48 IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL.

14, 2015

A Reconfigurable Antenna for LTE/WWAN

Mobile Handset Applications
S. W. Lee, H. S. Jung, and Y. J. Sung

Abstract—In this letter, a reconfigurable antenna for mobile

handset applications is proposed. This antenna mainly consists
of a longer strip, a shorter strip, and a p-i-n diode. Coupling is
generated at the gap between the longer strip and the shorter strip.
Depending on the different states of the p-i-n diode, the degree of
coupling between them is controlled, and the fundamental reso-
nant frequency of the proposed antenna is adjusted. As a result, the
proposed antenna in the low band covers the LTE700/GSM850/900
bands. The high band is formed by combining higher-order mode
of the longer strip and quarter-wavelength mode of the shorter
strip to cover the GSM1800/1900/UMTS/LTE2300/2500 bands.
Index Terms—Mobile handset antenna, reconfigurable antenna.

I. INTRODUCTION

R ECENTLY, many internal antennas have been studied for

covering LTE operation bands [1]–[9]. The sizes of these
antennas are summarized in Table I. The antennas with large or
3-D structure [1]–[3] are not suitable for recent mobile devices.
The antennas described in [4]–[6] covered a wide bandwidth
in a small area. However, these antennas were also more com- Fig. 1. Geometry of the proposed antenna. (a) 3-D structure and (b) top view.
plex. By coupled-feed technique, the antenna in [8] covered the
LTE700 band. However, this antenna had a large ground clear- TABLE I
ance of 18 mm. The simple U-shaped slot structure was pro- SIZE OF INTERNAL ANTENNAS FOR LTE BANDS
posed to cover the required wide bandwidth [9], but this an-
tenna only covered the LTE12 (698–742 MHz) band in the low
band. The size of the antenna in [7] is smaller than the proposed
antenna. However, additional branch lines are used around the
main branch line for achieving required operating bands. This
possibly degrades the performance of the antenna in the low
band. As a result, there is lower than 50% antenna efficiency
in the low band. These problems can be solved by using a re- bands. In the high band, a wide bandwidth is formed by
configurable technique. The physical size and complexity of the combining the higher-order mode of the longer strip and the
antenna can be decreased [10]. quarter-wavelength mode of the shorter strip. Therefore, the
In this letter, a reconfigurable antenna for LTE/WWAN proposed antenna can cover the GSM1800 (1710–1880 MHz),
mobile handset applications is proposed. In the low band, the GSM1900 (1850–1990 MHz), UMTS (1920–2170 MHz),
resonant frequency of the fundamental mode is reconfigured LTE2300 (2305–2400 MHz), and LTE2500 (2500–2690 MHz)
by changing the ON/OFF state of the p-i-n diode. Consequently, bands.
the proposed antenna can cover the LTE700 (698–787 MHz),
GSM850 (824–894 MHz), and GSM900 (880–960 MHz)
II. ANTENNA GEOMETRY
Fig. 1(a) shows the 3-D structure of the proposed reconfig-
Manuscript received July 03, 2014; revised August 12, 2014; accepted Au- urable antenna fabricated on an FR-4 substrate with a size of
gust 28, 2014. Date of publication September 05, 2014; date of current version mm , a relative permittivity of 4.4, a thickness of
January 29, 2015. This work was supported by the National Research Founda-
1.6 mm, and a loss tangent of 0.02. The substrate size is suitable
tion of Korea under Grant No. 2013R1A1A2A10061245 funded by the Korea
government. for any recent model of mobile phone. The dimensions of the
The authors are with the Electronic Engineering Department, Kyonggi Uni- proposed antenna are mm . The detailed structure
versity, Suwon 443-760, Korea (e-mail: yjsung@kgu.ac.kr).
and optimized dimensions are shown in Fig. 1(b). The proposed
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this letter are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org. antenna consists mainly of a longer strip ( ), a shorter strip
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/LAWP.2014.2354834 ( ), a shorting line ( ) with an inductor (2 nH), a capacitor

