626
14, 2015
Dual-Wideband Complementary Antenna With
a Dual-Layer Cross-ME-Dipole Structure for
2G/3G/LTE/WLAN Applications
Botao Feng, Wenxing An, Sixing Yin, Member, IEEE, Li Deng, and Shufang Li, Senior Member, IEEE
Abstract—A novel dual-wideband complementary patch an-
tenna with a dual-layer cross-magneto-electric (ME)-dipole
structure is proposed for 2G/3G/LTE/WLAN applications. In
order to provide dual-wideband and complementary charac-
teristics, an inverted U-shaped feeding structure is introduced
to feed dual-layer cross-ME-dipole patches. The upper-layer
cross-ME-dipole patches mainly serve the upper frequency band,
while the lower-layer ones chiefly work for the lower frequency
band. In addition, hook-shaped patches are placed on the corner of
upper-layer electric dipoles to broaden the impedance bandwidth
of the upper frequency band. Moreover, a box-shaped reflector is
employed to attain high and stable gain. The prototype antenna
can offer an impedance bandwidth of 51.3% (1.68–2.84 GHz)
with a stable gain of dBi, and an impedance bandwidth
of 11.4% (5.31–5.95 GHz) with a gain of dBi for the
lower and upper bands, respectively. Hence, it can be suitable for
2G/3G/LTE/WLAN base-station communications.
Index Terms—Complementary antenna, cross-magneto-electric
(ME)-dipole, dual-layer structure, dual-wideband antenna.
I. INTRODUCTION
W ITH rapid development of modern wireless communi-
cation systems, multiband and broadband antennas with
higher gain for base-station communication are in urgent need.
Due to their outstanding features such as reduced number of
antenna units with less cost and miniaturized installation area
for the base station, many dual-band antennas with high per-
formances have been proposed in recent years [1]–[4]. How-
ever, these dual-band antennas that comprise only one antenna
element are usually omnidirectional with low gain [1][2]. From
the perspective of system design, unidirectional antennas should
meet the requirements in security and efficiency [3]. In addition,
these antennas often suffer from narrow impedance bandwidth
and cannot cover the frequency bands for 2G/3G/LTE/WLAN
wireless communication systems [4].
In the past few years, a novel type of complementary antenna
named magneto-electric (ME) dipole antenna was developed by
Manuscript received October 28, 2014; accepted November 19, 2014. Date
of publication December 02, 2014; date of current version February 27, 2015.
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China
under Grant No. 61139001.
B. Feng, S. Yin, L. Deng, and S. Li are with the Beijing Key Laboratory of
Network System Architecture and Convergence, Beijing University of Posts and
Telecommunications, Beijing 100876, China (e-mail: fengbotao@bupt.edu.cn).
W. An is with the Department of Electronic Engineering, Tsinghua Univer-
sity, Beijing 100084, China (e-mail: anwenxing@126.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.2014.2375338
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.
IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL.
Luk, et al. [5], [6]. Owing to its excellent electrical character-
istics, such as low cross polarization, low back-lobe radiation,
stable gain across the operating band, as well as nearly identical
E- and H-plane unidirectional radiation patterns, it can poten-
tially satisfy the increasing needs of base stations. In order to
further meet the high demands of 2G/3G/LTE/WLAN commu-
nication networks, dual-wideband ME dipole antennas, which
have both the advantages of a dual-band antenna and an ME
dipole antenna mentioned above, have been studied recently [7].
On the other hand, by using cross-dipole structure, comple-
mentary features and flexible spatial configuration can be obvi-
ously enhanced [3]–[5]. Nevertheless, few works on dual-band
cross-ME-dipole antenna have been found in the area of 2G/3G/
LTE/WLAN base-station communication systems [5]–[7]. In
spite of the many advantages of dual-band cross-ME-dipole an-
tennas mentioned above, structure design inevitably becomes
more challenging. In [3]–[5], cross-dipole antennas have been
proposed for 2G/3G/LTE applications. However, only a single
frequency band is considered, which cannot cover WLAN fre-
quency bands.
In this letter, unlike the previous dual-layer dipole structures
proposed in [6] and [7], based on single-fed cross-ME-dipole
concept [5], a dual-wideband complementary antenna with a
dual-layer cross-ME-dipole structure for base-station commu-
nications is presented. Dual-layer cross-ME-dipole structure is
associated with inverted U-shaped feeding structure to generate
dual-wideband linearly polarized feature, which covers the fre-
quency bands for 2G/3G/LTE/WLAN base-station applications.
Furthermore, in order to broaden impedance bandwidth, hook-
shaped patches are added on the corner of upper-layer elec-
tric dipoles. Moreover, owing to the box-shaped reflector, high
and stable gain can be achieved across the operating frequency
range.
II. ANTENNA GEOMETRY
Basically, the proposed antenna consists of a pair of
dual-layer cross-ME-dipoles, an inverted U-shaped feeding
structure, and a box-shaped reflector. The thickness of the
copper patches is 0.3 mm. As is clearly seen from Fig. 1, the
lower-layer cross-ME-dipole comprises two pairs of symmet-
rical rectangular patches ( ). They are connected to
the ground plane by four identical vertical folded rectangular
patches ( ), which are called shorted walls
and separated by a gap of 10 mm ( ). A pair of the parallel
rectangular electric dipole patches, a pair of the corresponding
FENG et al.: DUAL-WIDEBAND COMPLEMENTARY ANTENNA WITH DUAL-LAYER CROSS-ME-DIPOLE STRUCTURE 627

