VERY-LOW-PROFILE BENT PLANAR
MONOPOLE ANTENNA FOR GSM/DCS
DUAL-BAND MOBILE PHONE
Gwo-Yun Lee and Kin-Lu Wong
Department of Electrical Engineering
National Sun Yat-Sen University
Kaohsiung 804, Taiwan
Received 22 March 2002
ABSTRACT: By inserting several slits into a rectangular planar monopole, which meanders the monopole, and further bending it into two
equal and perpendicular sections, a novel very-low-profile monopole
antenna for applications in GSM/DCS dual-band mobile phones is presented. The antenna height is only 7 mm (about 2.1% of the wavelength
at 900 MHz) from the ground plane, and the obtained impedance bandwidths cover the required operating bandwidths of the GSM (890 960
MHz) and DCS (1710 1880 MHz) bands. 2002 Wiley Periodicals,
Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 34: 406 409, 2002; Published online
in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/mop.
10477
Key words: planar monopole antennas; mobile phone antennas; dualband monopole antennas
1. INTRODUCTION
Planar monopole antennas are usually in the form of two-dimensional structures [1]. Recently, it has been demonstrated that, by
folding the planar monopole into a three-dimensional structure [2,
3], reduced antenna height can be obtained, which is very attractive for mobile phone applications. The design reported in [2]
showed a folded planar monopole antenna having a wide bandwidth of about 900 MHz, which covers the DCS, PCS, UMTS, and
WLAN bands for mobile phone applications. This antenna has a
low profile of 13 mm (less than 8% of the wavelength of the lowest
operating frequency) from the ground plane for practical applications. In [3], a very-low-profile design of a planar monopole folded
into a rectangular-box-like compact structure for GSM/DCS/PCS
multiband mobile phones has been shown. The total antenna height
from the ground plane is only about 9.5 mm (about 2.9% of the
wavelength at 900 MHz).
In this Letter a novel dual-band monopole design with an even
lower profile than that shown in [2, 3] is presented. The planar
monopole is first printed on a thin FR4 substrate and then bent into
a three-dimensional structure having two equal and perpendicular
sections. In the planar monopole, several slits are also inserted for
meandering the monopole to provide a much-lengthened resonant
path. Thus, for operating at a fixed frequency, the dimensions of
Figure 1 (a) Geometry and dimensions of the proposed very-low-profile bent planar monopole antenna for GSM/DCS operations of a mobile phone. (b)
Side view of the proposed design
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2. ANTENNA DESIGN
Figure 2
Measured and simulated return loss for the proposed antenna
the planar monopole can be significantly reduced. In addition,
through the meandering, the first two resonant frequencies of the
proposed monopole antenna have a frequency ratio of about 2, and
the lower resonant mode covers the GSM (global system for
mobile communication, 890 960 MHz) band, and the upper mode
covers the DCS (digital communication system, 1710 1880 MHz)
band. The dimensions of the proposed bent monopole are 7 7
30 mm3, and for mounting on a mobile phone, the antennas profile
is only about 7 mm (about 2.1% of the wavelength at 900 MHz)
from the ground plane. Details of the antenna design and the
obtained experimental results are presented and discussed.
Figure 3
Figure 1(a) shows the geometry and dimensions of the proposed
bent planar monopole antenna for a GSM/DCS dual-band mobile
phone, and the antennas side view is shown in Figure 1(b). The
proposed bent planar monopole is mounted on top of a grounded
FR4 substrate of thickness 0.4 mm, relative permittivity 4.4, and
size 35 100 mm3. A conducting wire perpendicular to the
grounded substrate is connected between the proposed monopole
antenna and a 50- microstrip line printed on the grounded substrate. The microstrip line is further connected to a 50- SMA
connector placed in the ground-plane side of the substrate, through
which a coax is used to excite the antenna in the experiment.
