UNIVERSITY

OF TRENTO
DEPARTMENT OF INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY
38050 Povo Trento (Italy), Via Sommarive 14
http://www.dit.unitn.it

SYNTHESIS OF A THREE-DIMENSIONAL TRIBAND (L1-L2 GPS AND

WI-FI) PREFRACTAL TREE ANTENNA
R. Azaro, E. Zeni, T. Gazzini, R. Dallapiccola, A. Massa
November 2006
Technical Report DIT-06-068

Synthesis of a Three-Dimensional Triband (L1-L2 GPS

and Wi-Fi ) Prefra tal Tree Antenna

Renzo Azaro,

Member, IEEE ,

Andrea Massa,

Edoardo Zeni, Tommaso Gazzini, Ramona Dallapi ola,

Member, IEEE

Department of Information and Communi ation Te hnologies,

University of Trento, Via Sommarive 14, 38050 Trento - Italy
Tel. +39 0461 882057, Fax +39 0461 882093
E-mail:
Web:

andrea.massaing.unitn.it, {renzo.azaro, edoardo.zeni}dit.unitn.it

http://www.eledia.ing.unitn.it

Synthesis of a Three-Dimensional Triband (L1-L2 GPS

and Wi-Fi ) Prefra tal Tree Antenna

Renzo Azaro,

Member, IEEE ,

Andrea Massa,

Edoardo Zeni, Tommaso Gazzini, Ramona Dallapi ola,

Member, IEEE

Abstra t
In this letter, the synthesis of a 3D wire antenna with a tree-like shape and operating at three dierent frequen y bands (L1 L2 GP S bands and W i F i) is
presented. The geometri al parameters of the antenna are determined by means of
a parti le swarm-based optimization pro edure exploiting the degrees of freedom of
the referen e tree geometry for tting the ele tri al proje t onstraints. The results
of the numeri al simulation are shown and ompared with those from experimental
measurements for assessing the ee tiveness of the synthesis pro edure.

Key Words - Antennas Synthesis, Fra tal Antennas, Tree-like Antennas, Multiband
Antennas, Parti le Swarm Optimizer.

Introdu tion

Be ause of the growing demand of miniaturized and multiband antennas for ele troni
devi es employing multiple wireless standards, several resear hes have been devoted at
analyzing the ele trodynami behavior of fra tal and pre-fra tal geometries [1 [2 [3. As
a matter of fa t, fra tal and pre-fra tal geometries present very interesting features in
terms of multiband behavior and overall size.
Besides planar geometries [4[5[6, easily built on diele tri substrates by means of standard and low- ost photolitographi te hniques, three-dimensional fra tal tree-like shapes
have been investigated [7. As a matter of fa t, despite their omplex realization, these
stru tures present very interesting ele trodynami properties thanks to the large number
of degrees of freedom in the hoi e of the values of their des riptive geometri parameters.
In [7,

Petko and Werner

showed that fra tal tree geometries an be fruitfully employed

as end-loads for the miniaturization of onventional dipoles or monopole antennas.

However, although a multi-band behavior an be realized, the spe tral distribution of
multiple resonant frequen ies is stri tly related to the geometri al parameters of the
self-similar stru ture with xed relationships among the frequen ies whatever the fra tal shape. Therefore, the allo ation of several working frequen y bands in the frequen y
spe trum turns out to be a omplex task with 

onstrained 

hoi es. In order to over-

ome su h a limitation, the insertion of rea tive loads in the fra tal tree stru ture has
been proposed in [7 at the ost of an in reased omplexity in the onstru tion pro ess of
the devi e.
Another ee tive methodology for obtaining a multiband behavior, without onstraints on
resonan e frequen ies, is based on the introdu tion of perturbations both in size and length
of the fra tal geometry [8[9[10[11. A ording to this guideline, this paper presents the
design of a three-dimensional pre-fra tal tree antenna operating at three dierent frequen y bands (GP S

L1 -L2

bands and

W i F i).

The synthesis of the pre-fra tal geome-

try is arried out through a numeri al optimization pro edure based on a parti le swarm
optimizer (P SO ) [12[13[14, whi h optimizes the geometri al parameters des ribing the
tree geometry avoiding the insertion of any lumped load to obtain a multiband behavior.
The ee tiveness of the design pro edure and the hara teristi s of the synthesized three-

dimensional triband antenna are analyzed by means of representative numeri al results

and measurements on an experimental prototype.

