IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL.

14, 2015 297

Multiband Printed Metamaterial Inverted-F Antenna

(IFA) for USB Applications
Ahmed Soliman, Dalia Elsheakh, Member, IEEE, Esmat Abdallah, Member, IEEE, and
Hadia El-Hennawy, Member, IEEE

Abstract—A printed multiband coplanar waveguide (CPW)-fed

inverted-F antenna (IFA) is presented in this letter. The concept of
loading a printed-IFA with composite right/left-handed (CRLH)
unit cells is theoretically and experimentally investigated by using
electromagnetic simulators, Advanced Design System (ADS) and
High Frequency Structure Simulator (HFSS), for universal serial
bus (USB) applications. The proposed USB antenna structure con-
sists of a CPW printed-IFA with two arms loaded by two CRLH
unit cells to achieve two extra operating bands in addition to the
two fundamental resonant frequencies of two IFA arms. The struc-
ture is designed to operate at GSM 1.8 GHz, Bluetooth 2.4 GHz,
WiMAX 3.5 GHz, and WLAN 5.2 GHz. Measured and simulated
results are in good agreement with the theoretical predictions.
Index Terms—Advanced Design System (ADS), composite right/
left-handed (CRLH), coplanar waveguide (CPW), inverted-F an-
tenna (IFA), universal serial bus (USB). Fig. 1. Multiband CPW-fed printed-IFA with two CRLH unit cells (all opti-
mized dimensions are in millimeters). (a) Top view. (b) Side view. (c) Two
I. INTRODUCTION CRLH cells view.

W ITH the development of wireless communication sys-

tems, the modern universal serial bus (USB) has been
forced to support multistandard and multiservices over as many
frequency bands as possible, for mobile and wireless data appli-
cations. Generally, the monopole antenna applied to a wireless
USB dongle has dual resonances including 2.4- and 5.2-GHz
bands only [1], [2]. A new example [3] supports triple-band op-
eration including 2.4, 3.5, and 5.2 GHz.
Other designs provide various services such as mobile appli-
cations [4]. The designs use conventional approaches such as
fractal shapes [2], parasitic elements [3], and meander-shaped
slots [4], However, it is hard to extend these designs to support
multiservices due to design complexity and fabrication cost.
The printed inverted-F antennas (IFAs), on other hand, offer
an attractive solution for modern wireless communication sys-
tems. IFAs are more valuable space-saving solutions with re-
spect to traditional patches because of their compact size that is
usually about a quarter of a wavelength. Moreover, metamate-
rials (MTMs) provide conceptual routes for implementing small
resonant antennas [5], [6].
Manuscript received July 23, 2014; accepted September 15, 2014. Date of
publication September 25, 2014; date of current version February 04, 2015.
This work was supported and by the National Telecommunication Regularity
Authority (NTRA), Ministry of Communication and Information Technology,
Egypt.
A. Soliman and H. El-Hennawy are with the Electronics and Communication
Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, Ain Shams University, Cairo
11517, Egypt (e-mail: ahmed.soliman2020@yahoo.com).
D. Elsheakh and E. Abdallah are with the Microstrip Department, Electronics
Research Institute, Cairo 12622, Egypt (e-mail: daliaelsheakh@gmail.com).
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.2014.2360222
Recently [6], the authors have demonstrated the concept of
loading monopole antenna metamaterial composite right/left-
handed (CRLH) unit cell, while maintaining the antenna’s small
form factor. Later, we [7] provide that the idea of metamaterial
inspired to enhance the antenna performance is not pertinent
to monopole antennas only, but can be applied to a coplanar
waveguide (CPW)-fed printed-IFA, to be used for wireless data
USB applications.
In this letter, the theory of loading a two-printed-arms
CPW-fed IFA with two CRLH unit cells with different size is ex-
plained and verified using the lumped components of the
electromagnetic simulators, Advanced Design System (ADS)
and High Frequency Structure Simulator (HFSS). There are
good agreements with the measured results, to be used for
mobile and wireless data for USB applications.
II. ANTENNA DESIGN AND SIMULATION
The proposed antenna is designed on a low-cost FR4 sub-
strate with height mm, dielectric constant ,
and loss tangent . The antenna is fed by a CPW
transmission line (TL), which can be easily integrated with other
CPW-based microwave circuits printed on the same substrate.
The printed two IFA arms are inspired by two metamate-
rial-inspired cells, as shown in Fig. 1. The general homogenous
CRLH TL model [7] consists of a stub inductance “meander
line” in series with “an interdigital capacitance” and a shunt
capacitance “floating ground” in parallel with an inductance
“via.” It should be noted that the ground of the CRLH unit
cell is “virtual ground” not connected to the main ground of the
CPW-fed IFA. For the balanced case, the series and shunt
resonances of the CRLH TL are the same. The dispersion

