volume | PIER Journals

Abstract

varactor tuned printed planar inverted F antennas (PIFA) are investigated. The lowprofile printed antennas are fabricated together with the layouts of its DC control circuits and other RF/base-band circuit footprints. A surface mounted (SMT) varactor is applied as a frequency-tuning element at the middle of the long radiating arm in PIFA. Passive lumped DC bias circuits are implemented with good isolation. Both single and dual-band varactor tuned PIFA antennas are investigated. For a single-band PIFA, prototype designs show the in-band frequency (return loss is <10 dB) is tunable from 1.6 GHz to 2.3 GHz when the bias voltage varies from 0 V to 9.5 V. Measured results show about 70~75% efficiency and 2~3 dB maximum gain. For a dual band PIFA with two varactor loadings, both the 800~900 MHz and 1.7~2.2 GHz bands are tuned individually by a varactor. By varying low-band capacitance, the operation frequency is tuned from 780 MHz to 1020 MHz, with little change on the higher frequency band. By varying high-band capacitance, the operation frequency is tuned from 1700 MHz to 2140 MHz, with little change on the lower frequency. Measurement shows antenna radiation efficiencies within operation bands are about 55% at the low band and about 45% at the high band. The proposed frequency reconfigurable antennas could be useful for personal mobile terminal applications.

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Dr. Jing Liang

Dr. Hung Yu Yang