1536-1225 © 2014 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
LEE et al.: RECONFIGURABLE ANTENNA FOR LTE/WWAN MOBILE HANDSET APPLICATIONS
Fig. 2. Surface current distribution when the p-i-n diode is in the
(a) 850 and (b) 950 MHz.
Fig. 3. Surface current distribution when p-i-n diode is in the
(a) 750 MHz, (b) 2 GHz ,and (c) 2.45 GHz.
(3.3 pF), and a p-i-n diode (part number HSMP-3860). A pos-
itive voltage for the p-i-n diode is supplied through a bias line,
and a negative voltage is supplied through the ground plane. All
line widths of the proposed antenna are 1 mm for simple design
and easy analysis.
III. SIMULATED AND MEASURED RESULTS
In order to understand how the proposed antenna works,
the surface current distributions at the resonant frequencies
(ON state: 850/950 MHz, OFF state: 950 MHz) are simulated
in Figs. 2 and 3. When the p-i-n diode turns off, the proposed
antenna has dual resonance in the low band. Each resonance
mode works as monopole or planar inverted-F antenna (PIFA)
mode. As shown in Fig. 2(a), the surface current flows into the
longer strip through a shorting line instead of a feeding line
( ). Therefore, the proposed antenna operates
as monopole mode. In Fig. 2(b), the surface current flows into
the longer strip through a feeding line ( ). In this
case, the shorting line serves as a matching stub. Thus, the
proposed antenna operates as PIFA mode.
In Fig. 3(a), the surface current flows into both the feeding
and shorting lines because the resonant mode at 750 MHz is
formed by integrating the monopole and PIFA modes. More-
over, a maximum current field exists on the shorter strip at
750 MHz. This means that the degree of coupling between the
longer strip and the shorter strip in the ON state is stronger than
that in the OFF state. As shown in Fig. 3(b), the resonant mode
at 2 GHz has a resonant length of a quarter-wavelength because
49
OFF state:
Fig. 4. Simulated reflection coefficients for the proposed antenna relative to
the change of the inductor (a) OFF-state and (b) ON-state.
one maximum and one minimum current exist on the shorter
strip. In addition, the surface current flows into the feeding line.
This proves that the resonant mode operates as PIFA mode.
On the other hand, two maximum and two minimum currents
exist on the longer strip in Fig. 3(c). Therefore, resonant length
ON state:
is three quarter-wavelengths. The current path at 2.45 GHz
is similar to the fundamental resonance mode of the PIFA.
This means that the resonant mode at 2.45 GHz is the PIFA
higher-order mode.
As shown in Fig. 4(a), the resonant frequency around
700 MHz decreases when the inductor increases because it
is generated by monopole mode and resonant length increases.
On the other hand, the resonant frequency at approximately
1.05 GHz remains unchanged because the inductor is located in
the matching stub, and the matching stub has little effect on the
resonant length. In Fig. 4(b), the resonant frequency in the low
band is split into two modes as the inductor increases. This
proves that this resonance mode is formed by integrating the
PIFA and monopole modes. By increasing , the resonant fre-
quencies at approximately 2 and 2.45 GHz almost do not move,
whereas the resonant frequency around 3 GHz remarkably
decreases because it is formed by the monopole higher-order
mode. Considering bandwidth in the low band, is set to 2 nH
in this letter.
Fig. 5 shows the simulated reflection coefficients for the pro-
posed antenna relative to the change of the capacitor . The
reactance introduced by series capacitor is , where is
angular frequency and is the capacitance of series capacitor.
As series capacitor value decreases, the reactance increases. As
a result, the electrical current does not pass a lumped capac-
itor when pF. Instead, it flows to a shorting line. It
means that the proposed antenna operates as monopole mode.
On the other hand, the electrical current passes through a capac-
itor when pF. It means that the proposed antenna op-
erates as PIFA mode. The operating bandwidth in the OFF-state
50
Fig. 5. Simulated reflection coefficients for the proposed antenna relative to
the change of the capacitor (a) OFF-state and (b) ON-state.
Fig. 6. Simulated reflection coefficients for the proposed antenna relative to
