Tri-band rectangle-loaded monopole Z

Y
antenna with inverted-L slot for WLAN/ X
6.5
WiMAX applications 0.4

FR4 substrate
23
7.5
36
H. Chen, X. Yang, Y.-Z. Yin, J.-J. Wu and Y.-M. Cai

12.9
0.4

7
0.4

A novel coplanar waveguide-fed tri-band monopole antenna with a 0.5

12
compact radiator (10 × 23 mm2) for WLAN/WiMAX applications is 3.5
presented. By etching properly an inverted-L slot on the straight strip
loaded with a rectangular tuning patch and further adjusting the dimen- 10.25
25 units: mm
sions and positions of these structures, three distinct wide bands can be
a b
achieved. The measured and simulated results show that the proposed
antenna has 10 dB impedance bandwidth of 470 MHz (2.38–2.85 GHz),
360 MHz (3.36–3.72 GHz) and 890 MHz (4.98–5.87 GHz) to cover all Fig. 1 Configuration and photograph of proposed antenna
the 2.4/5.2/5.8 GHz WLAN bands and 2.5/3.5/5.5 GHz WiMAX a Configuration
bands. Also, the proposed antenna produces good dipole-like radiation b Photograph
pattern over the covering bands.
0

Introduction: Currently, the wireless local area network (WLAN) and

10
the worldwide interoperability for microwave access (WiMAX) have
been widely used in mobile devices. To support the WLAN

return loss, dB
20
and WiMAX applications in the 2.4 (2.4–2.484 GHz)/5.2 (5.15–
5.35 GHz)/5.8 (5.725–5.825 GHz) and 2.5 (2.5–2.69 GHz)/3.5
(3.4–3.69 GHz)/5.5 (5.25–5.85 GHz) bands, respectively, many multi- 30

band antennas have been reported. In [1], the antenna with a dual-layer
metallic structure is presented for WLAN/WiMAX applications. In [2], 40 antenna 1 antenna 2 antenna 3

three types of structures are used to achieve triple band to cover the
WLAN/WiMAX bands. However, these proposed antennas are compli-
cated in structure and the resulting bandwidth is not sufficient to cover
the 2.5 GHz WiMAX band. To achieve sufficiently large bandwidth to
cover all the 2.4/5.2/5.8 GHz WLAN and 2.5/3.5/5.5 GHz WiMAX
bands, several antennas are proposed, including a microstrip-fed rect-
angular monopole antenna with a large parasitic patch on the back of
the substrate [3], a coplanar waveguide (CPW)-fed antenna formed by
a triangular monopole and a U-shaped monopole [4], and a CPW-fed
monopole antenna with two bent slots [5]. Although the antennas in
[3, 4] can generate two wide bands to meet the whole WLAN/
WiMAX applications, the dual wideband might cause interference
with other communication systems. Moreover, the oversize of the
antenna [5] is somewhat large (40 × 40 mm2).
In this Letter, the mode method [6] is introduced to design a novel
tri-band monopole antenna covering all the 2.4/5.2/5.8 GHz WLAN
and 2.5/3.5/5.5 GHz WiMAX bands. The proposed antenna has a
small size of 25 × 36 mm2, which is smaller than the antenna proposed
in [5]. Meanwhile, compared with the antennas presented in [1, 2], the
proposed antenna is much simpler in structure. The antenna is designed
2 3 4 5 6 7
frequency, GHz
Fig. 2 Simulated return loss of various antennas involved
Results and discussion: According to the dimensions shown in Fig. 1, a
prototype for the proposed antenna is fabricated and tested. The photo-
graph of the prototype is exhibited in Fig. 1. Fig. 3 shows the simulated
and measured return loss of the proposed antenna. It is seen from Fig. 3
that good agreement between the simulated and measured results can be
obtained. The 10 dB bandwidth of measured return loss reaches
470 MHz (2.38–2.85 GHz), 360 MHz (3.36–3.72 GHz) and 890 MHz
(4.98–5.87 GHz), respectively, and can cover all the 2.4/5.2/5.8 GHz
WLAN and 2.5/3.5/5.5 GHz WiMAX bands.
0
10
return loss, dB

and optimised by using the electromagnetic simulation tool ANSYS

20
HFSS 13. Details of the antenna design and the simulated and measured
results are presented and discussed. simulated
30 measured

