CONFIGURATION The proposed quarter-wavelength slot antenna is illustrated in Fig. 1. The antenna consists of a 50- microstrip line, an L-shaped horizontal and vertical tuning stub, and a quarter-wavelength slot. In particular, the horizontal ) and vertical (1.5 mm ) tuning stubs (0.75 mm and the 50- microstrip line are printed on the top side of the dielectric substrate, whereas the ground plane (with the slot opened on it) is printed on the lower side of the substrate. In this study, the FR4 substrate of thickness 1.6 mm with relative

Manuscript received August 2, 2005; revised September 20, 2005. The authors are with the Radio Technologies Laboratory, Nokia Research Center, FIN-00180 Helsinki, Finland (e-mail: an-ping.zhao@nokia.com; jussi.rahola@nokia.com). Digital Object Identier 10.1109/LAWP.2005.859382

1536-1225/$20.00 2005 IEEE

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IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL. 4, 2005

Fig. 4. Simulated VSWR of the antenna (optimized at D = 38 mm) as a function of D . The parameters reoptimized at D = 8 mm are = 12:25 mm, L = 10:7 mm, and L = 2:25 mm. For all cases, L W = 40 mm and L = 80 mm.

Fig. 3. Simulated VSWR of the optimized antenna varies with W and L. For all cases, L = 12 mm, L = 10:2 mm, and L = 2:1 mm. (a) As a function of W , L = 80 mm, D = 38 mm. (b) As a function of L, W = 40 mm, D = (L 4)=2 mm.

permittivity and loss tangent 0.02 was used. and denote the length and width of the substrate (or the ground plane), respectively; and the length and width of the slot are and . is used to describe the location of the denoted by slot on the substrate. The rest of the dimensions and locations are illustrated in Fig. 1. In addition, the antenna is fed by a 50coaxial line connected to the lower end of the 50- microstrip line through the substrate. III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Similar to the half-wavelength slot wideband antennas [5], [6], the operating bandwidth of the proposed quarter-wavelength slot antenna is dependent on the dimensions of the slot and tuning stub as well as the location (relative to the slot) of the tuning stub. The antenna is simulated using CST Microwave Studio [8]. Numerical results indicate that to have an operating

frequency in the range of 35 GHz, the smallest width of , which is xed in this study. Hence, the slot is within certain values, the bandwidth of the for , , and proposed antenna is eventually determined by parameters , , and . It is found that for , , and , the optimal values for , , and are 12, 10.2, and 2.1 mm, respectively. As an example, we demonstrate affects the performance of the antenna. The simulated how antenna return loss (i.e., ) as a function of is shown in Fig. 2. It can be seen from Fig. 2 that the best performance of . the antenna is achieved when To know how the performance of the antenna (optimized at , , and ) is affected by different sizes of the ground plane, the performance of the antenna and . In addition, the slot is kept is examined by altering ] of the right edge of the at the center [i.e., ground plane when (and ) varies. The simulated VSWR of the optimized antenna for the ground plane with different widths and lengths is plotted in Fig. 3(a) and (b), respectively. It can be of seen from Fig. 3 that although the parameters , , and the antenna are optimized for and , the performance of the antenna is still acceptable when the size of the ground plane varies. This implies that the performance of the quarter-wavelength slot antenna is almost independent of the ground plane size, which can be seen as one advantage of the antenna. The reason for having such an independency is due to the fact that the proposed antenna has two distinct resonant frequencies (around 3.2 and 4.8 GHz), which are respectively determined by the length ( ) of the slot (for 3.2 GHz) and the ) of the tuning stub (for 4.8 GHz), rather entire length ( than the size of the ground plane. Next, we will investigate how the performance of the antenna varies when the slot is moved from one location (with the parameters optimized for this location) to another location. In addition, how the performance of the antenna can be reoptimized for the new location will also be investigated. To simplify our

ZHAO AND RAHOLA: QUARTER-WAVELENGTH WIDEBAND SLOT ANTENNA FOR 35 GHz MOBILE APPLICATIONS

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Fig. 5. Comparison of radiation patterns at frequencies (a), (d), and (g) 3.1 GHz ; (b), (e), and (h) 4.0 GHz; and (c), (f), and (i) 4.9 GHz , where the solid curves and circles are simulated and measured results, respectively. (a), (b), and (c) xy plane; (d), (e), and (f) yz plane; (g), (h), and (i) xz plane.