the change of the gap (a) OFF-state and (b) ON-state.
is widest when the capacitor is 3.3 pF. For this reason, the
capacitor is set to 3.3 pF in this letter.
Fig. 6 shows the simulated reflection coefficients for the pro-
posed antenna relative to the change of the gap . As de-
creases, coupling at the meandered shorting line generates more
strongly. Accordingly, the resonant frequency of the monopole
mode is increased. On the other hand, the shorting line is not in-
cluded in the resonant length of the PIFA mode because it oper-
ates as matching stub. Thus, the resonant frequency of the PIFA
mode almost remains unchanged. By selecting a proper value of
the gap ( mm in this letter), desired operating band in
the low band can be obtained.
Fig. 7 shows the simulated reflection coefficient for the pro-
posed antenna relative to the change in the lengths and
IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL. 14, 2015
Fig. 7. Simulated reflection coefficients for the proposed antenna in the
ON-state relative to the change in (a) and (b) .
Fig. 8. Simulated and measured reflection coefficients of the proposed recon-
figurable antenna.
in the ON-state of the p-i-n diode. In Fig. 7(a), the resonant
frequency in the low band is shifted to a higher frequency by
decreasing . This is reasonable because the overall length of
both the PIFA and monopole modes is decreased by decreasing
. Furthermore, the resonant frequency at around 2.45 GHz
also shifts to a higher frequency because it is formed by the
higher-order mode of the PIFA. As shown in Fig. 7(b), the reso-
nant frequency around 2 GHz shifts to a higher frequency when
decreases. This means that the resonant frequency around
2 GHz is generated by the shorter strip. In this letter, and
are set to 9.7 and 17 mm, respectively.
Simulated and measured reflection coefficients are shown
in Fig. 8. The measured results show that the 6-dB re-
flection coefficient bandwidth of the proposed antenna is
32.21% (750–1038 MHz) and covers the GSM850/900
bands in the OFF state. On the other hand, when the
p-i-n diode is in the ON state, the proposed antenna
in the low band and high band have the bandwidth of
19.37% (690–838 MHz) and 49.72% (1700–2825 MHz),
respectively. Consequently, the proposed antenna covers
the LTE700/GSM850/900/1800/1900/UMTS/LTE2300/2500
bands.
LEE et al.: RECONFIGURABLE ANTENNA FOR LTE/WWAN MOBILE HANDSET APPLICATIONS
Fig. 9. Measured peak gain and efficiency of the proposed antenna.
Fig. 10. Measured 2-D radiation patterns of the proposed antenna at approxi-
mately (a) 750, (b) 850, (c) 950, (d) 2000, and (e) 2450 MHz.
51
Fig. 9 shows the measured peak gain (efficiency) of the
proposed antenna. The measured peak gain (efficiency) varies
from 0.32 dBi (54.7%) to 1.92 dBi (81.4%) in the low band. In
the high band, the measured peak gain (efficiency) varies from
1.18 dBi (50.8%) to 3.63 dBi (81.5%).
Fig. 10 shows the simulated and measured 2-D radiation pat-
terns of the proposed antenna at the resonant frequencies. Om-
nidirectional radiation pattern in the -plane is observed at
750, 850, 950, and 2000 MHz. In addition, the radiation pat-
terns of the - and -planes are similar to dipole-like radia-
tion patterns, which are suitable for conventional internal mo-
bile handset antennas. On the other hand, more nulls in the ra-
diation pattern are observed in Fig. 10(e) because the resonant
frequency at 2450 MHz is a higher-order mode of the PIFA.
The measured cross-polarizations are higher than the simulated
cross-polarizations. This reason is that the ground plane is ex-
tended by the cabling used to measure the radiation patterns.
IV. CONCLUSION
In this letter, a reconfigurable antenna for LTE/WWAN
mobile handset is proposed. In the low band, the funda-
mental resonance of the proposed antenna functions as a
PIFA and monopole according to the ON/OFF state of the
p-i-n diode. Therefore, they cover the LTE700/GSM850/900
bands. In addition, the wide bandwidth in the high band is
formed by combining the PIFA higher-order mode and the
quarter-wavelength mode of the shorter strip to cover the
GSM1800/1900/UMTS/LTE2300/2500 bands. Through the
parameter studies and the current distributions, the operating
principle is analyzed.
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