Miniaturisation of an electrically small metamaterial inspired antenna using additional conducting layer

Abstract

An electrically small antenna ensures easy integration with devices without compromising the form factor. The performance in terms of bandwidth, gain and so on for these antennas is extremely critical and is governed by fundamental limitations in size, i.e. Chu's limit. This study initially presents an analysis of these limits and corresponding performance parameters. Next, a compact dual-band antenna has been designed using an electric field driven LC (ELC) resonator and a coplanar ground plane which operates at GSM 1800 and Wi-MAX. This proposed antenna has a compact size of $0.31\lambda _0 \times 0.08\lambda _0 \times 0.01\lambda _0$0.31λ 0 ×0.08λ 0 ×0.01λ 0 in the first band which is resonant at 1.89 GHz. Finally, a conducting layer is placed below the ELC resonator and both are connected through a via. This provides stronger capacitive coupling between the radiator and the feeding arm and thus, results in miniaturisation of 76.9% in the area. The new antenna is electrically small and covers various cellular bands such as GSM 900, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and Wi-MAX. Prototypes of both designs have been fabricated and experimentally tested in order to validate the simulation results.