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298
Fig. 2. Dispersion relation calculated for the balanced CRLH unit cell.
Fig. 3. Design steps of the proposed quad-band printed-IFA. (a) First step.
(b) Second step. (c) Third step. (d) Fourth step.
Fig. 4. design procedures of the proposed antenna.
relation of the unit cell calculated for the balanced case is shown
in Fig. 2.
In this case, the dimensions of the interdigital capacitor and
the stub inductor are adjusted so that the CRLH unit cell is
nearly balanced at frequency around 2.4 GHz [6]. The frequency
within the left-handed (LH) and the right-handed (RH) regions
of the CRLH are the same.
The design flow can be described with the aid of Fig. 3(a)–(d),
and its corresponding reflection coefficient is shown in
Fig. 4.
The design starts with simulating the conventional CPW-fed
printed-IFA with arm length mm to operate at Blue-
tooth 2.5 GHz as shown in Fig. 3(a). Reflection coefficient is
shown as the green dotted line in Fig. 4. The resonant frequency
of each IFA arm can be approximately determined by [8]
(1)
where , , and are the speed of light, the IFA first
and second arm lengths, and the effective dielectric constant,
respectively.
IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL. 14, 2015
TABLE I
DIMENSIONS OF THE PROPOSED ANTENNA (ALL DIMENSIONS IN MILLIMETERS)
The second step of the design procedure, as shown in
Fig. 3(b), is to add the first CRLH cell composed of a meander
line with a length mm to operate at the WiMAX
frequency 3.8 GHz. The reflection coefficient for Fig. 3(b) is
shown as a blue dashed line in Fig. 4.
The third step of the design procedure, as shown in Fig. 3(c),
is to add the large IFA arm composed of arm length mm
to operate at GSM 1.8 GHz, shown as the brown dashed-dotted
line in Fig. 4.
The final step of the design procedure, as shown in Fig. 3(d),
is to load the second CRLH cell composed of a meander line
with a length mm to operate at GSM 1.8 GHz,
while the resonant frequency of the second arm is reduced from
1.8 to 1.4 GHz for LTE applications, as shown in Fig. 4 as the red
dashed line. From the previous work [7], the IFA arm length
and the mender line length of the unit cell are used to con-
trol the resonant frequency of the IFA and unit cell, respectively.
Therefore, the IFA arm lengths and and the mender line
lengths and of unit cells are optimized to enable
the antenna to operate at GSM 1.8 GHz, Bluetooth 2.4 GHz,
WiMAX 3.5 GHz, and WLAN 5.2 GHz, as shown in Fig. 4 as
a black solid line. The optimized dimensions of the proposed
antenna are given in Table I.
A. Current Distribution
The surface current distributions at each resonant frequency
are plotted in Fig. 5. The two fundamental resonant frequencies
of the two IFA arms are at 1.4 and 2.4 GHz as shown in Fig. 5(a)
and (c). Loading the two CRLH unit cells introduces two extra
resonant frequencies at 1.8 and 3.8 GHz. At 1.4 and 2.4 GHz,
the surface current density mainly flows on its corresponding
IFA arm and the meander slot of corresponding unit cell, which
causes a slight change on the resonant frequency of each IFA
arm by loading each CRLH unit cell.
B. Equivalent Circuit
An electrical model using a ADS ver. 6.2 tool, based on the
resonant circuits, is proposed to give a physical insight
into the behavior of the USB antenna presented in this letter.
The proposed electrical model is shown in Fig. 6(a). It is based
on the circuit model for patch antennas presented in [9], which
was extended for a multiband planar IFA (PIFA) in [10]. There
is a good agreement between the corresponding reflection coef-
ficient using the ADS tool and HFSS as shown in Fig. 6(b). The
coupling between the two nearby CRLH unit cells with each
other and with the ground plane was taken into account through
adding the capacitors , and . It is noticed that each ele-
ment has its own parallel equivalent circuit. The inductor
SOLIMAN et al.: MULTIBAND PRINTED METAMATERIAL IFA FOR USB APPLICATIONS 299

Fig. 5. Surface current distribution at (a) 1.4, (b) 1.8, (c) 2.4, and (d) 3.8 GHz.

