Design of Miniature Antennas for IoT Applications
L. Lizzi and F. Ferrero
University Nice Sophia Antipolis, CNRS
LEAT, UMR 7248
Sophia Antipolis, France
Abstract—This paper discusses the design of miniature
antennas for internet-of-things (IoT) applications. Differently
from other communication systems, IoT devices have almost no
bandwidth requirements, allowing for strong antenna
miniaturization. However, several related aspects must be
carefully considered during the antenna design phase. As a
representative example, numerical and experimental results
concerning the design of a miniature dual-band antenna for IoT
geolocation application are presented.
Keywords—internet-of-things, IoT, miniature antennas, dual-
band antennas, LoRa, GPS.
I. INTRODUCTION
Internet-of-Things (IoT) is going to spread the digital
revolution to our ambient environment. This technology will be
disruptive by changing the way people interact with their
environment, such as at home, at work, in transportation and at
sport, in cities or rural areas, in hospital or at school, etc.
The word IoT identifies everything that is connected to the
internet and that goes beyond classical computers or mobile
phones. A report by Cisco [1] has recently indicated that over 50
billion objects will be connected to the internet by 2020. Such
an unprecedented growth is creating new opportunities for
industries, businesses and people. Cisco itself has invested $100
million in the creation of an Internet of Everything research
center in Toronto, Canada [2]. The French startup Sigfox is
developing a completely new network dedicated to IoT
applications in San Francisco area [3], while the French mobile
operator Bouygues Telecom has recently announced the national
deployment of an IoT network based on LoRa technology, in
close collaboration with Semtech [4].
IoT systems are characterized by the transmission of small
amounts of data and low transmission rate, which drastically
reduce the bandwidth requirements and lead to the development
of ultra-sensitive modulation schemes based on new ultra
narrow band (UNB) or frequency spreading techniques. Usually,
less than 1 MHz bandwidth is enough for most of the
applications. Sub-GHz bands, such as the 868 MHz band in
Europe and the 915 MHz band in the USA, are often preferred
because of their more reliable propagation characteristics.
However, despite these frequency bands are less crowded than
other spectrum portions (e.g., the 2.4 GHz band), interference
issues with other standards can arise.
In this paper, some aspects related to the design of miniature
antennas for IoT applications are discussed. Miniaturization is
in fact a key point in dealing with IoT devices. Differently from
978-1-5090-1801-7/16/$31.00 ©2016 IEEE
P. Monin, C. Danchesi, and S. Boudaud
Abeeway
Sophia Antipolis, France
Fig. 1. Geometry of the dual-band miniature antenna for IoT geolocation
applications.
other applications, the fact of having almost no requirements in
terms of operating bandwidth theoretically allows for strong
antenna miniaturization. However, this implies the arising of
other scientific and technological challenges that must be
carefully considered during the design phase.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows. In Sect. II, a
brief overview of the available IoT standards is proved, while
Sect. III is aimed at discussing the main aspects of IoT antenna
miniaturization. In order to show how the design process is
affected by these aspects, the optimization of a dual-band
miniature antenna for IoT geolocation application is reported in
Sec. IV as a representative example. Finally, some conclusions
are drawn in Sect. V.
II. IOT STANDARDS
A. LoRa Technology
LoRa technology is a Low Power Wide Area Network (LP-
WAN) standard provided by SEMTECH for low-datarate
applications. It has been already chosen by important industrial
actors because it is the unique solution that combines an extreme
sensitivity (-137dBm), an ultra-low power consumption,
bidirectional capability and a high security level (network and
application 128-bit AES encryption key). Moreover, next LoRa
update will also include localization capability based on
triangulation [5].
However, since LoRa uses a derivative of the Chirp Spread
Spectrum modulation (CSS), to achieve the maximal sensitivity,
a time on air larger than 2s is needed to transmit just few Bytes.
If we consider that thousands of connected objects will cohabit
234

(a)
(b)
Fig. 2. Antenna simulated S11 for different (a) L1 and (b) L2 values.
in the same cell, signal collisions will quickly increase,
especially if collided data are just re-transmitted.
In its actual version, LoRa technology uses just a single
antenna on the gateway. However, improvements on this side
have to be expected in the future.
B. 3GPP standardization
3GPP standardization has also started developing specific
features for IoT (LTE enhancements for Machine-Type
Communication) with LTE MTC Cat 0 in release 12 and LTE
MTC Cat M/-1 in release 13. A novel work item dedicated to
narrow band is actually discussed (NB-IoT).
III. MINIATURIZATION ASPECTS
The characteristics of small dimensions and narrow
bandwidth required by IoT devices and applications directly
reflect on the specific properties that antennas must possess,
among which, the most important one is certainly
miniaturization. Designing miniaturized antennas allows for
easier integration within IoT devices, which are usually small
and compact. Miniaturization also increases the antenna quality
235
Fig. 3. Model of the geolocation device used for simulations including the
antenna printed on the PCB, the battery, and the casing.
factor, thus adapting the antenna to the narrow bands needed by
IoT systems and reducing the interference effects.
However, these advantages come at the price of some issues,
which cannot be neglected in designing the antenna. First,
miniaturization is strictly connected to the antenna radiation
efficiency through the well-known lower bound limit on the
antenna quality factor [6]
1 1
= + (1)
( )
where is the wavenumber and the radius of the sphere
enclosing the antenna. According to (1), for IoT applications
where very high quality factor antennas are suitable to cover the
narrow bandwidth requirements, strong antenna miniaturization
could be theoretically obtained without reducing the antenna
efficiency. However, as it has been shown in [7], the decrease of
the antenna efficiency given by the finite metal conductivity of
realistic designs practically limits antenna miniaturization.
Because of the limited energy usually available in IoT devices
as well as to reduce the overall energy consumption of the entire
IoT network, this effect must be carefully taken into account
during the antenna design.
A second issue is the increased sensitivity of miniature
antennas to the environment in which they have to operate. As a
matter of fact, dealing with UNB systems, the frequency shift of
the antenna resonance given by variations of the antenna
surroundings can easily cause the loss of the operating
bandwidth. In order to limit this problem, several
countermeasures can be taken. First, the IoT device components
which are close to the antenna (e.g., circuits, batteries, etc.) must
be taken into account in the optimization of the antenna
structure. Secondly, the use of protecting radomes to isolate the
antenna from the closest environment should be considered.
Finally, more complex solutions aimed at making the antenna
capable of adapting to the environment changes through
autonomous reconfiguration capabilities should be investigated.
IV. DESIGN EXAMPLE : MINIATURE DUAL-BAND ANTENNA FOR
GEOLOCATION APPLICATIONS
A. Antenna Design
As a representative example, the design of a miniature dual-
band antenna to be integrated in a compact geolocation device is
presented. The devices is intended to obtain the geolocation
information through a GPS system and send it by using a LoRa
 Fig. 5. Antenna prototype.