Fig. 1. Geometry of the proposed antenna. (a) 3-D view. (b) Top view. (c) Side view. (d) Feeding structure.

TABLE I
DIMENSIONS FOR THE PROPOSED ANTENNA

shorted walls, and the ground plane between them consti-

tute a basic ME dipole. A pair of symmetrical ME dipoles
make up a cross-ME-dipole. Excellent complementary elec- Fig. 2. Gains and SWRs of the with different lengths.
trical characteristics can be obtained via mutual coordination
between them. Similarly, the upper-layer and lower-layer
cross-ME-dipole patches are joined through four identical
vertical folded rectangular patches ( ). The
lower-layer cross-ME-dipole together with the upper-layer one
form a dual-layer cross-ME-dipole. They are set in the center
of a box-shaped reflector. Fig. 1(c) and (d) shows the inverted
U-shaped feeding structure that comprises a transmission line
and a coupling strip. The transmission line separates 1 mm
( ) from the nearest vertical shorted-wall patches. To feed
the antenna, it is vertically placed to the ground plane, and
the bottom end is connected to an SMA connector. In fact,
the coupling strip consists of a horizontal rectangular patch Fig. 3. Gains and SWRs of the upper-layer electric dipole with and without
( ) and a vertical rectangular patch ( ). The hor- hooks.
izontal portion couples electrical energy to the antenna, while
the vertical portion works together with the nearest vertical no obvious fluctuations on the gains. However, for the upper fre-
shorted wall patches to compensate the inductance caused by quency band, when is not equal to 42 mm, there are notable
the horizontal portion. Instead of a conventional planar ground fluctuations on standing-wave ratios (SWRs) due to impedance
plane, the box-shaped reflector ( ) is specially mismatching. As a result, the gain drops sharply. In order to
introduced to improve the gain and radiation patterns, as shown cover the 2G/3G/LTE/WLAN frequency bands and keep gain
in Fig. 1(a)–(c). The detailed dimensions for the antenna are stable, 42 mm is preferred for as a compromise. The situa-
summarized in Table I. tion of vertical portion height is similar to .

