Dongle Applications Research Articles

A novel compact folded zeroth-order resonant antenna for Internet of Things USB dongle applications

ABSTRACT This article presents a novel compact folded Zeroth-Order Resonant (ZOR) antenna using concept of Composite Right/Left-Handed (CRLH) transmission line operating in the WLAN/ISM bands of 2.4 and 5.2 GHz for Internet of Things (IoT) applications including USB dongle and radio-frequency identification (RFID) systems. It consists of two-unit cells of a CRLH transmission line and operates in a series resonant mode with an overall size of 1.6 mm × 38 mm × 9 mm. The measured results show that fractional bandwidths of 11.34% and 3.9% for S11 < −10 dB, and radiation efficiencies of 64.89% at 2.4 GHz and 78.88% at 5.2 GHz are obtained. A comparison between our proposed work and other existing works shows the achievement of considerable antenna miniaturization using the technique of CLRH transmission line. The measured and simulated results are generally in good consensus. Being novel and compact, the proposed design is a potential candidate for diverse IoT devices including USB dongles and low-profile RFID tags.

A wideband loop‐type ground radiation antenna using ground mode tuning and optimum impedance level

AbstractIn this article, a wideband loop‐type ground radiation antenna is proposed for USB dongle applications. Wide bandwidth has been achieved using the orientation of the antenna embedded in the ground plane along with the impedance level of the feed structure. The ground clearance of the antenna is utilized so that the ground mode is tuned to the mid‐band frequency. The impedance level is controlled by using a series combination of a lumped inductor and a capacitor in the feed loop of the antenna. A good agreement between measured and simulated results has been observed. The measured bandwidth and peak total efficiency of the antenna are 1180 MHz and 88.27%, respectively.

Compact triple-band stacked monopole antenna for USB dongle applications

In this article, a novel compact triple-band stacked monopole antenna for USB dongle applications is proposed. The antenna consists of an e-shaped monopole connected directly to the feedline and a square patch-shaped monopole at another layer connected to feedline by a metallic pin. The e-shaped monopole is used to obtain WLAN band (2.4-2.48 GHz) and WiMAX band (3.4-3.69 GHz). On the other hand, square patch-shaped monopole is introduced to get WLAN bands (5.15-5.35 and 5.725-5.825 GHz) and WiMAX band (5.25-5.85 GHz). The antenna is compact with the dimension of 17 × 13 mm2.

Planar inverted-f antenna for universal serial bus dongle applications

A simple planar inverted-f antenna for universal serial bus dongles covering the frequency from 1.6 GHz to more than 3.6 GHz in a single band is presented in this paper. The height of the planar inverted-f antenna is only 3 mm and the dimensions of the ground plane are set equal to the usual size of a universal serial bus dongle (20 mm ×× 55 mm). For further enhancement in impedance bandwidth, a rectangular strip is etched on the ground plane. The frequency bands covered by this antenna include LTE / AWS / UMTS (1700), DCS (1800), PCS / LTE (1900), IMT / UMTS (2000), AWS / LTE (2100), WLAN / Bluetooth (2450), WiMAX / LTE (2500-2700), and LTE (3500) and can be employed in universal serial bus dongle applications for 3rd generation and 4th generation wireless communication standards. A prototype of the proposed antenna is fabricated to compare the measured results with the simulated ones.

CPW Fed Miniaturized UWB Tri-Notch Antenna with Bandwidth Enhancement

A Coplanar Waveguide (CPW) fed miniaturized ultra-wideband (UWB) tri-notch antenna with bandwidth enhancement is proposed. The antenna is prototyped for ultra-wideband (UWB) communication applications with bandwidth enhancement. By implementing asymmetric structure, the miniaturization in the antenna has been achieved with a very compact size of 22 × 13 × 1.5 mm3 making it suitable for USB dongle applications. The antenna is first simulated with partial rectangular ground plane which shows that operating bandwidth ranges from 3.1 to 10.6 GHz. Then the antenna is measured and simulated by cutting the ground plane with specific geometry which shows that operating bandwidth now ranges from 3.1 to 20 GHz which provides a wide usable fractional bandwidth of more than 150%. The antenna is then modified for tri-notch applications in order to reject worldwide interoperability for microwave access (WiMAX) band (3.3–3.6 GHz) and wireless local area network (WLAN) frequency bands (lower WLAN (5.15–5.325) and upper WLAN (5.725–5.825) GHz). Triple Band rejection capability has been achieved by introducing three complementary split ring resonators (CSRR) in the radiating patch.