(a)

(a)

(b)
Fig. 4. Behavior of (a) the S11 parameter and (b) the total efficiency of the
antenna when different components constituting the device are considered.

transceiver. Consequently, the antenna is required to

simultaneously cover both the GPS band at 1.57 GHz and the
US LoRa band at 915 MHz.
The antenna geometry is shown in Fig. 1. It is based on a
folded Inverted F Antenna (IFA) and it occupies the top section
of a 40x25mm2 PCB, whose main part is dedicated to the
electronic circuitry needed by the device. The circuitry section
also acts as ground plane for the antenna. Given the limited
available space, the IFA length is extended on the back side of
the PCB by using four connecting vias. The overall IFA length
is responsible for the lower antenna resonance used for the LoRa (b)
communication. The resonant frequency can be tuned by Fig. 6. Measured (a) S11 parameter and (b) total efficiency of the realized
varying the final segment of the IFA, namely L1 in Fig. 1. The prototype.
effects of such a variation are shown in Fig. 2(a) where the 1). Fig. 2(b) shows the effects of the higher resonance tuning on
impedance matching for three different L1 values are reported. the antenna S11 parameter. Also in this case, the shift of the
As it can been noticed, as the length of the IFA increases, the higher resonance is completely independent from the lower
lower resonant frequency decreases. The higher resonant resonance.
frequency, which is used to cover the GPS band, is instead stable
whatever the L1 modification. The tuning of the position of the The possibility of independently tuning the two antenna
higher resonant frequency can be obtained by modifying the resonances modifying two different geometrical parameters is
length of the slot formed by the folding of the IFA (L2 in Fig. particularly important in dealing with a UNB antenna. As a
matter of fact, in case of unwanted variations caused by the

236
antenna sensitivity to the environment, this allows the restoring
of the correct resonance positions without the need of a complete
re-optimization of the antenna structure.
As discussed in the previous section, in order avoid the
operating band variation caused by the environment in which the
antenna operates, the different components constituting the final
device has been considered during the design phase. Fig. 3
shows the model of the geolocation device used for the
simulations. It includes the antenna printed on the PCB, the
battery, and the casing. The presence of these components
modifies the antenna performance. In Fig 4, the behavior of both
the antenna S11 parameter and the total efficiency when
different components are considered is reported. It can be
observed that both the battery (BAT) and the casing (CAS) have
the effect of lowering the two resonant frequency compared to
the results for the antenna alone (PCB). This effect has been
considered in optimizing the antenna structure.
B. Experimental Validation
The optimized antenna has been realized for measurement
and testing purposes. A picture of the realized prototype is
shown in Fig. 5. The antenna is clearly visible on the right close
to the section that will be used to connect all the electronic
circuitry. The prototype has been successively measured using a
SATIMO Starlab station. During the measurements, the antenna
was integrated within the final device with both the battery and
the casing.
The measured impedance matching of the prototype is
reported in Fig. 6(a). As it can be observed, the antenna
completely fulfills the project requirements exhibiting good S11
magnitude values (lower than -6dB) at both LoRa and GPS
operating frequencies. As for the total efficiency [Fig. 6(b)], the
measured values are about -6 dB in the LoRa band, while they
increase up to -3 dB at the GPS frequencies. The limited antenna
efficiency can be ascribed to the strong miniaturization imposed
by the limited space available for the antenna in the device. As
a matter of fact the final antenna occupancy is about 13x25 mm2,
corresponding to 0.04Ox0.08O at 915 MHz. However, the
measured efficiency values are acceptable for the application at
237
hand and they could be easily improved by slightly increasing
the size of the device.
The measured data are in agreement with the simulated one,
confirming the effectiveness of the numerical electromagnetic
model composed by the antenna and the main components of the
final device.
V. CONCLUSIONS
In this paper, some aspects related to the miniaturization of
antennas for IoT applications have been discussed. Despite the
narrow operating bandwidths required by IoT systems allows for
strong miniaturization, antennas must be designed carefully
considering the resulting antenna efficiency and sensitivity to
the environment.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank the CREMANT for its
support in measurements.
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