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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 63, NO. 1, JANUARY 2015
I. INTRODUCTION
N recent years, smartphones have entered into a rapid development period and have gradually become the main communication tools [1]. Furthermore, a smartphone with an unbroken metal rim has become an obvious trend. The metal rim
can not only provide sufficient mechanical strength to extend
the service life of the smartphone, but also can possess a wonderful appearance, which is very desirable for consumers.
Manuscript received April 27, 2014; revised October 14, 2014; accepted
November 03, 2014. Date of publication November 07, 2014; date of current version December 31, 2014. This work was supported in part by the
National Higher-education Institution General Research Development Project
(2013ZX03001024), in part by the National Science and Technology Specific
Projects of China (ZYGX2013J013), in part by the National Science Fund
of China (61471098), and in part by the China Scholarship Fund and OATF,
UESTC.
Y.-L. Ban, Y.-F. Qiang, and K. Kang are with the Institute of Electromagnetics and School of Electronic Engineering, University of Electronic
Science and Technology of China (UESTC), Chengdu 611731, China (e-mail:
byl@uestc.edu.cn).
Z. Chen is with the National Key Lab of Science and Technology on Communication, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (UESTC),
Chengdu 611731, China.
J.-H. Guo is with Department of Biomedical Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, 70 Nanyang Drive, Singapore 63745.
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2014.2368573
0018-926X 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.
BAN et al.: DUAL-LOOP ANTENNA DESIGN FOR HEPTA-BAND WWAN/LTE METAL-RIMMED SMARTPHONE APPLICATIONS
49
Fig. 1. Proposed antenna configuration: (a) Geometry of the metal-rimmed antenna for hepta-band operations in smartphone applications. (b) Detailed dimensions of the proposed antenna (Unit: mm).
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 63, NO. 1, JANUARY 2015
Fig. 3. (a) Simplified equivalent circuits of the proposed antenna. (b) Simulated
input resistance of the proposed antenna and the case with Ref-1 (Loop 1 only),
and the case with Ref-2 (Loop 2 only).
Fig. 2. (a) Simulated input reactance and (b) simulated S parameters, respectively, of the proposed antenna, the case with Loop 1 only (Ref-1) and the case
with Loop 2 only (Ref-2).
and
(2)
The input impedance of the proposed antenna is marked as
Hence, the input impedance of
can be written as
and
, respectively, where represents the
-th order modes. Seen from the Fig. 2, the proposed dual-loop
has five resonant modes (
or
).
Fig. 2(b) shows the corresponding simulated S parameters of
the Fig. 2(a). The multiresonant character for both Ref-1 and
Ref-2 can be easily seen from Fig. 2(b). The bandwidth of each
resonant mode of Ref-1 and -2 is not wide enough to cover the
whole operating frequency. However, by combining the multiresonant modes provided by the Ref-1 and Ref-2, the proposed
antenna can provide two wide operating bands of 824960 MHz
and 17102690 MHz, respectively.
In addition, seen from Fig. 2(a), two modes of
are not appeared in the proposed antenna
while the other modes are still remaining. This is explained
as follows. Fig. 3(a) shows a simplified equivalent circuit of
the proposed antenna which is formed by the Ref-1 and Ref-2
antenna in parallel. The radiation impedance of Ref-1 (Loop1
only) and Ref-2 (Loop2 only) are marked, respectively, as
and
simultaneously, then according
Lastly, if
to (4), the reactance of input impedance is
(1)
(7)
(3)
where
and
are the input resistance and input reactance
of the proposed antenna respectively. Combining (1), (2) with
(3), the input reactant
can be written as
(4)
If
If
BAN et al.: DUAL-LOOP ANTENNA DESIGN FOR HEPTA-BAND WWAN/LTE METAL-RIMMED SMARTPHONE APPLICATIONS
51
size of the no-ground portions are also analyzed, where the simulated results are included in Fig. 5(a) and (b). Fig. 5(a) shows
the influence on the antenna performance when varying the
width
of the top no-ground portion. Large effects on the
impedance matching of the frequencies over the lowerband
are seen when the length
varied from 5 to 15 mm For
mm, the impedance matching over the lower-band is
not good. As increasing the width
, the improved impedance
matching of the lower-band is obtained. In this study, the width
of the top no-ground portion is chosen as 10 mm for
good impedance matching and minimizing the size of the top
no-ground portion. Seen from Fig. 5(b), the width
of the
bottom no-ground portion affects the impedance matching over
the lower-band and upper-band. The impedance matching is
very poor if without the bottom no-ground portion. Taking into
account both bandwidth and miniaturization of the proposed
antenna, The width
of 5 mm is a suitable choice for the
bottom no-ground portion.
