926
9, 2010
Multi-Radiating-Element Printed Inverted-F Antenna
With Independent Resonant Frequencies
for Bandwidth Enhancement
Il-Young Oh, Sang-Hyuk Wi, Yongshik Lee, and Jong-Gwan Yook
Abstract—This letter demonstrates a simple yet very effective
method of bandwidth enhancement for popular printed inverted-F
antennas (PIFAs). An additional radiating element is printed on the
other side of the substrate, on the same side as the partially mod-
ified ground plane. Together with the primary radiating element,
these provide different three electrical paths. The bandwidth of the
antenna can be enhanced substantially by optimally locating the
corresponding resonant frequencies. Most of all, each of the three
radiators has negligible effect on the performance of the other two
radiators, implying that they can be designed independently. While
maintaining the far-field radiation patterns, as much as 12.6% in-
crease in the relative bandwidth over the 7.0% bandwidth of a con-
ventional PIFA is demonstrated.
Index Terms—Antennas, multi-radiating element PIFA, printed
inverted-F antennas (PIFAs), wideband antennas.
I. INTRODUCTION
OW PROFILE, easy fabrication, and light weight make
L printed inverted-F antennas (PIFAs) one of the most
popular antennas in today’s wireless communication handsets.
However, the ever-increasing demand for size reduction of
mobile handsets has lead to embedded antennas, not only with
reduced-size radiating elements, but also with limited-size
ground planes. The effects of finite-sized ground planes may
be critical to bandwidths, resonant frequencies, and radiation
patterns of such antennas [1]. Therefore, today’s antenna tech-
nology involves designing both the radiating element and the
ground plane.
The situation becomes worse for PIFAs, especially in multi-
band or wideband systems, due to its limited bandwidth. Various
methods have been proposed for bandwidth enhancement of
PIFAs, including utilization of additive stubs [2]–[4], patterning
the ground plane [5], [6], meandering the radiating element to
achieve multiple resonance frequencies for bandwidth enhance-
ment [7], slots to achieve wideband impedance matching [8],
using the back side of the substrate [9], [10], etc. However, many
Manuscript received June 24, 2010; revised August 11, 2010; accepted Au-
gust 17, 2010. Date of publication September 20, 2010; date of current version
October 07, 2010. This work was supported by the Low Observable Technology
Research Center Program of the Defense Acquisition Program Administration
and the Agency for Defense Development of Republic of Korea.
I.-Y. Oh, Y. Lee, and J.-G. Yook are with the Department of Electrical and
Electronic Engineering, Yonsei University, Seoul 120-749, Korea (e-mail:
pinokio13@yonsei.ac.kr; yongshik.lee@yonsei.ac.kr; jgyook@yonsei.ac.kr).
S.-H. Wi is with Samsung, Suwon 150-030, Korea (e-mail: sang-hyuk.
wi@samsung.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.2010.2076410
1536-1225/$26.00 © 2010 IEEE
IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL.
of these methods rely on layout optimization that the design
for frequencies other than the reported becomes a difficult task.
Therefore, an effective method of designing a wideband PIFA
with reduced element and ground plane sizes is required.
In this letter, a multielement PIFA is demonstrated. By
adding a radiating element on the bottom of the substrate, an
additional resonance is achieved with little modification in the
layout. Moreover, with a very simple pattern in the ground
plane, a third resonance can be obtained. By closely placing
these three resonant frequencies, a PIFA is developed that has a
remarkably larger bandwidth than the conventional PIFA. Most
of all, each radiating element has negligible effect on the other
two, and therefore, they can be designed independently.
II. ANTENNA DESIGN AND CONFIGURATIONS
Fig. 1(a) shows the geometry of a conventional PIFA. The
resonant frequency is determined primarily by the length of
the radiating element, , which is approximately guided
quarter-wavelength at resonance. The via-hole at the end of the
shorting stub connects the radiating element with the ground
plane. Fig. 1(b) and (c) shows the geometries of the proposed
PIFAs with two and three resonant frequencies, respectively.
The size of all three antennas are 35 30 mm with copper
ground planes of 35 20 mm size. For objective comparison
of the performance as well as analysis of the effects of the addi-
tional radiating element and the partial ground-plane patterning,
the length and the width (2 mm) of the primary radiating
element are maintained for all three antennas. Only the length
and width of shorting stubs and the radii of the via-holes are ad-
justed for optimal impedance matching.
For the dual-resonance PIFA in Fig. 1(b), a second radiating
element is printed on the other side of the substrate, underneath
the primary radiating element. The two radiating elements are
connected with a via-hole, located between the feeding line and
the shorting stub. The first and the second resonant frequen-
cies are determined by and , respectively. Although
is longer than , the lower resonant frequency is determined
by the latter. This is due to the via hole that makes the effective
length of the path longer than that of the path. From the
aspect of the primary radiating element, adding a radiating ele-
ment on the bottom increases the effective parallel inductance.
Thus, the resonant frequency determined by the radiating ele-
ment on top (second resonant frequency) increases slightly. Fi-
nally, a rectangular section is removed from the ground plane at
the open end of the PIFA as shown in Fig. 1(c). Since the field is
concentrated heavily at the narrow strip of the patterned ground
plane, the structure plays the role of a third radiating element.
OH et al.: MULTI-RADIATING-ELEMENT PIFA 927