Printed Notched Antenna with Long Meandered Line for Eight-Band LTE/GSM/UMTS Wireless USB Dongle Operation

AbstractThis paper presents a planar notched antenna with a long meandered line for wireless USB dongle applications. The printed notched structure is used as additional resonators to generate multiple bands operation for covering GSM1800/1900/UMTS2100/LTE2300/2500 bands. In addition, with the help of the long meandered line via hole to ground, a lower resonant mode is sufficiently generated at around 770 MHz and forms a wider lower operating bandwidth (LTE700/GSM850/900). Briefly printed on a 0.8 mm thick FR4 dielectric substrate of size 20×70 mm² and electrically connected (via hole) to the ground plane of the USB dongle, the proposed antenna can provide a wide operating bandwidth (3:1 VSWR) of larger than 120 % centered at 2,000 MHz, allowing it to cover 698–960 and 1,710–2,690 MHz bands. The proposed antenna also can be attached to laptop computer by the USB interface. Detailed design considerations of the proposed antenna are described, and obtained experimental and simulation results are also presented and discussed in this paper.

Miniaturized triple‐band antennas with high isolation for mimo antenna system applications

ABSTRACTIn this article, a miniaturized multiband antenna for multiple input and multiple output (MIMO) system is proposed. The proposed structure consists of two methods to obtain size reduction with a meandering monopole antenna and a quarter‐wavelength slot antenna. The antenna element is implemented on a FR4 PCB with dimensions of 20.6 × 29.5 × 0.8 mm3 for USB dongle applications. Measurements show that the isolation is below l0 dB and |S11| and |S22| is smaller than −6 dB at 2.5 GHz, 3.5 GHz, and 5.5 GHz. To evaluate the mutual coupling effect of MIMO system, the correlation coefficients are determined by the measured scattering parameters. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 55:2555–2558, 2015

Printed Monopole Diversity Antenna for USB Dongle Applications

A compact printed multiple-input multiple-output antenna is presented for USB dongle application which covers the WLAN (2.4---2.48 GHz), WiMAX (3.4---3.8 GHz), and HiperLAN (4.7---5.83 GHz) bands. The two monopoles are closely spaced on the PCB at distance of about $$ 0.094\,\lambda_{0} $$0.094?0 at lowest resonant frequency. To reduce the mutual coupling between the ports as well as to get the desired operating bands, combination of Ω-shaped neutralization line and L-shaped slots [defected ground structure (DGS)] are used. Due to which aimed frequency bands as well as better than ?14 dB isolation are achieved. The mechanism of neutralization line and DGS are analysed based on the S-parameters and surface current distributions. An equivalent circuit model is also used to understand the mechanism of the neutralization line alone. The envelope correlation coefficient and ratio of mean effective gain are calculated which are found to be well below 0.4 and close to unity, respectively.

Compact dual‐band antenna for 2.4/5.2/5.8 GHz WLAN service for laptop computer applications

ABSTRACTIn this study, a compact dual‐band antenna for wireless universal serial bus dongle applications is proposed. The proposed structure consists of a conventional folded monopole antenna (driven element) and a strip pattern that extends from the ground (GND) plane (shorten parasitic element). The proposed antenna exhibits triple‐resonance (f1, f2, and f3). The first two resonance frequencies (f1 and f2) are generated by adding the shorted parasitic element. The third resonance frequency (f3) is generated by the folded monopole antenna. The first resonance frequency (f1) covers 2.4‐GHz wireless local area network (WLAN) service, whereas the second and third resonance frequencies (f2 and f3) cover 5.2/5.8‐GHz WLAN service. Thus, dual‐band operation for 2.4/5.2/5.8‐GHz WLAN service can be easily performed. The antenna occupies a small area of 7 × 20 mm2. It can be easily connected to the edge of the system GND plane or the supporting metal frame of a laptop computer. Details of the proposed antenna are presented and studied. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 57:2207–2213, 2015

