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Design of Planar Inverted F Antenna for LTE Mobile Phone Application

Conference Paper · April 2014

DOI: 10.1109/TENCONSpring.2014.6862990

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 2014 IEEE Region 10 Symposium
Design of Planar Inverted F Antenna for LTE Mobile
Phone Application
F. N. M. Redzwan, M.T. Ali, M.N. Md. Tan, NF. Miswadi
Antenna Research Group (ARG), Microwave Technology Center (MTC), Faculty of Electrical Engineering (FKE),
Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM), Shah Alam,
Selangor, 40450, Malaysia.
fatimahredzwan@gmail.com, mizi732002@yahoo.com, mnor1408@yahoo.com, farahmiswadi@gmail.com
Abstract—The design of single band Planar Inverted F
Antenna (PIFA) for Long Term Evolution (LTE) mobile
application is presented in this paper. The antenna consists of a
rectangular planar element located above the Flame Retardant
4 (FR4) dielectric substrate. The ground plane is on the bottom
side of the substrate. Total dimension of PIFA is 21.72 mm x
18.5 mm x 4mm and has been optimized to cover the LTE
Band 7 application at 2600 MHz frequency. This antenna is
suitable for mounting on the mobile phone due to its low
profile, small size, and good gain. The proposed antenna is
simulated using CST Microwave Studio 2011 to study its
performance in term of return loss, VSWR and gain.
Keywords— PIFA, FR4 dielectric, LTE, planar element,
return loss, VSWR.
I. INTRODUCTION
In recent years, the current needed on mobile phone have
increased greatly in term of its shape, performances, qualities
and its technology. The new technology in wireless
communication has brought a lot of portable devices in the
future, such as a mobile phone that will posses Long Term
Evolution (LTE) function for the voices and data
transmissions [1].
PIFA is formed from a linear Inverted F antenna (IFA)
where the wire radiator element of IFA is replaced by a plate
to enhance the bandwidth performances. The PIFA have
some unique characteristic that makes it suitable for use in
portable wireless device especially on mobile handsets. It has
several advantages compared than other microstrip antennas.
It has a low profile, small size and can locate in structure
such as at the back cover of the mobile phone [2]. The other
major compensation is it is easy to fabricate, low
manufacturing cost, and simple structure [3]-[4]. It also has
low SAR value where it has a small backward radiation
toward the user’s head [5] and reducing the electromagnetic
wave power absorption and increase the antenna
performance.
But, conventional PIFA has some disadvantages which
are it has narrow bandwidth, cannot support multi
frequencies simultaneously and low antenna efficiency
[6]-[11]. The PIFA consists of three main elements which is
rectangular planar located above a ground plane
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(top radiating patch), a short circuiting wall or plate and a
feeding technique for the planar element.
The feeding mechanism that suitable used in PIFA
design is coaxial probe where the 50 Ω SMA connector is
used and insert on to the top radiating patch. In PIFA
design, the short circuiting plate is used in order to reduce
the height of the antenna. It is also important in order to
connect between the ground plane and top radiating patch.
This paper presents a novel and simple PIFA design for
Long Term Evolution (LTE) mobile phone application. The
PIFA design will exhibit a single band frequency and
resonate at 2.6 GHz and the bandwidth is 120 MHz. All
the proposed idea is tested through simulation on an FR4
microstrip substrate of characteristics: εr = 4, h = 1.6 mm
and tan δ = 0.02. The proposed PIFA design and results will
be discussed in detail in this paper.
This paper is divided into four sections as follows:
Section I discuss the introduction and basic theory of PIFA.
Section II presents the antenna design and structure, section
III presents about the simulation results and section IV will
summarize the conclusion of this paper.
In this paper, the proposed PIFA design consists of five
basic elements which are a metallic ground plane, a
resonating metallic plane, a substrate separating the main
radiation patch and ground plane and the shorting plate
(wall) with height, H. The feeding mechanism used in this
proposed antenna is a probe feed method where the 50 Ω
SMA connector is used to feed the rectangular patch
antenna.
TABLE I. DESIGN PARAMETERS AND SPECIFICATIONS OF
PIFA
Shape Rectangular
Operation frequency LTE 2600 (2500-2690 MHz)
Dielectric constant of FR4 substrate 4
Height of dielectric substrate 1.6 mm
Feeding mechanism
Probe feed (50 Ω SMA
Connector)
VSWR 1.2 : 1
Gain 0 dB – 5 dB
19
 2014 IEEE Region 10 Symposium

