An Integrated Tri-Band Antenna System With Large Frequency Ratio for WLAN and WiGig Applications

Abstract

Integrated antenna systems that support multiple wireless standards (microwave and millimeter-wave bands) have become a pivotal issue in future wireless networks. The joint implementation of these frequency bands that can provide long-range and short-range radio accesses within a wireless system is desired. However, due to the large frequency difference between different bands, it is hard to realize with limited space. To solve this problem, a novel topology of combining a stacked patch antenna at 2.4/5 GHz bands and a magnetic-electric (ME) dipole antenna at 60-GHz with shared-aperture is developed in this article. Based on the methodology of aperture reuse, a highly-integrated tri-band antenna system with a large frequency ratio and good isolation is reasonably designed, featuring the same linear polarization and broadside radiation patterns. For experimental demonstration, an elaborate prototype is fabricated and tested. The measured -10-dB impedance bandwidths among the three bands can satisfy the criterions of the IEEE 802.11 b/a/ad for wireless local area networks (WLANs, 2.4-2.485 GHz and 5.15-5.85 GHz) and wireless gigabit (WiGig, 57-64 GHz) operations.