A wideband loop‐type antenna

ABSTRACTA new feed structure with a loop‐type radiator is proposed for achieving a wide bandwidth characteristic. The method for achieving a wide impedance bandwidth characteristic is to control the input impedance of the feed structure using a parallel capacitor and inductor. The size of the ground plane is 50 × 20 mm2, which is usually used as the ground for USB dongle applications. The size of the rectangular ground clearance for the loop‐type antenna is 8 × 4 mm2. The proposed antenna was designed and measured using HFSS and a 3D CTIA OTA chamber. The center frequency is 2.45 GHz and the impedance bandwidth under VSWR = 2:1 is 550 MHz (2.18–2.73 GHz), which is adequate for long term evolution bands (7, 30, 40) and Wi‐Fi applications. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 57:1742–1744, 2015

A ramp type planar monopole antenna for WLAN and WiMAX application

A ramp type meander planar monopole antenna is proposed. The impedance bandwidth for VSWR < 2 is about 1.71 GHz (1.93–3.64 GHz) 61.4% at the center frequency of 2.785 GHz. These characteristics meet the desire WLAN and WiMax standards. The simulated peak gain at 2.4 GHz is 2.43 dB which is 0.33 dB higher than half wave dipole. The antenna has dimension 55 × 15 × 1.5 mm3 which is smaller than earlier proposed meander monopole antenna. The radiation pattern is omnidirectional which is very well suited for WLAN USB dongle application. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 57:1485–1487, 2015

Compact Triple-Band Monopole Antenna for WLAN/WiMAX-Band USB Dongle Applications

A miniaturized triple-band antenna suitable for wireless USB dongle applications is proposed and investigated in this paper. The presented antenna, simply consisting of a circular-arc-shaped stub, an L-shaped stub, a microstrip feed line, and a rectangular ground plane has a compact size of and is capable of generating three separate resonant modes with very good impedance matching. The measurement results show that the antenna has several impedance bandwidths for S11 -10 dB of 260 MHz (2.24 GHz to 2.5 GHz), 320 MHz (3.4 GHz to 3.72 GHz), and 990 MHz (5.1 GHz to 6.09 GHz), which can be applied to both 2.4/5.2/5.8 GHz WLAN bands and 3.5/5.5 GHz WiMAX bands. Moreover, nearly-omni-directional radiation patterns and stable gain across the operating bands can be obtained.

Dual Zeroth-Order Resonant USB Dongle Antennas for 4G MIMO Wireless Communications

A multiband multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) antenna system consisting of two antenna elements has been proposed for 4G USB dongle application. The designed MIMO antenna system with a compact volume of 25 mm × 30 mm × 3.5 mm operates in two zeroth-order resonance (ZOR) modes to cover the LTE band 13 (746–787 MHz), GSM850/900 (824–960 MHz), and LTE band 7 (2500–2690 MHz) simultaneously. A pair of L-shaped parasitic strips and an etching slot on the ground are employed to achieve good isolation between two elements. Measurement results show that proposed MIMO antenna system has total efficiency over 40% across the operation band and isolation less than −8 dB at the lower band and −16 dB at the upper band, respectively.

SAR study of antennas in wireless communication terminals

ABSTRACTA new normalized evaluation method has been proposed to compare specific absorption rates (SARs) of four representative terminal antennas at wireless communication LTE band 7 including loop antenna, monopole antenna, planar inverted‐f antenna (PIFA), and zeroth‐order resonant (ZOR) antenna based on the composite left‐ and right‐hands transmission line. According to analyses of the effects of human tissue on antenna performance, input power is normalized by return loss and radiation efficiency of terminal antennas. Simulation and measurement results show that the normalized SARs of four antennas for 4G USB dongle application are reasonably ranked in order from small to large as PIFA, ZOR antenna, loop antenna, monopole antenna, which means that PIFA has most homogeneous near‐zone power distribution, whereas monopole antenna has the worst one among four antennas. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 56:2361–2365, 2014

Compact multiband antenna with CRLH‐TL ZOR for wireless USB dongle applications

AbstractA compact multiband antenna with composite right‐ and left‐handed transmission line (CRLH‐TL) zeroth‐order resonator for wireless universal serial bus dongle applications is proposed in this article. The proposed antenna occupying a small volume of 12 × 28 × 5.8 mm3 comprises a folded monopole which can generate two resonant modes to cover the GSM850/900 (820–960 MHz) and the LTE2500 operation (2500–2690 MHz) and a CRLH‐TL ZOR structure which is capacitively excited by the folded monopole to generate zeroth‐order resonant mode to cover LTE700 (746–787 MHz). The proposed antenna offers nearly omnidirectional radiation patterns, the measured peak gain are obtained from 0.8 to 3.4 dBi, and measured antenna efficiency varies from about 40–56% in the whole operation band. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 56:1133–1138, 2014