The proposed monopole is first printed on a thin (thickness 0.4
mm) FR4 substrate of size 14 30 mm2. Then, along the center
line [the bending line shown in the planar structure in Figure 1(a)],
the proposed monopole is bent into two equal and perpendicular
sections having dimensions 7 30 mm2. Between the two perpendicular sections, a foam material of dimensions 6.6 6.6 30
mm3 is inserted for supporting the monopole [see Figure 1(b)]. For
the proposed design, the antenna profile seen from the top of the
ground plane is as low as 7 mm.
Several slits are also inserted in the proposed monopole to
achieve a much-lengthened resonant path. All of the widths of the
inserted slits are fixed to 0.5 mm, and other slit dimensions are
given in the planar structure in Figure 1(a). Note that the design
dimensions of the inserted slits are obtained with the aid of the
commercially available simulation software Ansoft HFSS (highfrequency structure simulator). By following the slits boundaries,
a meandered resonant path going from Point A to Point B [see the
Measured radiation patterns at 900 MHz for the proposed antenna
MICROWAVE AND OPTICAL TECHNOLOGY LETTERS / Vol. 34, No. 6, September 20 2002
407
Figure 4
Measured radiation patterns at 1800 MH for the proposed antenna
planar structure in Figure 1(a)] has a length of about 135 mm,
which corresponds to about 0.4 times the wavelength at 900 MHz.
This resonant length is larger than the required 0.25 wavelength for
a monopole operation, which is largely caused by the coupling
effect between adjacent meandered subpaths. In addition to the
much-lengthened resonant path obtained, there is a small rectangular section of dimensions 7.5 4 mm2 near Point A, whose
dimensions are tuned for achieving good impedance matching for
the proposed antenna. In addition, probably because of the mean-
Figure 5
408
dering, the first two resonant modes of the proposed antenna have
a frequency ratio of about 2 and cover the GSM and DCS bands,
which makes the proposed antenna suitable for applications in
GSM/DCS dual-band mobile phones.
3. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The proposed antenna was constructed and studied. Figure 2 shows
the measured and simulated return loss. The measured data agree
Measured antenna gain for the proposed antenna. (a) The lower band for GSM operation. (b) The upper band for DCS operation
MICROWAVE AND OPTICAL TECHNOLOGY LETTERS / Vol. 34, No. 6, September 20 2002
well with the simulated results. It is clearly seen that the lower and
upper modes occur near 900 and 1800 MHz, respectively. The
lower mode has an impedance bandwidth (2.5:1 VSWR) of about
157 MHz (837994 MHz), which covers the required bandwidth
for GSM operation. On the other hand, the upper band has a
bandwidth of 231 MHz (17051936 MHz), also covering the DCS
band.
Figures 3 and 4 plot the measured radiation patterns at 900 and
1800 MHz, respectively. Radiation patterns at other operating
frequencies in the GSM and DCS bands were also measured and
showed similar radiation patterns as shown here; that is, the
radiation patterns are stable across the respective operating bandwidth. It is also observed that the measured radiation patterns at
900 MHz show monopole-like radiation patterns. The measured
antenna gain for operating frequencies across the GSM and DCS
bands is presented in Figure 5. For the GSM band, the peak
antenna gain is about 2.9 dBi, and gain variations are within 1.6
dBi. As for DCS band, the peak antenna gain is about 2.8 dBi, but
with smaller gain variations (less than 1 dBi).
4. CONCLUSIONS
A novel bent planar monopole antenna with a very low profile (7
mm or about 2.1% of the wavelength at 900 MHz) has been
proposed and successfully implemented. In addition to the very
low profile obtained, the proposed antenna can generate two resonant modes covering the GSM and DCS bands and is suitable for
dual-band mobile phone applications. In addition, owing to the
very low profile obtained, it is very promising to place the proposed antenna within the mobile phone housing, leading to no
protruded antenna in appearance.
REFERENCES
1. N.P. Agrawall, G. Kumar, and K.P. Ray, Wide-band planar monopole
antennas, IEEE Trans Antennas Propagat 46 (1998), 294 295.