Triband Pre-Fra tal Tree Antenna Design and Optimization

The synthesis of the three-dimensional geometry of the multiband prefra tal tree has
been formulated as an optimization problem by xing suitable onstraints in terms of

Return Loss

gain values and impedan e mat hing at the input port (

and

L2

and at

frequen y bands of the

f2 = 1227.60

GP S

values) in both

f1 = 1575.42

system ( entered respe tively at

MHz) as well as in the

Wi Fi

band ( entered at

L1

MHz

f3 = 2440.00

MHz).
As far as the impedan e mat hing is on erned, a Return Loss lower than
required.

10 dB

is

Moreover, the radiation hara teristi s of the three-dimensional antenna are

required to satisfy the following onstraints.

Con erning

L1

and

L2 GP S

hemispheri al overage is needed with gain values suitable for ommer ial
More in detail, gain values greater than

Gmin = 4.0 dBi

at

= 70o

Gmin = 3.0 dBi

at

= 0o

by assuming the presen e of a low noise

stage at the input port of the

GP S

bands, an

GP S

re eivers.

and greater than

30 dB

re eiver be ause of the weakness of the

preamplier

GP S

signals

at the earth surfa e. Furthermore, taking into a ount the performan es required by a
ommer ial mobile transmitter/re eiver in the
have been dened: gain values greater than
gain greater than

Gmin av = 10.0 dBi

Wi Fi

Gmin = 6.0 dBi

in the angular range

order to minimize the overall size of the antenna, the

to a volume having dimensions
frequen y (f2

0
4

0
4

band, the following onstraints

3D

, being 0
4
4

at

= 70o

and an average

70o < < 90o .

Finally, in

stru ture is required to belong

= 6 cm

at the lowest resonan e

= 1227.60 MHz ).

A ording to [7[15, the self similar stru ture of the prefra tal tree has been derived by
repeatedly applying the so- alled Hut hinson operator up to the stage
Fig. 1, starting from a trunk of length l0 lying along the
system [Fig.

z -axis

i = 3.

As shown in

in a artesian oordinate

1( ), the fra tal tree stru ture is generated by the iterative addition of

jun tions from whi h several bran hes ( alled

hild

bran hes) split from a

parent

bran h.

Ex ept the trunk and the nal bran hes, every bran h is onne ted to a jun tion at its
own terminations. Thus, it is at the same time hild and parent of other bran hes. These

stru tures an be grouped in dierent lasses depending on: ( ) the number of bran hes

that lead o a jun tion, ( ) the bent angle

( ) the angle

with respe t to the parent dire tion, and

that separates the onse utive bran hes leading o the same jun tion. In

this paper, in order to simplify the building pro edure, a four bran hes (R
tree hara terized by

b = 90o

and

s = 90o

= 4)

fra tal

has been onsidered. Therefore, the resulting

fra tal shape is omposed by bran hes lying along the axes of the oordinate system and

the antenna stru ture is uniquely determined by: ( ) the trunk length
lengths li,j of the bran hes,

j -th
(i

bran h generated at the

= 1),

Fig. 1( ) (i

= 2),

tree is onstituted by
ir ular ross-se tion

being the iteration index and

i-th

stage (i

and Fig. 1( ) (i

L=

PI

i=1

r = 0.5 mm

= 1, ..., I )
= 3).

R(Ii+1) + 1

l0

j (j = 1, ... , Ri )

ii )

and (

denotes the

as pi torially shown in Fig.

Summarizing, the

I -th

the

1( )

order prefra tal

segments (the bran hes and the trunk) of

in radius.

Under these assumptions, the des riptive parameters of the pre-fra tal tree (trunked at

I = 3 for tuning three dierent resonan e frequen ies) have been optimized by minimizing
the following ost fun tion

M
1 N
1 X
T 1 
X
X

Gmin {t, n, mf } {t, n, mf }

=
max 0,
Gmin
m=0 n=0 t=0



V
1
X
{vf } V SW Rmax
max 0,
+
V SW Rmax
v=0

where

= {l0 , li,j , i = 1, ... I = 3, j = 1, ... , Ri }, f



(1)

is the sampling frequen y step in

and W i F i bands, and are the sampling angular steps of the gain

fun tion, = {t, n, mf } is the gain fun tion of the radiating stru ture

omputed at ( = t , = n, f = mf ), and = {vf } is the V SW R value
the

at

L1, L2

f = mf .