Fig. 1. Geometries of the conventional and proposed PIFAs (unit: millimeters).

(a) Conventional PIFA. (b) Dual-resonance PIFA. (c) Triple-resonance PIFA.

III. PARAMETRIC STUDY

In the previous section, a triple-resonant PIFA is proposed.

Additional resonances are provided by the radiating element un-
derneath the primary one and also by the third element that is
the resultant of etching the ground plane partially. To investigate
the effects of each additional radiating element on the matching
performance and the resonant frequencies of other elements, a
parametric study is performed.
The substrate is an FR-4 substrate with and 1.0 mm
thickness. For each case, only one of the design parameters
is varied while all others are maintained. First, is fixed
at 17.5 mm, while is varied for the dual-resonant PIFA
in Fig. 1(b). The full-wave simulated reflection is shown in
Fig. 2(a). As can be seen, the change in has a large effect
on the second resonant frequency, while its effect on the first
resonant frequency is negligible. On the other hand, as shown
in Fig. 2(b), the first resonant frequency can be controlled by
varying . Each resonant frequency can be controlled by the
length of the corresponding radiating element. For all cases,
the length and the width of shorting stubs and the radii of the
via-holes are maintained. Although not shown, adjusting these
parameters will improve the impedance matching performance,
while they have little effect on the resonant frequencies.
= 17 5
Fig. 2. Results of parametric study. (a) Effects of L when L : mm.
(b) Effects of L when L = 18 47 : mm. (c) Effects of L when L =
18 47
: mm and L = 17 5 : mm.
The results of the parametric study for the triple-resonance
PIFA in Fig. 1(c) are shown in Fig. 2(c). Indeed, the bandwidth
becomes remarkably wide by the third resonant frequency, ob-
tained by patterning the ground plane. Results in Fig. 2(c) imply
that as far as the size of the ground plane is maintained, the third
resonant frequency can be varied by , while the other two res-
onant frequencies remain intact. On the other hand, the results
of parametric study for and , although not shown here,
suggest that the two parameters have little effect on the antenna
including its matching performance.
These results indicate that each radiating element has little
effect on the performance of other radiators. Therefore, the three
928 IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL. 9, 2010

resonant frequencies can be controlled nearly independently by

, and . Only the length and the width of shorting stubs
and the radii of the via-holes need to be optimized for impedance
matching.