2. G.Y. Lee, S.H. Yeh, and K.L. Wong, A broadband folded monopole
antenna for mobile antenna, Microwave Opt Technol Lett 33 (2002),
165167.
3. P.L. Teng and K.L. Wong, Planar monopole folded into a compact
structure for very-low-profile multi-band mobile phone antenna, Microwave Opt Technol Lett 33 (2002), 2225.
2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
NEGATIVE INDEX OF REFRACTION
AND DISTRIBUTED BRAGG
REFLECTORS
Jaline Gerardin and Akhlesh Lakhtakia
CATMASComputational and Theoretical Materials Sciences Group
Department of Engineering Science and Mechanics
Pennsylvania State University
University Park, Pennsylvania 16802
Received 26 February 2002
ABSTRACT: The Bragg regime shifts when conventional materials in a
multilayer distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) are replaced by artificial
materials with the so-called negative index of refraction. This provides
an avenue for characterizing the latter class of materials. 2002 Wiley
Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 34: 409 411, 2002;
Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com).
DOI 10.1002/mop.10478
Key words: distributed Bragg reflector; negative index of refraction
1. INTRODUCTION
Artificial materials with the so-called negative index of refraction
at 10-GHz frequency have garnered much recent interest [1 6].
These isotropic materials, with supposedly negative real permittivity and negative real permeability, were the subject of the
mid-1960s paper of Veselago [7], who predicted certain unusual
electromagnetic properties and coined the unclear term left-handed
materials for them. Handed these materials are not [8]; issue can
be taken on the isotropy of their first samples [3], and no materials
can be strictly nondissipative [9]. Yet the only available experimental result [3] conclusively shows that these materials are different from their conventional counterparts (i.e., those with positive real permittivity and positive real permeability). As better
realizations are probably in the wings, in colloquial terms, the
business of macroscopic electromagnetics can no longer be as
usual.
The manufacturing process of the subject artificial materials
delivers samples in the form of slabs. Even a cursory perusal of
key papers [13] reveals that characteristic observable properties
of these materials supposedly are manifested most clearly when
plane waves are obliquely incident on planar interfaces with their
conventional counterparts. Indeed, the only experimental confirmation of their unusual characteristics exploited oblique incidence
on a planar interface with air [3]. In contrast, a configuration
wherein the incidence is normal and yet the subject artificial
materials can be easily distinguished from their conventional counterparts is presented as follows.
2. ANALYSIS
Distributed Bragg reflectors (DBRs) are commonly used planar
devices in optics [10 14]. A multilayer DBR is a stack of layers of
two alternating materials with different indexes of refraction as
well as low absorption, exhibiting very high reflectance in the
so-called Bragg regime. If P denotes the thickness of a unit cell
comprising two adjacent layers, and n is some effective index of
refraction, then the Bragg regime is located about the (free-space)
wavelength [1113]
0Br 2Pn .
(1)
(Bragg regimes are also possible around integer submultiples of
this Br
0 , but it must be borne in mind that indexes of refraction are
wavelength dependent, in general.) The parameter n depends on
the indexes of refraction and the volumetric proportion of the two
constituent materials.
Suppose the region 0 z L is occupied by a multilayer
DBR, as shown in Figure 1. The multilayer DBR comprises N unit
cells, each made of two layers labeled a and b, with relative
permittivities a,b and relative permeabilities a,b . With P L/N
as the thickness of the unit cell, the thickness of layer a is equal to
qP, 0 q 1. A plane wave is normally incident on the DBR
from the vacuous half space z 0, with 0 denoting its wavelength. Therefore, a reflected plane wave also exists in the half
space z 0, and a transmitted plane wave in the vacuous half
space z L. The corresponding electric field phasors are given by
Ez, 0 ux
expik z r expik z,
at expik
z L,
0
z 0,
z L,
(2)
where k 0 2 / 0 is the free-space wave number; a, r, and t are
the amplitudes of the incident, reflected and transmitted plane
waves, respectively, and (ux , uy , uz ) is the triad of cartesian unit
vectors. An exp(i t) time dependence is implicit, where
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