Fig. 7. Fabricated antenna (a) upper layer and (b) bottom layer. Simulated and
measured result of (c) implemented antenna and (d) optimized antenna for wire-
less applications.

CRLH unit cells; pF and nH for feeding

line; , nH for shorting wall; and
pF and pF for capacitive coupling.

III. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Two types of the proposed antenna to fit different wireless ap-
plications are fabricated by using photolithographic technique,
Fig. 6. (a) Lumped element equivalent circuit model of the proposed antenna. and one prototype is shown in Fig. 7.
(b) Comparison of obtained by using HFSS and ADS simulators. The design of the antenna is performed and optimized by
using electromagnetic simulator HFSS ver. 13 based on the fi-
and capacitor values are individually used to control each oper- nite element method, and its characteristics are measured by a
ating frequency. The resonant frequency in terms of circuit Rohde & Schwarz ZVA67 vector network analyzer.
can be approximately determined by [10] As we discussed in Section II, the key parameters , ,
, and are easily used to control the resonant fre-
(2) quency of IFA and unit cells, respectively. Fig. 7(c) and (d)
shows the simulated and measured of the implemented
The values for the resonator components are: , antenna proposed in the design steps that operates at 1.4, 1.8,
pF, nH ( GHz), , 2.4, and 3.8 GHz ( mm, mm, mm,
pF, and nH ( GHz) for the and mm) and the optimized antenna that operates
two IFA arms; nH, pF, nH, at 1.8, 2.4, 3.5, and 5.2 GHz ( mm, mm,
pF ( GHz), nH, pF, mm, and mm). The measured
nH, pF ( GHz) for the two impedance bandwidths at dB for each resonance
300
TABLE II
BRIEF COMPARISON OF THE PROPOSED ANTENNA TO PUBLISHED PAPERS
TABLE III
RADIATION PATTERNS. SIMULATED: BLACK LINES. MEASURED: RED LINES.
: SOLID LINES. : DOTTED LINES AT EACH RESONANT FREQUENCY.
AXES ARE SHOWN IN FIG. 1
are suitable for the channel bandwidth of the LTE band 11
(1.42–1.47 GHz), GSM1800 (1780–1890 MHz), Bluetooth
(2.4–2.45 GHz), WiMAX standards (3.4–3.5 and 3.7–4 GHz),
and upper WLAN (5.2–5.25 GHz). There is a good agreement
between the simulated and measured results.
Table II shows a brief comparison between our design and the
previous published papers. The great advantage of this design is
that it is easy to extend the proposed design to cover multiser-
vice through adding a new IFA arm with loaded CRLH unit cells
IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL. 14, 2015
with independent tuning [7], easier fabrication, and reduced de-
sign complexity.
Table III shows the simulated and measured radiation patterns
in two antenna main planes ( ) and ( ) at
1.8, 2.4, 3.5, and 5.2 GHz, with normalized co- and cross po-
larization ( and ), respectively. For almost all frequency
bands, the normalized copolarized patterns show near omni-
directional radiations, and their corresponding cross-polarized
patterns exhibit monopole-like. The average difference between
the co- and cross levels in the main plane for most of the fre-
quencies is higher than 10 dB. Some discrepancy appears at cer-
tain frequencies that may be attributed to the inadequate size of
the absorbers in addition to poor isolation. The measured real-
ized gains at 1.8, 2.4, 3.5, and 5.2 GHz are 2.8, 1.9, 3.1, and
2.1 dBi, respectively. The radiation efficiency was measured by
using the Wheeler cap method [11]. The average radiation effi-
ciency is more than 75% over the operating bands.
IV. CONCLUSION
A quad-band printed-IFA is loaded with two CRLH unit cells.
The proposed antenna supports most data wireless communi-
cation standards for USB applications. The antenna was de-
signed to create four operating bands at GSM 1.8 GHz, Blue-
tooth 2.4 GHz, WiMAX 3.5 GHz, and upper WLAN 5.2 GHz
bands. The theory of the proposed antenna was verified by using
electromagnetic (EM) simulators ADS and HFSS and measure-
ments. The radiation patterns approximate an omnidirectional
pattern. The overall size of the antenna including the ground
plane is mm . The proposed antenna was easily
fabricated on FR4 substrate. These features make the antenna a
good candidate for USB applications.
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