IV. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS

For experimental verification, the three antennas in Fig. 1
are designed and fabricated in an FR-4 substrate. First, the
conventional PIFA is designed to have a 150-MHz 10-dB return
loss bandwidth at 2.26 GHz. Detailed dimensions are given in
Fig. 1(a). Then, with mm and mm,
a dual-resonant PIFA in Fig. 1(b) is designed with an addi-
tional resonant frequency at 2.19 GHz. However, the resonant
frequency of the primary element remains nearly the same, at
2.27 GHz. The two resonances increase the absolute 10-dB
return loss bandwidth from 150 to 210 MHz, from 2.15 to
2.36 GHz. Finally, mm, mm, and
mm in the ground plane lead to a triple-resonant
PIFA, with the third resonance at 2.51 GHz. However, the
other two resonant frequencies remain intact. With a patterned
ground plane, the triple-resonant PIFA has a 10-dB return loss
bandwidth from 2.13 to 2.56 GHz. In terms of the absolute
bandwidth, this is 2.8 times larger than that of the 150-MHz
bandwidth of the conventional PIFA. Detailed dimensions are
given in Fig. 1 for all three antennas. The fabricated antennas
are measured with an Agilent E8364 vector network analyzer.
Then, the radiation patterns are measured in an anechoic ta-
pered chamber.
Fig. 3 shows the measured of all PIFAs. Also shown are
the full-wave simulation results from HFSS that are in great
agreement. For the dual-resonance PIFA, the second radiating
element provides an additional resonance at 2.20 GHz, while the Fig. 3. (a) Simulated and (b) measured reflection for conventional and pro-
posed PIFA.
resonant frequency of the primary radiator is increased slightly
from 2.25 GHz with the conventional to 2.30 GHz with the
dual-resonant PIFA. For the triple-resonance PIFA, the pattern TABLE I
MEASURED AND CALCULATED CHARACTERISTICS OF CONVENTIONAL
in the ground plane provides a third resonance at 2.52 GHz, AND PROPOSED PIFAS
while the two previous resonances remain at 2.18 and 2.28 GHz,
which are nearly the same as the resonant frequencies of the
dual-resonance PIFA. The measured absolute 10-dB return loss
bandwidth increases from 160 MHz for the conventional PIFA
to almost three times larger, 460 MHz, for the triple-resonance
PIFA. These correspond to 7.0% and 19.6% relative bandwidths
for the conventional and the triple-resonance PIFAs, respec-
tively. The measured and calculated resonant frequencies and
the relative and absolute bandwidths of the three antennas are
summarized and compared in Table I.
Fig. 4 shows the measured normalized radiation patterns of
all PIFAs at the resonant frequencies. Regardless of the resonant
frequency, the two proposed multiresonance PIFAs have radia-
tion patterns that are nearly the same as those of the conven-
tional PIFA, especially in the H-plane ( plane). This includes
the relatively high level of cross polarization of a conventional
PIFA [11], [12]. However, the E-plane ( plane) patterns of the maximum gains of the triple resonance PIFA are 5.3 (2.18 GHz),
proposed triple-resonance PIFA with a modified ground plane 4.9 (2.28 GHz), and 2.9 dBi (2.52 GHz) at resonances. The fab-
have an increased number of nulls than others. This is mostly ricated antennas are shown in Fig. 5.
due to the radiation patterns of a PIFA with a truncated ground
plane that is influenced strongly by the size of its ground plane V. CONCLUSION
[1]. The measured gain of the conventional PIFA is 3.3 dBi at A multiresonant technique for bandwidth enhancement of
2.25 GHz. The maximum gains of the dual-resonance PIFA are popular PIFAs is demonstrated. With an additional radiating
3.5 (2.2 GHz) and 2.7 dBi (2.3 GHz) at resonances. Finally, the element and a partially patterned ground plane, a triple-resonant
OH et al.: MULTI-RADIATING-ELEMENT PIFA 929

Fig. 5. Fabricated antennas.

PIFA is developed. By optimally locating the three resonant

frequencies, the bandwidth of a PIFA is improved substantially.
Moreover, the proposed PIFA has a unique characteristic that
the addition of a radiator has little effect on the overall per-
formance of the antenna except that an additional resonance
is achieved. Since each radiating element can be designed
independently, the bandwidth can be improved in a remarkably
simple manner. While maintaining the far-field radiation pat-
terns, as much as 12.6% increase in the relative bandwidth over
the 7.0% bandwidth of a conventional PIFA is demonstrated.

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