Moreover, sin e besides ele tri al onstraints some other onditions have

been stated for limiting the physi al size of the antenna, a set of geometri al onstraints
have been dened to avoid the synthesis of unfeasible stru tures.
A ording to the guidelines des ribed in [13, a suitable implementation of the

P SO

[16 has been integrated with a tree-like prefra tal generator and a method-of-moments
(MoM ) ele tromagneti simulator [17 for minimizing (1), thus determining the antenna
stru ture. More in detail, starting from the trial solutions

(k)
(p [1, P ]
p

and

k [1, K]

being the index of the parti le in the solutions swarm and the iteration index, respe tively)
iteratively generated by the
antenna stru ture.

MoM

Then, the

V SW R

and gain values are omputed by means of the

The iterative pro ess ontinues until

onvergen e threshold and

opt = mink

k = K
io

h 
minp (k)
p

or

opt ,

being the

Numeri al Analysis and Experimental Validation

Con erning the

P =8
to

the prefra tal generator determines the orresponding

simulator, whi h takes into a ount the presen e of a referen e ground plane of

innite extent.

P SO ,

P SO

implementation, the following setup has been used:

trial solutions, a threshold

K = 2000.

The remaining

= 103 ,

P SO

a swarm of

and a maximum number of iterations equal

parameters have been set taking into a ount the

guidelines proposed in [13 and a ording to the rules dened in [16.

As an illustrative example of the optimization pro ess, Fig.
the behaviors of the

V SW R

2 shows the evolution of

in orresponden e with the optimal solution determined at

su essive iterations of the optimization pro ess. As it an be observed, starting from a

= 0),

ompletely mismat hed onguration (k

until an antenna design is found (k

= kconv )

the solution improves (k

= 10, k = 50)

that ts the ele tri al spe i ations.

As

far as the geometri onstraints are on erned, the synthesized stru ture turns out to be
adequate sin e its maximum dimensions are equal to
along the

y -axis,

and

3.82 [mm]

along the

3.28 [mm] along the x-axis, 5.17 [mm]

z -axis.

From the omputational point of view, Figure 3 shows the plot of the optimal value of the
ost fun tion

opt

versus the iteration number

kconv = 75

with a

1800 MHz , 512 MB

RAM).

required

CP U -time

k.

As it an be noti ed, the optimization

at ea h iteration of about

Thanks to the solution estimated at the end of the

P SO -based

type of the three-dimensional antenna has been built (Fig.

4).

5 sec (P entium IV ,

optimization, a protoIn order to arry out

the experimental assessment, the trunk of the tree has been soldered to an

SMA

on-

ne tor previously assembled on a referen e ground plane whose dimensions was equal to

90 140 [cm2]

and the Return Loss values have been measured with a s alar network

analyzer by pla ing the measurement setup inside an ane hoi hamber. Figure 5 shows a
omparison between omputed and measured values that points out a satisfa tory agreement among simulations and experiments.
A similar omparative evaluation has also been performed for the radiation properties
of the antenna. More in detail, Figure 6 shows measured and simulated gain fun tions
in the horizontal plane [

= 0o -

Fig. 6( ) and in a verti al plane [

= 0o -

As required, the antenna prototype allows an hemispheri al overage in the

bands and, onsidering the

30 dB

and

for the

GP S { = 70o } > Gmin { = 70o } = 4 dBi).

Wi Fi

L1 - L2 GP S

preampli ation stage at the input port, the gain val-

ues turn out to be ompliant with the requirements (GP S

3 dBi

Fig. 6( ).

frequen y band (W iF i

{ = 0o } > Gmin { = 0o } =

Similar on lusions hold true

{ = 70o } > Gmin { = 70o } = 6 dBi

and

Av GP S {70o < < 90o} > Gmin Av {70o < < 90o } = 3 dBi).

Con lusions

The design and the optimization of a three-dimensional triband prefra tal tree antenna has
been des ribed. The antenna stru ture has been synthesized by optimizing the lengths of
the bran hes of a prefra tal tree with a suitable parti le swarm-based algorithm in order to
omply with geometri al and ele tri al requirements. A prototype of the triband antenna
has been built and an exhaustive set of omparisons between measured and simulated
antenna parameters has been arried out.

A knowledgments
This work has been supported in Italy by the 

Progettazione di un Livello Fisi o 'In-

telligente' per Reti Mobili ad Elevata Ri ongurabilit ,

Nazionale - MIUR Proje t COFIN 2005099984.

Progetto di Ri er a di Interesse

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Frontiers in ele tromagneti s. Pis ataway:

IEEE Press,

2000.

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IEEE Antennas Propagat. Mag., vol. 44, pp.

20-36, Feb. 2002.

[3 D. H. Werner, R. L. Haupt, and P. L. Werner, Fra tal antenna engineering: the

theory and design of fra tal antenna arrays,

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vol.

