1492
12, 2013
Multiband and Dual-Polarized Omnidirectional
Antenna for 2G/3G/LTE Application
Xi-Wang Dai, Zhen-Ye Wang, Chang-Hong Liang, Senior Member, IEEE, Xi Chen, and Li-Ting Wang
Abstract—A novel multiband and vertically/horizontally polar-
ized omnidirectional antenna is proposed for 2G/3G/LTE mobile
communication systems. The proposed antenna is a combination of
a modified asymmetric biconical for vertical polarization (VP) and
six printed dipoles with concentric placement for horizontal polar-
ization (HP). The VP element consists of two modified cones with
different diameters, designed to work in the multiband
. Printed dipoles of the HP element are fed by a six-way
power splitter printed on the substrate. The HP element is nested
between two cones of the VP element, forming a compact struc-
ture. The bottom cone can be used as the reflector for VP and HP
in the overlapping work frequencies band for 3G and LTE commu-
nication systems. The VP element achieves a bandwidth of 17.4%
and gain of 1.5 dBi in the 806 960-MHz band. The HP element
achieves a bandwidth of 35% (1880 2700 MHz) directly overlap-
ping with the VP-element higher frequency band. An isolation of
25 dB is achieved in the overlapping band. The cross-polarization
levels in the azimuth plane for both VP and HP are lower than
15 dB.
Index Terms—Asymmetric biconical, broadband antenna, dual-
polarized antenna, omnidirectional antenna, printed dipole.
I. INTRODUCTION
I N RECENT years, a rapid growth in the mobile communi-
cation industry has fostered the development of antennas.
Different mobile communication systems have been desig-
nated with different frequency bands. Numerous frequency
ranges are currently in use for mobile communication systems.
For example, the CDMA800/GSM900 systems operate in the
824 960-MHz band, while the WCDMA/CDMA2000 systems
operate in the 1880 2170 MHz [1]. The future LTE system
will operate in the 2300 2400-MHz and 2550 2690-MHz
bands [2]. More standards are integrated into antennas of the
device, such as GSM, 3G, 4G, WLAN, WiMAX, etc. Therefore,
antennas that simultaneously cover the 806 960-MHz and
1880 2690-MHz bands are necessary for modern communi-
cation systems, which can provide 2G/3G/LTE multifunctional
Manuscript received August 03, 2013; revised October 10, 2013; accepted
October 29, 2013. Date of publication November 08, 2013; date of current ver-
sion November 20, 2013. This work was supported in part by the Program for
New Century Excellent Talents in University of China, the National Natural
Science Foundation of China under Contracts No. 61072017 and No.61101066,
and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities under Grant
K50511020033.
X.-W. Dai, C.-H. Liang, and X. Chen are with the National Key Laboratory
of Science and Technology on Antennas and Microwaves, Xidian University,
Xi’an 710071, China (e-mail: xwdai@stu.xidian.edu.cn).
Z.-Y. Wang and L.-T. Wang are with Huisu Corporation, Dongguan 523128,
China.
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this letter are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/LAWP.2013.2289743
1536-1225 © 2013 IEEE
IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL.
services [3]. However, multiple-input–multiple-output (MIMO)
system, as one of the most effective technologies for next wire-
less standards such as LTE, requires multiple antennas to
increase channel capacity and improve channel reliability [4].
Thus, there is a growing need for antenna systems where one
antenna has multiple/broadband frequency bands and the other
antenna has a single band [5]. Multiband and dual-polarized
omnidirectional antennas are needed for a 360 full coverage
and multicommunication standards.
Over the past decades, researchers have devised various types
of dual-polarized omnidirectional antennas [6]–[12]. In [6], a
dual-polarized omnidirectional antenna with the combination
of notched disk and wire was proposed. However, the band-
width for the notch-wire composite antenna is about 8.5%, and
the isolation is only 14 dB. The property of dual-polarization
is achieved by positioning two orthogonal slots cut onto the
walls of a slender columnar cuboid in [7]. However, the band-
width of antenna is narrow, only for 2.4-GHz WLAN appli-
cations. A dual-polarization stacked patch antenna to be used
in GSM-UMTS base-station arrays is presented in [8]. A 24%
bandwidth is achieved for mobile communication system. The
complicated structure, directional radiation property, and high
cost restrict its wide application. A broadband dual-polarized
omnidirectional antenna consisting of a modified low-profile
monopole and a circular planar loop was proposed for base sta-
tions [9]. The antenna achieves a bandwidth of 25% with an
isolation of around 40 dB. A large clearance 0.3 between the
VP and HP elements was used for high isolation, which made
the structure no longer compact. This antenna is not suitable for
GSM900, CDMA800, and LTE communication systems.