III. PARAMETRIC STUDY B. Effect of Dual-Layer Cross-ME-Dipole

To obtain wide impedance bandwidth and stable and high
gain, some important parameters are studied by electromagnetic
simulation software IE3D ver. 12.30.
A. Effect of Inverted U-Shaped Feeding Structure
In order to observe the impact of the horizontal portion of
the coupling strip, we first study the length of , keeping its
width constant for good performance. As shown in Fig. 2, for
the lower frequency band, the frequency band moves toward
lower frequency band as the length of increases. There are
To reveal the impact of the dual-layer cross-ME-dipole,
the upper-layer electric dipoles with and without hooks are
investigated. As shown in Fig. 3, for the lower frequency band,
the impedance bandwidth ( ) of the upper-layer
electric dipoles without hooks ranges from 1.84 to 2.81 GHz,
while the one with hooks ranges from 1.61 to 2.82 GHz. Since
the frequency bandwidth for 2G/3G/LTE should range from
1.69 to 2.69 GHz [7], the one without hooks cannot cover
the 2G/3G/LTE frequency bands entirely. Besides, there is no
significant change in gain. For the upper-layer band, as the
628
Fig. 4. Gains and SWRs of the with different heights.
Fig. 5. Input impedance of the with different heights.
frequency increases, SWR of the one without hooks rises
sharply. Correspondingly, its gain drops rapidly. It means the
one without hooks cannot cover the WLAN frequency band at
5.8 GHz. That is to say, hooks are helpful in broadening the
impedance bandwidth, especially in upper frequency band.
In addition, the height of the upper-layer electric dipoles
( ) is important to the antenna performance. As shown in
Figs. 4 and 5, for the lower frequency band, the resonant
frequencies move toward the lower band as increases.
However, when is either too long or too short, there will
be a sharp rise of the SWRs in the middle of the frequency
band due to an abrupt change in input impedance. Correspond-
ingly, the gains declined dramatically. When is 0 mm,
there is only one-layer electric dipole, and the impedance is
mismatching. The situation of upper frequency band is similar
to the lower one. In order to attain wide bandwidth and stable
gain, mm ( ) is chosen ( is the wavelength
of the center frequency of the upper band.). The effect of the
height of the lower-layer electric dipoles ( ) is also similar to
. proposed antenna can generate an enhanced complementary ra-
To depict the working mechanism of the dual-layer electric
dipoles, the average current distributions at 1.8 and 5.8 GHz
are shown in Fig. 6, respectively. The current distribution at
1.8 GHz demonstrates much stronger currents around the lower-
layer electric dipoles than the upper-layer ones. On the contrary,
the current distributions on the upper-layer electric dipoles be-
come much stronger than on the lower-layer ones at 5.8 GHz.
In other words, the lower-layer electric dipoles mainly serve
the lower frequency band while the upper-layer electric dipoles
chiefly work for the upper frequency band. Besides, the cur-
rent intensities around the U-shaped hooks are greater than the
ones in other places, and hence they can increase the impedance
IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL. 14, 2015
Fig. 6. Average current distributions on the electric dipoles at different fre-
quency bands. (a) 1.8 GHz. (b) 5.8 GHz.
Fig. 7. Vector current distributions on the electric dipoles of 5.8 GHz at dif-
ferent times. (a) . (b) . (c) . (d) .
Fig. 8. Effects of the reflectors.
bandwidth nearly without increasing the patch size. Further-
more, the vector current distributions on the antenna at different
times are depicted in Fig. 7, where is the period of oscilla-
tion at 5.8 GHz. It can be seen that electric currents on the an-
tenna surface appear to have periodic oscillation in horizontal
and vertical directions. Taking the upper-layer cross dipole for
example, at and , the currents on the cross-dipole
antennas attain maximum respectively and are in opposite hor-
izontal direction. Similarly, at and , the currents
achieve maximum respectively and are in opposite vertical di-
rection. Hence, the equivalent magnetic and electric currents are
along the opposite direction in a period, which confirms that the
diation pattern [8].
C. Effect of Box-shaped Reflector
Fig. 8 shows that, with a box-shaped reflector, the SWR is
more stable and the gain is much higher than the other. Conse-
quently, the impedance bandwidth is much wider. As shown in
Fig. 9, there is much lower cross polarization with a box-shaped
reflector than the one with a planar reflector at the upper fre-
quency band. Furthermore, the radiation main beam could not
be divided into three parts at the upper frequency band. In short,
the box-shaped reflector is conducive to improving broadside
gain and unidirectionality.
FENG et al.: DUAL-WIDEBAND COMPLEMENTARY ANTENNA WITH DUAL-LAYER CROSS-ME-DIPOLE STRUCTURE
Fig. 9. Effects of the reflectors (radiation patterns at 5.8 GHz). (a) With a box
reflector. (b) With a planar reflector.
Fig. 10. Prototype of the proposed antenna.
Fig. 11. Simulated and measured SWRs and gains.
IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
To verify the proposed design, an antenna prototype was con-
structed, as shown in Fig. 10. Measured results of SWRs, gains,
and radiation patterns were attained by Agilent E5071 C net-
work analyzer and SATIMO antenna measurement system.
Fig. 11 shows that the measured gain is less than the sim-
ulated one within about 1 dBi. This is caused by fabrication
errors. However, the tendencies of the measured and simulated
curves are basically identical. The measured impedance band-
width ranges from 1.68 to 2.84 GHz and 5.31 to 5.95 GHz
( ) for the lower and upper frequency bands, respec-
tively. Both of them cover the 2G/3G/LTE/WLAN frequency
bands used in China. The measured gain varies between 7.2
and 10.2 dBi in the lower band, and between 7.1 and 9.3 dBi
in the upper band, respectively. Hence, the gains are relatively
stable and high enough for base-station communications.
Fig. 12 shows the simulated and measured radiation patterns
at different frequencies. The antenna displays good unidirec-
tional radiation patterns. Over the operating frequency range,
nearly symmetric radiation patterns in the E- and H-planes
are achieved. Besides, the measured cross-polarization levels
in E- and H-planes are generally below 20 dB, while the
629
Fig. 12. Simulated and measured radiation patterns at 1.8, 2.6, and 5.8 GHz.
(a) 1.8 GHz (Simulated). (b) 2.6 GHz (Simulated). (c) 5.8 GHz (Simulated).
(d) 1.8 GHz (Measured). (e) 2.6 GHz (Measured). (f) 5.8 GHz (Measured).
front-to-back ratios are larger than 18 dB. Since the simulated
cross-polarization levels of some frequencies are lower than
40 dB, they cannot be shown in some graphs.
V. CONCLUSION
A novel dual-wideband complementary unidirectional
antenna with a dual-layer cross-ME-dipole structure for
base-station communications is proposed. According to mea-
sured results, wide impedance bandwidth and stable and high
gain can be achieved. Other electric characteristics, such as
low cross polarization, high front-to-back ratio, and nearly
symmetrical E- and H-plane patterns are also obtained. With
these features, the proposed antenna is a promising candidate
for 2G/3G/LTE/WLAN base-station communications.
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