Effects of the positions of the feeding point and grounded
point are also analyzed in Figs. 6 and 7, respectively. With the
increase of the length
between the feeding point and the
bottom edge of the system circuit board, the length of Loop 1
will reduce while the length of Loop 2
will
increase. Therefore, seen from the Fig. 6, the corresponding
resonant frequencies of
and
are shifted to
higher frequencies and the corresponding resonant frequencies of
, and
are shifted to lower
frequencies.
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 63, NO. 1, JANUARY 2015
Fig. 7. Simulated input impedance for the proposed antenna as a function of the
length Lg between the ground point and the bottom edge of the system circuit
board (other dimensions are the same as given in Fig. 1).
Fig. 6. Simulated input impedance for the proposed antenna as a function of the
length Lf between the feeding point and the bottom edge of the system circuit
board (other dimensions are the same as given in Fig. 1).
Furthermore, for the lower-band, the variations of the resonant frequencies are very small while the variations of the
BAN et al.: DUAL-LOOP ANTENNA DESIGN FOR HEPTA-BAND WWAN/LTE METAL-RIMMED SMARTPHONE APPLICATIONS
53
Fig. 10. Simulated and measured S parameters against frequency for the proposed unbroken metal rim antenna.
2520 MHz, respectively, which are similar to those of many reported LTE/WWAN antennas [21][23]. Dipole-like radiation
patterns at 860 MHz and 925 MHz are seen in Fig. 11(a) and (b),
and omnidirectional radiation in the azimuthal plane (xy-plane)
is observed. The high-order resonant frequencies at 1830 MHz,
2100 MHz, and 2520 MHz are also plotted in Fig. 11(c), (d), and
(e) from which the complementary
and
radiation in the
xy-plane are seen. Hence, the patterns of the proposed antenna at
upper-band are still suitable for the practical communication environments. This is mainly because the transmitting wave transmitted from a base station will have comparable levels for the
two components of
and
after reflection, scattering and
diffraction. For example, in the case of the xy-plane pattern at
2100 MHz in Fig. 11(c), at
, 180 , the
components
are both nulls but the
components are not nulls, which can
ensure a smartphone can receive at least one component of
or
to guarantee the quality of the communication. Therefore, these complementary patterns of the proposed antenna in
smartphone can provide the robustness for the practical communication environments.
In addition, dipole-like radiation patterns in Fig. 11(a) and
(b) can be explained as follows. Fig. 12 shows the evolution
from the traditional folded dipole to our proposed antenna.
Fig. 12(a) shows a traditional folded dipole (
mode). In
Fig. 12(b), the traditional folded dipole is divided into two
portions, where the top portion (solid line) is provided by
the antenna element and the bottom portion (dotted line) is
simplified from the system ground. It means that the antenna
element plus the system ground behave as a
dipole
(the antenna element is one part of
folded monopole and
the PCB is the other part of
folded monopole). Hence,
the antenna element in Fig. 12(b) is called folded monopole
antenna. Fig. 12(c) is just a simple deformation from Fig. 12(b).
Fig. 12(d) is achieved from Fig. 12(c) by turning the bottom
(dotted line) to the top-side. In Fig. 12(d), the outer portion
(solid line) is provided by the metal rim and the inner portion
is still simplified from the system ground. Finally, comparing
Fig. 12(d) with Fig. 4(a), the similar current distributions along
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 63, NO. 1, JANUARY 2015
Fig. 11. Measured 2-D radiation patterns at (a) 860 MHz, (b) 925 MHz, (c) 1830 MHz, (d) 2100 MHz, and (e) 2520 MHz for the proposed antenna (red line is
, blue line is
, Unit: dBi).
Fig. 12. Evolution of our proposed antenna. (a) Traditional folded dipole.
folded monopole
(b) Folded monopole (the antenna element is one part of
folded monopole). (c) Deformed
and the system ground is the other part of
folded monopole. (d) Simplification from our proposed antenna (the solid line
is provided by the antenna element and the dotted line is simplified from the
system ground. Both the solid dots and hollow dots denote the current nulls
where the current direction will change to the opposite direction).
the outer metal rim and inner system ground are obtained.
Hence, the entire evolution from the traditional folded dipole to
our proposed antenna is shown in Fig. 12 which has explained
the dipole-like radiation patterns at lower frequency bands.
In addition, seen from Fig. 12(d), the current distribution
along the outer portion (solid line) is opposite to the current
distribution along the inner portion. The proposed antenna
can still radiate effectively, which is due to that our proposed
antenna behaves as an asymmetric dipole causing the current
distribution
.