In this letter, we propose a novel multiband and dual-polar-
ized omnidirectional antenna. The element for vertical polariza-
tion (VP) is a modified asymmetric biconical with a bandwidth
of 17.4% (806 960 MHz) for the lower frequency band and
a bandwidth of 35% (1880 2700 MHz) overlapping with the
horizontal polarization (HP) element resonant frequency band.
The element for HP is a printed dipole and fed by a six-way
power splitter. A compact structure is formed by nesting the HP
element between two cones of the VP element. The isolation be-
tween the ports of VP and HP is better than 25 dB in the overlap-
ping frequency band. Hence, the proposed antenna not only can
operate for GSM900, CDMA800, WCDMA, etc., with single
VP element, but also can operate for LTE systems with the VP
and HP elements.
The antenna design and geometry are presented in Section II,
and the experiment results of the antenna are discussed in
Section III. A conclusion briefly summarizing the letter is given
in Section IV.
DAI et al.: MULTIBAND AND DUAL-POLARIZED OMNIDIRECTIONAL ANTENNA FOR 2G/3G/LTE APPLICATION
Fig. 1. Configuration of the proposed antenna. (a) Perspective view. (b) VP
element. (c) HP element.
II. ANTENNA DESIGN AND GEOMETRY
The geometry of the proposed dual-polarized omnidirectional
antenna is illustrated in Fig. 1. The VP and HP elements together
constitute the dual-polarized antenna. The overall dimension is
mm , as shown in Fig. 1(a). The antenna can be used
for GSM900 and CDMA800 with one single VP element. The
1493
Fig. 2. Current distribution of printed dipoles for the HP element.
dual-polarized omnidirectional antenna for LTE systems with
MIMO technology can cover 1880 2700 MHz. The proposed
antenna is fed by two 50- coaxial cables with connectors and
can be mounted on the rooftop for the indoor scenario.
The VP element is an asymmetrical biconical with different
diameters for top and bottom cones, shown in Fig. 1(b). The
hollow cylinder is connected to the end of the top cone, while
the ring is to the end of bottom cone. One of the most important
features is the ability to direct the beam upwards in the elevation
direction. This is in contrast to a symmetrical biconical antenna
in which the beam is directed only in the horizontal direction.
The reason that the beam is directed off boresight is due to the
unequal diameters of the biconical.
The HP element consists of six printed dipoles integrated with
the feeding network. The printed dipole is fed by a transmission
formed by two parallel strips printed on opposite sides of the di-
electric substrate. One side of the substrate consists of one arm
of the printed dipole, one of the parallel lines, and the feeding
network. The other side of the substrate consists of the other
parallel line, a truncated ground plane, and the second arm of
the dipole printed in the opposite direction. Six dipoles are con-
centrically placed to form a circular loop for omnidirectional
radiation pattern.
It is well known that a horizontally polarized omnidirec-
tional radiation pattern in the azimuth plane can be created
with in-phase current distribution along the circular loop [13].
Printed on the top side of the substrate, a broadband six-way
power splitter is used to excite each dipole. The six-way
power splitter consists of a three-way power splitter and three
two-way quarter-wave transformers, as shown in Fig. 1(c). The
quarter-wave transmission line with characteristic impedance
70.7 is used to transform the 50- characteristic impedance
into the 100- impedance. In-phase current distribution of each
printed dipole can be realized with the feeding network. Fig. 2
shows the current distribution of printed dipoles. Electromag-
netic wave from the input port transmits into printed dipoles
with equal amplitude and in phase. Horizontally polarized
omnidirectional radiation pattern is created for the HP element.
Decoupling strip is applied to decrease the mutual coupling
between the adjacent dipoles.
The HP element is nested between the cones of the VP ele-
ment for compact structure. The parameter plays an impor-
tant role in mutual coupling between HP and VP elements. In
1494 IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL. 12, 2013

Fig. 3. Simulated and measured results for the -parameters of the proposed
antenna.

Fig. 4. Photograph of the fabricated antenna.