discussion, the ground plane is xed at 40 mm 80 mm. The and simulated VSWR of the antenna (with parameters , optimized at ) as a function of is plotted in Fig. 4. It can be seen from Fig. 4 that when the location of to , the perthe slot is moved from formance of the antenna is still acceptable. However, the performance gets worse in the upper frequency range (near 5 GHz) . Nevertheless, this phenomenon can be simply when are readjusted. It is found that the improved if , , and simulated VSWR is well below 2:1 within the entire 35 GHz

, frequency range when the optimized values , and are used for the case of . Such a simple reoptimization can be seen as another advantage of the quarter-wavelength slot antenna. , , Finally, a prototype optimized for (with , , and and ) was made and measured. The simulated and measured radiation patterns at frequencies 3.1 GHz, 4.0 GHz, and 4.9 GHz are illustrated in Fig. 5. The 3-D radiation patterns were measured but only the three major cuts are shown here. In

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IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL. 4, 2005

sured antenna gain at some frequencies since the maximum radiation at these frequencies might occur in the unavailable angles. Therefore, it is not surprising that difference between the simulated and measured antenna gain exists, as indicated in Fig. 7. IV. CONCLUSION In this letter, a novel quarter-wavelength slot wideband antenna used for 35 GHz mobile applications is proposed. It has been demonstrated that the antenna offers the following advantages: i) the performance of the antenna is insensitive to the size of the ground plane of mobile terminals when the slot antenna is optimized for a certain antenna location; and ii) for different slot locations optimal designs can be easily obtained by varying the dimensions of the slot and the tuning stub. Moreover, if a half-wavelength slot wideband antenna that has a similar performance to the quarter-wavelength slot antenna is adopted, then the smallest half-wavelength slot size will be 28 mm 8 mm. Consequently, very signicant (about 78%) size reduction can be achieved with the proposed antenna. In addition, a quarterwavelength wideband slot antenna used for 68 GHz (with a slot size about 5.5 mm 4 mm) mobile applications can also be easily designed with the idea presented in this letter. ACKNOWLEDGMENT The authors would like to thank P. Sinisalo, Nokia Research Center, for help on making the prototype and the measurement. The authors also would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions. REFERENCES
[1] Z. N. Chen, M. Y. W. Chia, and M. J. Ammann, Optimization and comparison of broadband monopoles, Proc. Inst. Elect. Eng. Microwaves, Antennas, and Propagation, vol. 150, pp. 429435, 2003. [2] J. Liang, C. C. Chiau, X. Chen, and C. G. Parini, Printed circular disc monopole antenna for ultra-wideband applications, Electron. Lett., vol. 40, pp. 12461247, 2004. [3] L. Zhu, R. Fu, and K. L. Wu, A novel broadband microstrip-fed wide slot antenna with double rejection zeros, IEEE Antennas Wireless Propag. Lett., vol. 2, pp. 194196, 2003. [4] N. Behdad and K. Sarabandi, A miltiresonant single-element wideband slot antenna, IEEE Antennas Wireless Propag. Lett., vol. 3, pp. 58, 2004. [5] J. Y. Sze and K. L. Wong, Bandwidth enhancement of a microstripline-fed printed wide-slot antenna, IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 49, no. 7, pp. 10201024, Jul. 2001. [6] X. Qing, M. Y. W. Chia, and X. Wu, Wide-slot antenna for UWB application, in Proc. 2003 IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society Int. Symp., vol. 1, pp. 834837. [7] R. Chair, A. A. Kishk, and K. F. Lee, Ultrawide-band coplanar waveguide-fed rectangular slot antenna, IEEE Antennas Wireless Propag. Lett., vol. 3, pp. 227229, 2004. [8] CST Microwave Studio, 5.1 ed., Computer Simulation Technology, Darmstadt, Germany, 2005.

Fig. 6.

Simulated and measured return losses of the antenna prototype.

Fig. 7.

Simulated and measured antenna gains of the antenna prototype.

addition, the simulated and measured antenna return losses are shown in Fig. 6, whereas the simulated and measured antenna gains are plotted in Fig. 7. It can be seen from Figs. 5 and 6 that rather good agreement is achieved between the simulation and measurement results. However, the measured radiation patterns shown in Fig. 5 are unavailable for certain angles (within ) since the measurement arm of our anechoic chamber cannot be rotated to those angles. Although such a drawback does not affect the accuracy of the measured radiation patterns among the angles where the arm can be rotated to, it does have a negative impact on the accuracy of the mea-