The measured total efficiency and antenna gain of the fabricated antenna are presented in Fig. 13. For the lower-band
of GSM850/900 (824960 MHz), the antenna gain varies
from about 1.2 to 2.0 dBi and the total efficiency is about
6279%, which are acceptable for practical application. For the
desired upper bands of DCS/PCS/UMTS2100/LTE2300/2500
(17102690 MHz), the obtained antenna gain is 1.03.9 dBi
The antenna performance will be affected if some components closed to the proposed antenna. Hence, it is necessary
to study the impacts of mounting the display upon the system
ground and having some components (such as speaker and
USB) in the no-ground portions.
Fig. 14 shows the configuration of the proposed antenna with
a display and two other components. The display with size 113
68 2 mm is directly mounted upon the system ground. The
volumes of the speaker and USB are 8 18 3 mm and 6 8
3 mm , respectively. All these components are assumed to be
perfect electric conductor (PEC) for the simulation.
The simulated S parameter and total efficiency are shown
in Fig. 15(a) and (b). Seen from Fig. 15(a), the primary effect
of these components is deterioration in the impedance bandwidth of the original antenna, especially at lower frequencies.
However, it still can provide sufficiently bandwidth to cover
GSM850/900 operations. To further investigate the effect on antenna performance when adding some components, the simulated total efficiency is shown in Fig. 15(b). The total efficiency
is defined as the ratio of radiated-to-stimulated power of the antenna. For the lower-band [see Fig. 15(b)], the simulated efficiency dropped by 2.5% on the average. For the upper-band,
the difference between these two simulated efficiency is about
5.3% on the average.
C. Effect of Hand
The effects of the user's hand on the performance of proposed
antenna have also been studied. Fig. 16 shows the human hand
model directly gripping the handset at different position: at the
top of the handset (Top position), in the middle of the handset
BAN et al.: DUAL-LOOP ANTENNA DESIGN FOR HEPTA-BAND WWAN/LTE METAL-RIMMED SMARTPHONE APPLICATIONS
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Fig. 13. Measured antenna gain and total efficiency (mismatching loss
included) across the operating bands for the proposed antenna.
Fig. 14. Configuration of the proposed antenna with a display and two other
components (a speaker and a USB).
(Middle position), and at the bottom of the handset (Bottom position). The relative permittivity and conductivity of the human
hand model [28] is depended on the frequency. Hence, the relative permittivity and conductivity in the simulations are set as
dispersive parameters whose values are obtained from [28].
The simulated S parameters and total efficiencies for these
configurations are shown in Fig. 17(a) and (b), respectively.
Seen from Fig. 17(a), it is evident that the matching bandwidths
are widened for different gripping positions. This is mainly
because the hand as a very lossy medium must absorbs a lot
of power and then improves the bandwidth when touching the
metal rim. The absorption losses with different hand-gripping
positions are shown in Fig. 17(b). Compared to the case of the
antenna without the hand, the simulated efficiencies drop from
75% to 23%32% on the average in the lower-band. For the
upper-band, the simulated efficiencies for different gripping
positions are stabilized around 30% on the average.
D. SAR Performance
The SAR simulation model and the simulated SAR values
for 1-g head tissues are shown in Fig. 18 and Table I, which
are provided by CST version 2012. In the simulation, the smartphone handset is placed close to the head phantom ear with a
distance of 1 mm and is inclined to the vertical line shown in
the figure by 60 . The input power for the SAR testing is 24
dBm for 859 and 925 MHz and 21 dBm for 1795, 1920, 2045,
Fig. 15. Simulated results of the antenna with some components. (a) S parameter; (b) total efficiency (mismatching loss included).
Fig. 16. Configuration of hand grip smartphone at different positions (the metal
rim is directly touched by the hand in each simulated mode).
2350 and 2595 MHz and the corresponding simulated 1-g SAR
values and the S parameter all listed in Table I. It can be seen that
the obtained SAR values for the proposed antenna are below the
SAR limit of 1.6 W/kg for 1-g tissue which demonstrates that
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 63, NO. 1, JANUARY 2015
TABLE I
SIMULATED SAR VALUES FOR 1-G HEAD ISSUE
TABLE II
OF ANTENNA DESIGN IN THIS
AND IN RECENT PUBLICATIONS
COMPARISON
PAPER
Fig. 17. Simulated results of hand grip at different positions. (a) S parameters;
(b) total efficiency (mismatching loss included).
Fig. 18. Simulation model of SAR value for the proposed antenna.
BAN et al.: DUAL-LOOP ANTENNA DESIGN FOR HEPTA-BAND WWAN/LTE METAL-RIMMED SMARTPHONE APPLICATIONS
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 63, NO. 1, JANUARY 2015