Design of USB dongle antenna for WLAN applications using theory of characteristic modes

A compact universal serial bus (USB) antenna design for wireless USB dongle application is presented. The use of the theory of characteristic modes (CMs) to design such an antenna is novel and leads to a systematic antenna design scheme. The physical insight that the CM offers is of great importance for designing such an antenna. The systematic placing of reactive loads on the antenna body plays a key role in matching the antenna at the desired frequency bands. The proposed antenna's overall size is (48 × 10 mm) and it can serve the WLAN IEEE 802.11 a/b/g/n bands (2.4/5.5 GHz). It could also be used for the Bluetooth and LTE applications.

Dual-Band Compact Planar Antenna for a Low-Cost WLAN USB Dongle

Among the present technologies for WLAN devices, USB dongles still play a noticeable role. One major design challenge regards the antenna, which unavoidably has to comply with a very small volume available and sometimes should also allow multiband operation. In this scope, the present work discusses a dual-band WiFi compact planar IFA-based antenna design for a low-cost USB dongle application. Like most of the related published solutions, the methodology for deriving the present proposition was assisted by the use of an antenna analysis software. A prototype was assembled and tested in order to qualify the radiator design. Practical operation conditions were considered in the tests, such as the influence of the dongle case and the effect of the notebook itself. The results complied with the design constraints, presenting an impedance match quite stable regardless of the stick position alongside a laptop base.

Compact Folded Monopole Antenna Excited by a Conductor-Backed Coplanar Waveguide with Vias

A compact monopole antenna excited by a conductor-backed coplanar waveguide (CBCPW) is developed for wireless USB dongle applications. The proposed antenna has a compact dimension of 14 mm × 47.4 mm × 3.5 mm, which is suitable for a USB dongle housing. A slotted elliptical patch and a CBCPW with vertical vias are employed to achieve a further size reduction and an improved impedance bandwidth. The measurement result demonstrates that the fabricated antenna resonates from 2.25 GHz to 10.9 GHz, which covers all of the important wireless communication bands, including WiBro (2.3 GHz to 2.4 GHz), Bluetooth (2.4 GHz to 2.484 GHz), WiMAX (2.5 GHz to 2.7 GHz and 3.4 GHz to 3.6 GHz), satellite DMB (2.605 GHz to 2.655 GHz), 802.11b/g/a WLAN (2.4 GHz to 2.485 GHz and 5.15 GHz to 5.825 GHz), and ultra-wideband (3.1 GHz to 10.6 GHz) services. The radiation characteristics of the proposed antenna when attached to a laptop are tested to investigate the influence of the keypad and the LCD panel of the laptop.

Novel Surface-Mounted Antenna with a Chip Capacitance Embedded for LTE/WWAN Wireless USB Dongle Applications

In this article, a novel printed antenna is proposed, fabricated, and tested for an ultra-wideband LTE/GSM/UMTS WWAN wireless USB dongle attached to a laptop computer. With a chip capacitance (1.0 pF) embedded to improve the desired impedance matching in the design, a fundamental resonant mode at about 750 MHz is successfully excited to cover LTE700/GSM850/900 operating bands, while the big radiating plate can generate two resonance frequencies to meet the bandwidth of DCS1800/PCS1900/UMTS2100/LTE2300/2500. Owing to its simple structure and configuration, the presented antenna, having an evident compact size of 20 × 19 mm2, can be integrated easily in the USB dongle together with the other functional modules. These measurement results (antenna gain and radiation efficiency are better than 1.3 dBi and 45%, respectively) demonstrate that this antenna achieves a good agreement with those of the simulations as well as good omni-directional characteristics within its operating frequency bands, making it promising for wireless USB dongle mobile communication applications.

Bandwidth enhancement of ground antenna using resonant feeding circuit

A loop-type ground antenna with wide-band operation is proposed for USB dongle applications. The solution for improving the bandwidth is based on a resonant feeding circuit that includes both an inductor and a capacitor. By choosing an appropriate ratio of the inductance to the capacitance, the impedance bandwidth (VSWR < 2) is 21.8% at 2.2 GHz, sufficient bandwidth to cover both the WCDMA and WiMax frequency bands.