Wg
A. Design Procedure
Ground plane
The geometric structure of conventional PIFA is
shown in Fig. 1. Fig. 2 shows the dimension of proposed
PIFA structure with length of ground plane, Lg = 70 mm. Lg
Fig. 3 presents the structure of proposed single band PIFA in
two types of view which is: (a) top view, (b) side view. The
rectangular radiating patch is placed on top of the substrate L1
with separate air gap with height, H. The top radiating
patched is printed on a PEC Copper plate with thickness, Feeding point
0.035mm. The type of substrate used in this proposes
antenna is FR4 with epsilon 4, height, hs =1.6 mm and
dielectric loss tangent, δ = 0.02. The dimension for the H
rectangular top patch is L1 x L2 and the dimension of the
ground plane is Lg x Wg.
The antenna height is packed with an air substrate Lr Ws Lr
Fig. 2. The geometry of proposed single band PIFA structure
(εr = 1.0). The vertical conducting strip made from PEC is
used as the shorting plate and connect between the top
radiating patch and the ground plane. Wg
In this proposed PIFA design, the size of ground plane
has been reduced by 42% from the conventional PIFA as
shown in Fig. 2 below. Conventionally, the conventional Ground plane
PIFA has a ground plane’s length about 100 mm to 120 mm
which is large and infinite ground plane. Currently, it is not Lg Lg
suitable to build the internal antenna with that size, because
L2
it will increase the size of the mobile devices itself.
Therefore, in this proposed PIFA the size of ground plane
L1
has been decreased to 70 mm only in order to make it small L1
and have compact structure.
The main purposes of using the shorting plate are to H
reduce the size of this antenna and also to support the whole Lr W Lr
antenna. The 50Ω coaxial connector is fed at the top
rectangular patch. The position of feeding point and shorting (a) (b)
plates is varied to get the optimum results. Fig. 3. The geometry of proposed PIFA structure (a) top view (b) side
Wg view

The resonant frequency of the proposed PIFA can be

determined based on the equation (1). The resonant
frequency, f is inversely proportional to the total dimension
Ground plane of patch (L1 x L2). The operating antenna frequency can be
calculated from the length of the antenna patch as shown in
equation (2) and (3) below:
Lg
L2
= ( )
(1)

L1 
Feeding point
 1 ≈ = . √

 
H 2= 
( )
 Where,
Ws = wavelength inside the substrate
L1 = length of the radiating patch
Fig. 1. The geometry of conventional PIFA structure
L2 = width of the radiating patch
c = speed of light (3 x 108 m/s)
εr = dielectric constant

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 2014 IEEE Region 10 Symposium

B. PIFA Design Calculation

The following formulas were used in order to
determine the total dimensions of the top radiating patch of
this proposed PIFA. The length, L1 and width, L2 of the
patch can be calculated as (4). The total length had been
optimized in the simulation results to achieve the desired
frequency.
= (4)
( )

Where,
(L1 +L2) = y y = total length of the patch
f = 2.6 GHz (operating frequency)
Fig. 4. Return Loss (dB) of the proposed PIFA at resonant frequency, 2.6
The equations in (1) illustrate that the total of the width GHz
and length of the top radiation patch should be quarter-
wavelength (λ/4) [3]. 3.00

2.75
II. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
2.50

This section explains all the simulation results for single 2.25
band PIFA design for LTE Band 7 (2500 – 2690 MHz) with

VSWR
resonant frequency of 2.6 GHz. The bandwidth of this 2.00

proposed PIFA is about 120 MHz. 1.75

1.50
This proposed PIFA is good enough to be used for
1.25
mobile phone application due to the value of its return loss
S11, which has reached a target on -10 dB at the required 1.00
2.0 2.2 2.4 2.6 2.8 3.0

LTE. Frequency (GHz)