41, pp. 37-59, O t. 1999.

[4 M. Sindou, G. Ablart, and C. Sourdois, "Multiband and wideband properties of

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1999.

[5 C. Puente, J. Claret, F. Sangues, J. Romeu; M.Q. Lopez-Salvans, and R. Pous,

Multiband properties of a fra tal tree antenna generated by ele tro hemi al deposition,

Ele tron. Lett., vol. 32, no. 25, pp. 2298-2299, De .

1996.

[6 D. H. Werner, A. R. Bretones, and B. R. Long, Radiation hara teristi s of thin-wire

ternary fra tal trees,

Ele tron. Lett., vol. 35, no. 8, pp. 609-610, De .

1999.

[7 J. S. Petko and D. H. Werner, Miniature re ongurable three-dimensional fra tal

tree antennas,

IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 52, no. 8, pp. 1945-1956, Aug.

2004.

[8 C. Puente, J. Romeu, R. Pous, X. Gar ia, and F. Benitez, Fra tal multiband antenna
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Ele tron. Lett., vol. 32, pp. 1-2, Jan. 1996.

[9 M. Fernandez Pantoja, F. Gar ia Ruiz, A. Rubio Bretones, R. Gomez Martin, J. M.

Gonzales-Arbes, J. Romeu, and J. M. Rius, GA design of wire pre-fra tal antennas
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IEEE Antennas Wireless Propagat.

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1879-1882, Jun.

2006.

[11 R. Azaro, F. De Natale, M. Donelli, E. Zeni, and A. Massa, Synthesis of a prefra tal dual-band monopolar antenna for GPS appli ations,

Propagat. Lett.,

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[12 J. Kennedy, R. C. Eberhart, and Y. Shi,

Swarm Intelligen e. San Fran is o:

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Kaufmann Publishers, 2001.

[13 J. Robinson and Y. Rahmat-Samii, "Parti le swarm optimization in ele tromagneti s,"

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Robert

Figure Captions

a i = 0, (b ) i = 1,

Figure 1. Geometry of the Tri-Band Prefra tal Tree Antenna: ( )

i = 2, and (d ) i = I = 3.

( )

Figure 2. Simulated Return Loss at the input port of the Tri-Band Prefra tal Tree

a k = 0, (b ) k = 10,

Antenna at dierent iterations of the optimization pro ess: ( )

k = 50, and (d ) k = kconv .

( )

Figure 3. Behavior of the ost fun tion versus the iteration number.

Figure 4. Photograph of the prototype of the Tri-Band Prefra tal Tree Antenna.

Figure 5. Comparison between measured and simulated Return Loss values.

Figure 6. Computed and measured values of the gain fun tion in the ( ) horizontal

plane (

= 0o )

and in the ( ) verti al plane (

10

= 0o ).

1,j

y
a

( )

( )

3,j

2,j

x
y

( )

( )

Figure 1 - R. Azaro et al., Synthesis of a three-dimensional triband ...

11

Return Loss

-5

-10

-15

-20

-25
1.0

Iteration 0
Iteration 10
Iteration 50
Iteration kConv
1.5

2.0
Frequency [GHz]

2.5

3.0

Figure 2 - R. Azaro et al., Synthesis of a three-dimensional triband ...

12

103

tot

102
101
100
10-1
10-2
10-3

10

20

30

40
50
60
Iteration number k

70

80

90

100

Figure 3 - R. Azaro et al., Synthesis of a three-dimensional triband ...

13

Figure 4 - R. Azaro et al., Synthesis of a three-dimensional triband ...

14

Return Loss

-5

-10

-15

-20

-25
1.0

Measured
Simulated
1.5

2.0
Frequency [GHz]

2.5

3.0

Figure 5 - R. Azaro et al., Synthesis of a three-dimensional triband ...

15

Gain [dBi] 90
0
120
-10
150
-20

Measured (1227 MHz)

Measured (1575 MHz)
Measured (2440 MHz)
Simulated (1227 MHz)
Simulated (1575 MHz)
Simulated (2440 MHz)

60
30

-30
180

210

330
240

300
270

( )

Gain [dBi]
-30
-60

10 0
0
-10
-20
-30

Simulated (1227 MHz)

Simulated (1575 MHz)
Simulated (2440 MHz)
Measured (1227 MHz)
Measured (1575 MHz)
Measured (2440 MHz)

30
60

-90

90

-120

120
-150

150
180

( )

Figure 6 - R. Azaro et al., Synthesis of a three-dimensional triband ...

16