TABLE I
GEOMETRIC PARAMETERS OF THE PROPOSED ANTENNA

the higher frequency band, the bottom cone can be considered
as a reflector. The maximum radiation is no longer in the hori-
zontal direction. The geometric parameters for the final optimal
dual-polarized antenna are summarized in Table I. The simu-
lated -parameters of the proposed antenna are shown in Fig. 3.
It is found that the overlapping bandwidth for return loss (RL)
10 dB is about 35% (1.88 2.7 GHz). The VP element also
can resonant in the 806 960-MHz frequency band, which can
be used for GSM900 and CDMA800 communication systems.
In order to find the mutual influence on the performance of
the VP and HP elements’ corresponding structural parameter
, a parametric study has been carried out. With varied and
other parameters fixed, the simulated results show that has the
Fig. 5. Radiation patterns of the proposed antenna. (a) Lower band for VP.
(b) 1880, 1920, and 2100 MHz for VP. (c) 2200, 2555, and 2700 MHz for VP.
(d) 1880, 1920, and 2100 MHz for HP. (e) 2200, 2555, and 2700 MHz for HP.
significant impact on the return loss of HP and isolation between
the HP and VP elements. Thus, we chose for the return
loss less than 10 dB and isolation better than 20 dB in the
overlapping frequency band.
III. EXPERIMENT RESULTS
According to the design dimension given above, the proposed
antenna is simulated, fabricated, and measured. Fig. 4 shows a
DAI et al.: MULTIBAND AND DUAL-POLARIZED OMNIDIRECTIONAL ANTENNA FOR 2G/3G/LTE APPLICATION
Fig. 6. Measured gain of proposed antenna.
prototype of the dual-polarized omnidirectional antenna without
the radome. The HP element was fabricated on a low-cost FR4
substrate with a thickness of 1.0 mm, relative permittivity of 4.4,
and a substrate loss tangent of 0.02. Six dipoles are printed on
opposite sides of the substrate, with a six-way power splitter of
feeding network on the top side. Each with one connector, two
flexible coaxial lines are connected to the VP and HP elements,
respectively.
Compared to the simulation results, Fig. 3 also shows the
measured -parameters for the proposed antenna. Good agree-
ment between simulation and measurement is observed. It is
found that the VP element can have a good matching in lower
band (806 960 MHz). The overlapping bandwidth of the VP
and HP elements is about 35% (1.88 2.7 GHz). The proposed
antenna can offer an isolation of better than 25 dB in the overlap-
ping frequency band. The discrepancy between the simulation
and measurement is attributed to the factors of connector and
the manufacturing tolerance.
The measured radiation patterns of the dual-polarized omni-
directional antenna are shown in Fig. 5. Radiation patterns in
the azimuth plane with the unroundness less than 1.5 dB are ob-
served for both VP and HP. For the HP element, the omnidirec-
tional property attributes to the in-phase current distribution of
printed dipole. It can be found that the directions of maximum
radiation for the VP and HP elements in higher frequency band
are tilted several degrees from the horizon in the elevation plane.
This is because the bottom cone is treated as reflector in higher
frequency. It also can be found that the cross-polarization level
for VP and HP is lower than 15 dB in the lower band and over-
lapping frequency band.
Fig. 6 shows the measured gain of the proposed antenna. It
can be seen that the gain of VP varies from 1.4 to 2.2 dBi in the
lower frequency band. In the higher frequency band, the gain of
antenna is around 4.5 dBi for VP and HP with a difference of
1495
less than 1 dB. The similar radiation pattern and gain are helpful
for the capacity and coverage of the MIMO system.
IV. CONCLUSION
A novel vertically/horizontally polarized omnidirectional an-
tenna is proposed for multiple communication standards. With
a combination of modified asymmetric biconical and six printed
dipoles, the proposed antenna can achieve a bandwidth of 17.4%
(806 960 MHz) with the VP element, and an overlapping band-
width of 35% (1880 2700 MHz) for the VP and HP elements.
The gain of the proposed antenna is around 1.5 dBi in the lower
frequency band, and is around 4.5 dBi in the higher frequency
band. The gain difference for VP and HP is less than 1 dB. An
isolation of 25 30 dB is achieved by nesting the HP element
between the cones of the VP element. The proposed antenna of-
fers a cross-polarization level lower than 15 dB in the azimuth
plane and can be widely applied in the LTE and other commu-
nication systems.
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