Antenna design: The configuration of the proposed tri-band monopole

antenna is shown in Fig. 1. The antenna is designed on a 1.6 mm-thick 40
2 3 4 5 6 7
FR4 dielectric substrate with a relative permittivity of 4.4 and a loss frequency, GHz
tangent of 0.02. A 50 Ω CPW transmission line with a signal strip
width of 3.5 mm and a gap distance of 0.5 mm between the signal Fig. 3 Simulated and measured return loss of proposed antenna
strip and the coplanar ground plane is used to feed the antenna. First,
the proposed antenna is designed as a straight monopole antenna
2.5 GHz
(antenna 1 depicted in Fig. 2) to excite two resonant modes at about 3.5 GHz
5.5 GHz
2.4 and 6.7 GHz, respectively. The return loss of antenna 1 is shown j=0 q=0
330 30 330 0 dB 30
in Fig. 2. Secondly, based on the mode design method mentioned in 0 dB

[6], a rectangular tuning patch is added to the straight strip of 300

–20 dB
60 300 –20 dB
60

antenna 1 to make the resonant frequency of the mode at about –40 dB

270 90 270 –40 dB
6.7 GHz shift towards lower frequency. Thus, antenna 2 depicted in 90

Fig. 2 comes into being. By adjusting the dimensions of the tuning

240 120 240 120
patch and its position along the straight strip, two resonant modes at
about 2.5 and 5.2 GHz, respectively, are generated, as shown in 210
180
150 210
180
150
Fig. 2. Finally, the proposed antenna (antenna 3 depicted in Fig. 2) is a b
formed to produce a resonant path at about 3.5 GHz by etching an
inverted-L slot on the straight strip of antenna 2. By optimising the para- Fig. 4 Measured radiation patterns of proposed antenna
meters of the proposed antenna, as shown in Fig. 2, it can produce three a xoy-plane (H-plane)
distinct wide bands centred at about 2.5, 3.5 and 5.5 GHz, respectively, b xoz-plane (E-plane)
to cover all the 2.4/5.2/5.8 GHz WLAN bands and 2.5/3.5/5.5 GHz
WiMAX bands. The optimised dimensions of the proposed antenna The measured far-field normalised radiation patterns in xoz (E-plane)
are shown in Fig. 1. and xoy (H-plane) plane at 2.5, 3.5 and 5.5 GHz, respectively, are

ELECTRONICS LETTERS 26th September 2013 Vol. 49 No. 20 pp. 1261–1262

plotted in Fig. 4. It is seen that the proposed antenna exhibits a good
omnidirectional H-plane pattern and a bidirectional E-plane pattern
over the operating bands. The measured peak gain of the proposed
antenna is depicted in Fig. 5. The average gains of 1.77, 1.65 and
3.27 dBi for the lower, middle and upper bands, respectively, are
obtained.
5 H. Chen, X. Yang, Y.-Z. Yin, J.-J. Wu and Y.-M. Cai (National
4 2.4–2.7 GHz
3.4–3.7 GHz
peak gain, dBi
dipole-like radiation pattern performance. All this demonstrates that it
could be a suitable candidate for WLAN and WiMAX applications.
© The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2013
13 July 2013
doi: 10.1049/el.2013.2329
One or more of the Figures in this Letter are available in colour online.
Laboratory of Science and Technology on Antennas and Microwaves,
Xidian University, Xi’an, Shaanxi 710071, People’s Republic of China)
E-mail: keyan_ch2013@163.com

5.15–5.85 GHz
3

2
1
0
2 3 4 5 6
frequency, GHz
Fig. 5 Measured peak gains of proposed antenna
Conclusion: A novel compact tri-band monopole antenna for WLAN
and WiMAX applications is presented. The proposed antenna consists
of a straight strip with an inverted-L slot and a rectangular tuning
patch. The antenna has a small size of 25 × 36 mm2 and is simple in
structure. Measured and simulated results show that the proposed
antenna can generate three wide bands covering all the 2.4/5.2/
5.8 GHz WLAN and 2.5/3.5/5.5 GHz WiMAX bands, and exhibit
References
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ELECTRONICS LETTERS 26th September 2013 Vol. 49 No. 20 pp. 1261–1262

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