The presented PIFA design was simulated using CST

Microwave Studio 2011 and all the PIFA parameters is Fig. 5. Result of VSWR of the proposed PIFA at resonant frequency,
shown in Table 2. The top rectangular patch, shorting plate 2.6 GHz
and ground plate are made from PEC (Perfect Electric
Conductor).
Air is used as the dielectric material that filled the gap
between the top radiating patch and the ground plane. Using
air as the dielectric material between top patch and ground
plane could give an effect on antenna’s gain and bandwidth
[12].
In order to increase bandwidth, the height of the top
patch chosen, H is 4 mm. It is because, based on the theory
of the PIFA, the bandwidth of the PIFA antenna is correlated
to its height, H, of the shorting plate from the ground plane.
The greater the value of height, H , the impedance bandwidth Fig. 6. Radiation pattern of proposed PIFA in 3D
will become larger [13].
0
10
TABLE II. DIMENSION OF PIFA DESIGN 30 330
5

Parameters Values (mm) 0

L1 21.72 60 -5 300

L2 18.5 -10

Lg 70 -15

Wg 30 90 -20 27
W 18.5 10 5 0 -5 -10 -15 -20
-15
-15 -10 -5 0 5 10

H 4
-10
Ls 5.75
120 -5 240

5
150 210
10
180

Fig. 7. Radiation pattern of proposed PIFA at phi = 90 0

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 2014 IEEE Region 10 Symposium
A. Return Loss
Fig. 3 shows the simulated return loss (dB) of the
proposed PIFA at resonant frequency of 2.6 GHz. The return
loss of the proposed PIFA with coaxial feed is 24.34 dB at
resonant frequency of 2.6 GHz. As can be seen this antenna
can meet a 10 dB bandwidth at the LTE band. The
impedance bandwidth is obtained at the 10 dB return loss
where the lower and upper frequency is 2.54 GHz and
2.66 GHz, respectively. Therefore, the difference between
the upper and lower frequency of this proposed PIFA is
equivalent to the impedance bandwidth which is 0.12 GHz.
Hence, the value of impedance bandwidth with respect to the
resonance frequency, 2.6 GHz is 4.62 %. The return loss
depends on the value of reflection coefficient where it can be
determined based on equation (5). Based from this equation
the value of return loss is expressed in decibels, dB.
RL (dB) = -20 log10 (|Ʈ|) (7)
B. Voltage Standing Wave Ratio (VSWR)
Fig. 4 shows the Voltage Standing Wave Ratio (VSWR)
at the resonance frequency. The equation to determine the
VSWR is shown below, where Ʈ is the value of reflection
coefficient . It can be calculated that the value for VSWR is
1.13 : 1. According to the result of VSWR, it is proved that
the VSWR is below than 2, and then it can be considered that
this proposed PIFA have a good impedance matching and the
mismatch load for this antenna is only 0.04 dB.
VSWR = (1+Ʈ) / (1-Ʈ) (6)
C. Radiation Pattern
Fig. 5 and Fig. 6 represent the simulated radiation pattern
of single band PIFA design in 3D view and polar view (2D)
at the elevation plane, phi = 900. At 2.6 GHz resonance
frequency for LTE application, the proposed antenna
exhibits almost an omnidirectional radiation pattern with a
gain of 4.90 dB. The point of radiation is slightly shifted to
the left direction due to the position of the feeding point
which is not exactly at the center of the top radiating patch. It
can be seen that in Fig. 5 the antenna radiation efficiency is
about -0.14 dBi and it can be said that this antenna has high
efficiency where 96% of the power present at the antenna's
input radiated away.
III. CONCLUSIONS
In this paper, the design of single band PIFA with
rectangular top patch was presented and proposed.The
proposed antenna is used for LTE mobile phone application
at 2.6 GHz. This PIFA could produce higher bandwidth by
using several methods. One of the methods is by increasing
the height, H of the air gap between the ground plane and
top radiating patch. The proposed PIFA produced a good
impedance bandwidth with of 120 MHz with the height, H
is 4 mm and the gain is 4.9 dB. In the future, this single
band PIFA structure will modify to produce the dual-band
and tri- band frequencies by introducing a parasitic element
near the main radiating element.
978-1-4799-2027-3/14/$31.00 ©2014 IEEE
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This work was supported by the Faculty of Electrical
Engineering (Antenna Research Group), Microwave
Technology Center (MTC), UiTM and Ministry of Higher
Education (MOHE), Malaysia.
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